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Opera Circle Cleveland, Voices of Canton, Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, and Sokol Greater Cleveland present Bartered Bride at Bohemian National Hall (Oct. 25)

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by Daniel Hathaway

BRIDE-LongThere was no need for Opera Circle Cleveland’s collaborative production of The Bartered Bride to try to break down the “fourth wall” between performers and audience at Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall on Sunday afternoon, October 25: the wall never went up in the first place. As the audience arrived, cast members were already milling about in the auditorium and its corridors, brightly attired in Czech folk costumes, and greeting friends and family. Carrying their instrument cases, members of the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra threaded their way through the throng, and the young acrobats who would appear in the third act were enjoying pastries in the snack bar. It felt like a big family reunion. [Read more…]

Opera Circle Cleveland creates partnerships for community collaboration on The Bartered Bride

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by Mike Telin

Dorota-SkoogSometimes one simply must wait for the right time to assemble all of the collaborators necessary in order to bring an opera production to fruition.

For Opera Circle Cleveland, Voices of Canton Incorporated, The Bohemian National Hall, and the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, the time to present a fully staged production of Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride has arrived. On Sunday, October 18 in Canton’s Timken High School Auditorium, and Sunday, October 25 in Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall, audiences can enjoy Smetana’s comic opera about an arranged marriage gone awry.

“For us this project has been nine years in the making,” Opera Circle Cleveland co-founder and executive director Dorota Sobieska said over coffee in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood. “It is a very difficult opera in every respect, and the only way for us to produce it would for it to become a large-scale community collaboration.” [Read more…]

Violins of Hope project creates an unprecedented coalition of Cleveland cultural institutions

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by Daniel Hathaway

WeinsteinWhat may be the largest group of Cleveland cultural institutions ever to circle their wagons around a single project will come into play this fall when Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Cleveland Orchestra, Facing History and Ourselves, Ideastream, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage join together to present Violins of Hope Cleveland.

Four months of concerts, exhibitions, screenings, lectures, theatrical productions, and educational offerings will center around the extraordinary collection of violins amassed by Tel Aviv violinmaker Amnon Weinstein, instruments that managed to survive the Holocaust.

Weinstein, who emigrated from Eastern Europe to open a violin shop in Palestine in 1938, learned after World War II that some four hundred of his family members had perished under the Nazis. Later, he heard a heartfelt account from a survivor who had brought an instrument in for restoration of what the violin and its music had meant to Jews during those horrific days. In 1996 — and now recognized as one of the finest violinmakers in the world — Weinstein decided to put out a call for Holocaust-era violins. To date, he has restored nearly fifty such instruments to playing condition, a collection he dubbed “Violins of Hope.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Women’s Orchestra: a conversation with guest violinist Michael Ferri

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by Daniel Hathaway

FERRI-MichaelThree years after his first solo appearance with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, violinist Michael Ferri will return to Severance Hall to help the ensemble celebrate its 80th birthday with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on Sunday, April 26 at 3:30 pm.

Born in Northern Italy and homeschooled in Cleveland, Ferri has studied with Paul Kantor and Jaime Laredo at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Last fall he began his first year at Rice University in Houston, where he has continued to study with Kantor. We spoke by telephone from his home in Cleveland, where he is taking a year off from his studies. [Read more…]

Opera Circle Cleveland: Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at Westlake Performing Arts Center (February 22)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Bows

Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale centers around the title character’s cynical marriage scheme, designed to disinherit his nephew, Ernesto, who wants to tie the knot with a widow the Don doesn’t like. It doesn’t go well for Don Pasquale, who ends up playing the fool. Although Opera Circle Cleveland’s production on Sunday at the Westlake Schools Performing Arts Center took a while to get funny, strong singing and acting added up to an engaging afternoon of comic opera. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Women’s Orchestra with pianist Gavin George (April 27)

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Photo: Eric George

Photo: Eric George

by Mike Telin

On Sunday afternoon, April 27, a large crowd gathered at Severance Hall to hear a performance by the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra under the direction of the group’s music director and conductor Robert L. Cronquist. But I am sure that, like myself, most audience members were simply not prepared for the remarkable musical event that would take place during the concert’s final work, Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto #1 in G minor, performed by ten-year-old Gavin Michael George. Indeed, musical genius was on display as we sat mesmerized by the young pianist’s stunning performance of Mendelssohn’s vibrant concerto.

[Read more…]

Preview: Pianist Gavin George to be featured young soloist with Cleveland Women’s Orchestra at Severance Hall

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by Daniel Hathaway

GEORGE-GavinIn its 79 years as an organization, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra has invited many young soloists to perform with the ensemble, sometimes giving them their first opportunity to play with an orchestra.

On Sunday, April 27 at 3:30 pm in Severance Hall, the CWO will team up with one of the youngest soloists ever when ten-year-old Gavin M. George of Granville joins Robert L. Cronquist and the ensemble for Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in g — but in this case the young artist is already a veteran concerto player, having performed with orchestras in Ohio, Italy and Israel.

The best introduction to Gavin’s prowess at the keyboard is one of his YouTube videos, especially his performance of the first movement of Mendelssohn No. 1 with Israel’s Ashdod Symphony under Uri Segal. Before you read any further, take ten minutes and have a look.

[Read more…]

Review: Opera Circle — La traviata at Bohemian National Hall (February 28)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Long-ShotFor the second title of its eighteenth season, Opera Circle mounted an impressive production of Verdi’s La traviata in the handsome old-world ballroom of Bohemian National Hall on February 28 and March 2. I saw the opening night performance.

Traviata was staged in collaboration with Robert Cronquist and the semi-professional Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, who occupied a “pit” curtained off in front of the stage.

Opera Circle is a fearless company that operates as an extended family affair with high artistic aspirations. When everything clicks, its productions rise above the sum of their parts. Traviata enjoyed a trouble-free opening night on Friday with an attractive cast of well-matched singers and fine production values. The stage direction was shared between Cronquist and Dorota Sobieska (who is executive director of the company and as its prima donna, also sang the lead role of Violetta). [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Women’s Orchestra with Jinjoo Cho & Cicely Parnas at Severance Hall (April 28)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cho-ParnasConductor Robert L. Cronquist and the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra celebrated the ensemble’s seventy-eighth anniversary at Severance Hall on Sunday, April 28, with a charming Prokofiev symphony and a big double concerto — Brahms’s challenging workout for violin, cello and orchestra — featuring guest artists Jinjoo Cho and Cicely Parnas.

Prokofiev’s seventh symphony was written for a radio program to be broadcast by the Children’s Division of the Russian National Radio network. Its landscape is as child-friendly as an outdoor playground, fitted out with magical textures, wistful waltzes, playful themes and carnival gestures. The orchestra’s strings produced a nice, rich sound at the beginning, accompanied by dark, mysterious horns and graced by splendid clarinet solos (Pamela Elliot). Though the second movement exposed some tentative playing in the brass and percussion, the fine English hornist (Elizabeth Bishop) sensitively delivered lyrical lines in the third and spirited piano and bassoon solos (Linda Allen and Charlotte Hines) helped create a burlesquish atmosphere in the finale. Both conductor and orchestra both seemed to lose some energy as the piece went on and dynamics hovered in mezzo forte range. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Women’s Orchestra brings Jinjoo Cho and Cicely Parnas together for the Brahms “Double”

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cho-ParnasJohannes Brahms wrote his Double Concerto for violinist Joseph Joachim and cellist Robert Haussmann in 1887 with the intention of repairing a damaged friendship with the violinist (the two had fallen out when Brahms had taken Joachim’s wife’s side in a divorce). Joachim and Haussmann had been frequent collaborators during their long careers. By contrast, on Sunday, April 28 at 3:30 pm, the “Double” will bring together two young musicians who already have established distinguished track records but have never worked together before, as violinist Jinjoo Cho and cellist Cicely Parnas join Robert L. Cronquist and the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra for the ensemble’s 78th anniversary concert at Severance Hall. We spoke to both soloists by phone to catch up on their recent activities.

Jinjoo Cho is finishing up her master’s degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studies with Jaime Laredo and plans to stay on next year for a Professional Studies Degree. Her recent big news was winning first place in the Buenos Aires Competition, which earned her a concert tour in Argentina. This summer, she will join her regular pianist HyunSoo Kim for a three-week chamber music residency at the Banff Center in Canada. [Read more…]

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