by Daniel Hathaway
For his next-to-last appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra before taking up his new duties with the Colorado Symphony, associate conductor Brett Mitchell presided over a program of American music on Friday evening at Severance Hall. Two “Third” works were on the program: Aaron Copland’s stirring Third Symphony, and Augusta Read Thomas’s elusive Third Violin Concerto with concertmaster William Preucil as soloist. [Read more…]
Patrons can enjoy summer concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra in University Circle for the fourth season this July and August. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, and guest conductors Susanna Mälkki and Patrick Dupré Quigley will lead Friday evening concerts on July 14 and 28 and August 18 in Severance Hall.
The performances begin at 7:00 pm, but a Happy Hour with special drink prices will begin on the front terrace at 6:00 pm, and beverage service will be offered there following each performance. Tickets are now on sale for the three-concert package, with individual tickets available beginning May 1.
Here are the program details: [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Jet lag, Egypt, the long gestation of a new musical language, and the Sea — these disparate elements all had something to do with inspiring the four wildly different pieces that guest conductor Matthias Pintscher brought to Severance Hall on Thursday evening, February 23. If there were few connections to be made between those works, each of them inspired brilliant, committed performances from The Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, who defected to the United States from his native Poland in 1960 and led the Minnesota Orchestra for 19 years, died on February 21 in Minneapolis.
Invited by George Szell to guest conduct The Cleveland Orchestra in 1958, Skrowaczewski last appeared with the Orchestra at Severance Hall in August, 2015. The New York Times obituary quotes from ClevelandClassical.com’s interview with the conductor in 2014 before he was scheduled to lead a Blossom Festival concert (he cancelled due to illness).
by Neil McCalmont
The sounds of German Romanticism filled Severance Hall on Thursday, February 9, as guest conductor Donald Runnicles led The Cleveland Orchestra in Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in b, “Unfinished,” and Mahler’s epic song-cycle Das Lied von der Erde. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Two rarely-heard works, a duo-piano team making a reappearance after a long hiatus, and a guest conductor who stepped in for an ailing maestro at the last minute to save the scheduled program — all these elements promised more than a little suspense last Thursday evening, February 16 in The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert at Severance Hall. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Being ready to perform on short notice is part of what makes life interesting for both conductors and soloists. On Thursday, February 16 at 7:30 pm, conductor Xian Zhang will make her Cleveland Orchestra debut when she steps in for Semyon Bychkov, who was forced to withdraw from this week’s performances on the advice of his physician.
Xian Zhang serves as Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales — the first female conductor to hold a titled role with a BBC orchestra.
Ms. Zhang has agreed to lead the originally-scheduled program, featuring Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony and Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat major for Two Pianos with soloists Katia Labèque and Marielle Labèque. The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm.
Last week, before he withdrew, we spoke with Semyon Bychkov from New York to learn more about Tchaikovsky’s rarely-performed Manfred Symphony. [Read more…]
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2017 Blossom Music Festival calendar, which features 21 concerts between the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will lead three of the classical programs, including an opera night with soprano Erin Wall. Special tributes will include concerts honoring Carole King and Ella Fitzgerald, a side-by-side with the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra on the occasion of the Kent/Blossom Festival’s 50th anniversary, and a screening of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, shown in HD with the score by John Williams performed live on the last three nights of the season. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung will return to Severance Hall this weekend to sing Gustav Mahler’s symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde with tenor Paul Groves, guest conductor Donald Runnicles, and The Cleveland Orchestra.
DeYoung’s previous appearances with the Orchestra have included Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem under Robert Porco in May 2012, and a concert honoring Pierre Boulez on his 90th birthday in January 2015, when she replaced Anne Schwanewilms in three excerpts from Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Another area appearance was in May 2011, when the Baldwin Wallace Art Song Festival presented DeYoung in a solo recital, the occasion for an extensive interview published on ClevelandClassical.com.
I spoke with Michelle DeYoung by telephone at her home in Evergreen, Colorado to chat about Mahler. I began by asking her about her recent activities. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Some composers’ brains generate so many ideas that their compositions bulge at the seams to contain them. That was the case at Severance Hall on Thursday evening, January 12, when music director Franz Welser-Möst, pianist Yefim Bronfman, and The Cleveland Orchestra presented a new work by Jörg Widmann and an old symphony by Anton Bruckner. Packed with musical content, each piece was enthralling in its own way. [Read more…]