by Peter Feher
Handel’s Messiah wasn’t the only oratorio you could hear in Northeast Ohio over the Holiday season. The Cleveland Chamber Choir offered a brilliant, bracing alternative with two performances of David Lang’s the little match girl passion, December 20 and 21 at Cleveland School of the Arts.
Friday’s concert saw expert singing in service of sincere emotion, vividly realizing this stark Christmas story adapted from Hans Christian Andersen.
There’s no trace of a happy ending in Andersen’s original 19th-century fairy tale. The titular character in “The Little Match Girl” freezes to death on New Year’s Eve after being kicked out of the house by her father, losing her slippers in the street, and failing to sell any matches to passersby who can’t spare so much as a penny. [Read more…]
The Cleveland Chamber Symphony fused ballet and contemporary music on April 7 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Music director and conductor Steven Smith led the Grammy-winning ensemble through an energetic program with guest dancers from two local companies.
When a festival runs for long enough, it becomes interesting to look back and remember that it wasn’t always a staple of the local culture. At one time, it was entirely new.
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in d (“Choral”) stood alone on the program as a symbol of brotherhood and joy in a concert entitled A Celebration of Community at Severance Hall last Friday evening, March 28. Cleveland Institute of Music president Joel Smirnoff conducted the CIM Orchestra with the combined forces of vocal soloists from CIM and the community, Cleveland School of The Arts instrumentalists (Dianna Richardson, department head and director of the orchestral program) and chorus (William B. Woods, choir director), The Singers’ Club of Cleveland (Dr. Melvin P. Unger, choral director) and members of The Antioch Baptist Church Sanctuary Choir.