by Daniel Hathaway
French guest conductor Lionel Bringuier and French cellist Gautier Capuçon brought a program of French music both well-known and obscure to Severance Hall last weekend. The ever-adaptable Cleveland Orchestra took on a French accent for the occasion, producing a concert that was elegant and savory, and structured like a classic French menu. I heard the performance on Thursday evening, April 16. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Thursday, April 23 at 7:30 pm at Severance Hall, conductor Susanna Mälkki will be making waves during her Cleveland Orchestra debut with a program that will begin with Jean Sibelius’s tone poem The Oceanides. “It’s not performed very often, which is very surprising, because it is a jewel and personally one of my favorites of Sibelius,” the Finnish conductor said during a recent telephone conversation.
This week’s concerts will also mark pianist Jeremy Denk’s Cleveland Orchestra debut in performances of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3. “Jeremy and I performed this concerto a few months ago in San Francisco,” Mälkki pointed out. “He plays it beautifully, so I’m very happy to be able to do it again with him.” The concert will also include Stravinsky’s complete ballet music to Pétrouchka. “It’s just incredible music and I’m so thrilled to be able to conduct it again.” The program will be repeated on Friday, April 24 in Finney Chapel as part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series, and on Saturday, April 25 at Severance Hall. Both performances will begin at 8:00 pm. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Almost a year to the day since her last appearance at Severance Hall with The Cleveland Orchestra, Mitsuko Uchida returned last weekend to lead and solo in two Mozart piano concertos, revisiting selected works she had performed during her complete Mozart cycle here between 2002 and 2007. As they did last year, a large audience of her Cleveland fans turned out to hear her and to enjoy a Mozart symphony led from the concertmaster’s chair by William Preucil. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“I’m just so happy to be back with this wonderful orchestra,” French conductor Lionel Bringuier said in a telephone conversation immediately after Tuesday morning’s rehearsal with The Cleveland Orchestra. On Thursday, April 16 at 7:30 pm at Severance Hall, Bringuier will lead the Orchestra in a concert featuring works by Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Florent Schmitt. The program will be repeated on Saturday, April 18 at 8:00 pm.
Bringuier is always a joy to talk to, and his enthusiasm for this week’s repertoire came through loud and clear. He said the program is a nice balance between pieces that are almost chamber music on the first half, and large orchestra works on the second half. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Now that the first spring flowers are poking their heads out of the ground, it’s a good time to look ahead to The Cleveland Orchestra’s busy schedule of events for April and May. And who is in a better position to talk about that than Ross Binnie, the orchestra’s chief marketing officer?
“We’ve got a little bit of classical for everybody — that’s my motto for the spring season,” Binnie said during a lively telephone conversation. “If I had to point at a project that I am really looking forward to, I think that the opera, Strauss’s Daphne, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst on May 27 and 30, is going to be really interesting. The director, James Darrah, has a real gift for bringing these works to life.” Although many details are still being worked out, the opera will be costumed and have staged elements. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
If you didn’t catch one of last weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts, you missed an extraordinary experience. Pianist Daniil Trifonov, making his Severance Hall debut on Thursday evening, March 19, was simply breathtaking in Shostakovich’s first concerto — in cahoots with principal trumpet Michael Sachs and guest conductor Jahja Ling. And Ling’s interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s second symphony — the only other work on the program — was as sonorously thrilling as it was expertly paced. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“I’m really excited to be back in Cleveland this weekend. It is an honor, and a very important step in my career to be making my Severance Hall debut with The Cleveland Orchestra,” pianist Daniil Trifonov said during a telephone conversation. “Of course I’ve been to Severance Hall on numerous occasions to hear concerts as a listener, but this is a dream that is finally coming true.”
On Thursday, March 19 at 7:30, Daniil Trifionov will perform Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 for piano, trumpet, and orchestra, featuring TCO’s principal trumpet, Michael Sachs, under the direction of Jahja Ling. The all-Russian program will also include Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2. Additional performances will take place on Saturday at 8:00pm and Sunday afternoon at 3:00.
When we spoke on Wednesday morning, Trifonov had only arrived back in Cleveland the evening before. Earlier in the month, the pianist was recording a new CD to be released later this year. Last Friday, he performed a sold-out recital for Boston’s Celebrity Series. I began our conversation by asking him to say a few words about the Shostakovich concerto. [Read more…]
by Jane Berkner
If the goal of the Cleveland Orchestra’s Fridays @ 7 series is to create more diversity in their audiences, the concert in Severance Hall on Friday, March 13 can be considered a fantastic success. Curated by Jamey Haddad, the pre- and post concerts that sandwich the orchestra’s performance included music from singer, songwriter and accordion player Magda Giannikou, students from Oberlin’s performance and Improvisation Ensembles, and the eclectic jazz and funk band Snarky Puppy. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
A large and conspicuously intergenerational audience — unusually so for a Thursday evening — gathered at Severance Hall for The Cleveland Orchestra concert on March 12. Did they turn out in droves to hear guest conductor Fabio Luisi lead Beethoven’s seventh symphony? Or to hear Jean-Yves Thibaudet play Liszt’s second piano concerto? Maybe both. Whatever drew the crowds in, they experienced a distinguished evening of music. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Cleveland, March 1, 2015 — Under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra will begin its 98th season on September 24 with the first of three of Richard Strauss’s large tone poems, An Alpine Symphony. Also sprach Zarathrustra and Ein Heldenleben will follow later in the year.
Welser-Möst is also scheduled to conduct performances of such larger works as Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and The Miraculous Mandarin, and excerpts from Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and Tristan und Isolde.
Distinguished guest conductors returning to the Severance Hall podium will include music director laureate Christoph von Dohnányi, Herbert Blomstedt, Lionel Bringuier, Alan Gilbert, Jane Glover, Gianandrea Noseda, Vladimir Jurowski and Antonio Pappano. Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Antoni Wit will lead the orchestra for the first time. [Read more…]