The Cleveland Orchestra has announced the appointments of a new member of the percussion section and an acting principal clarinet. [Read more…]
Israel Philharmonic to join roster of Violins of Hope performances on November 16
Cleveland—September 8, 2014.
The Cleveland Orchestra announced today that the Israel Philharmonic, led by its music director, Zubin Mehta, will perform in Severance Hall on Monday, November 16 at 7:30 pm as part of the Violins of Hope Project. The event, part of an eight-city tour of the United States, will be presented in collaboration with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland. [Read more…]
The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Gil Shaham and Edo de Waart in Bruch and Mahler (August 30)
by Timothy Robson
The final classical music concert by The Cleveland Orchestra for the 2015 Blossom Music Festival season on August 30 was a winner. Veteran Dutch conductor Edo de Waart made his first appearance leading the orchestra since 1991, and violin virtuoso Gil Shaham was a welcome visitor in Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op. 26. Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major occupied the second half of the program. These two landmarks of musical romanticism made for a satisfying — and not too long — late summer Sunday evening. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (August 29)
by Jane Berkner
At the relatively young age of 54, Wynton Marsalis has been a prominent star in the jazz world for many decades now. Many facets of his celebrated talent were showcased on Saturday, August 29, when he brought the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to Blossom both to perform alone, and later to join forces with The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of his Swing Symphony. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Nicholas McGegan & Mark Kosower (August 22)
by Robert Rollin
On Saturday evening August 22, the Blossom Music Festival played host to British early music specialist Nicholas McGegan, returning to conduct the Cleveland Orchestra in an interesting program of Baroque and Classical masterpieces. A 29-year veteran director of the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, conductor for many recordings, and frequent guest conductor, the British-born MeGegan, stocky and diminutive in stature, projected an infectious vitality and enthusiasm that moved the audience to break out in applause after nearly every individual movement on the concert. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra Summers@Severance: music for a late summer evening (August 21)
by Nicholas Jones
The summer spirit prevailed at the last Cleveland Orchestra concert in the popular Friday evening Summers@Severance series. Outside, before and after the concert, a happy crowd enjoyed drinks on the terrace overlooking the lagoon and the art museum. Inside, the concert itself seemed to radiate the crisp, clear, and warm light of these late August Ohio days. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with James Feddeck & Simone Lamsma (August 15)
by Daniel Hathaway
In the company of the superb Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma and an enthusiastic late-summer chorus of crickets, former assistant conductor James Feddeck returned to lead The Cleveland Orchestra on August 15 at Blossom in stellar performances of music by Carl Maria von Weber, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Jan Sibelius. The time-honored combination of overture, concerto, and symphony never seemed quite so right and so fresh as it did on Saturday evening. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: conductor Nicholas McGegan talks about his two concerts this weekend
by Mike Telin
“It’s always a great treat for me to come to Cleveland,” conductor Nicholas McGegan said enthusiastically by telephone from San Francisco. “I love Blossom and Severance Hall, and The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the great orchestras in the world. Plus, I’m conducting repertoire that I love.” On Friday, August 21 at 7:00 pm as part of the Summers@Severance series, McGegan will lead the Orchestra in works by Haydn, Handel, and Schubert. Then on Saturday, August 22 at 8:00 pm at Blossom Music Center, he will return to the podium for a concert featuring music by J.S. Bach, Haydn, J.C. Bach, and Mozart.
One piece is common to both programs: Haydn’s C-Major Cello Concerto, and McGegan looks forward to renewing his friendship with the soloist, TCO principal cello Mark Kosower. “I’ve known him since he was a teenager, so it will all be great fun.”
The Haydn concerto is both old and new: it was presumed lost until the score was discovered by Oldřich Pulkert in the Prague National Museum in 1961. “People knew it existed, because the first couple of bars are in one of Haydn’s own catalogues,” McGegan said, “and that’s all we knew until the 1960s. It’s one of the great musical discoveries of our time, and a masterpiece at that. It’s a wonderful foil for the D-Major concerto. The C- Major is a really outgoing piece, whereas the D-Major is more intimate.” [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra settles in for August Concerts at Severance and Blossom
by Daniel Hathaway
Ten concerts of varied repertoire are in store for Cleveland Orchestra audiences both at Blossom and at Severance Hall during the rest of the summer season, which extends through the weekend of September 5 & 6, thanks to the late date of Labor Day this year.
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski will revisit the site of his American debut in 1958 when he returns to conduct the Orchestra in Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifth symphony on the Summers@Severance series on Friday, August 7 at 7:00 pm. Skrowaczewski knew the composer personally, and led the Paris premiere of the fifth. He talked about his career and his history with The Cleveland Orchestra in an interview last summer.
Pianist Garrick Ohlsson will team up with guest conductor Gustavo Gimeno at Blossom on Saturday, August 8 at 8:00 pm for Beethoven’s noble fifth piano concerto, nicknamed “The Emperor,” prefaced by the Leonore Overture No. 3, the third of Beethoven’s four attempts to write an overture for his only opera, later revised and renamed Fidelio. A third noble work, Antonín Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8, will round out the evening. [Read more…]
Oberlin Cooper Violin Competition: final round with The Cleveland Orchestra (July 31)
by Daniel Hathaway
Because five out of the ten contestants who played the concerto round in last week’s Thomas and Evon Cooper Violin Competition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music had chosen the Tchaikovsky concerto, the odds were that we might have heard two if not three Tchaikovskys on Friday evening in Severance Hall, when the finalists played with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra. Happily for the audience, it turned out that there were three different concertos on the program — Glazunov, Shostakovich and Brahms — and all three performances were superb. [Read more…]