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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…]

Review: Opera Circle & Cleveland Women’s Orchestra: Barber of Seville at Bohemian National Hall (February 24)

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by Robert Rollin

Thishere past Sunday, Opera Circle in conjunction with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra presented a fine production of Rossini’s Barber of Seville, one of the great comic operas of the Italian repertoire. As with all comic opera, pacing is critical to a successful production, and the Opera Circle Company moved deftly through the four scenes, never bogging down in detail — this despite the extra intermission required by the Bohemian National Hall’s scene-change space limitations. Notwithstanding, the building, with its pre-turn of the century high ceilings, magnificent staircase, and wonderful gallery space, made for a lovely setting. The carefully planned blocking and staging helped the flow, and enhanced the comically-motivated scenario.

Three talented singers led the male dominated cast: baritone John Grey Watson, a Cleveland Institute of Music-trained Northeast Ohio native, was excellent as Figaro. His light baritone range was appropriate to the shrewd, politically savvy barber, who helps thwart the aging Dr. Bartolo’s plans to marry young Rosina, his ward. His experience on an Oberlin-sponsored Italian opera tour no doubt helped his impressive fluidity. He displayed great poise and comfort throughout the opera, from his very opening first-scene aria. The show hinges on his ability to make the canny barber seem real, and he did this with great success. [Read more…]

Preview: Opera Circle ventures into Rossini: Barber of Seville with Cleveland Women’s Orchestra February 22 & 24

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OC-RossiniIn its seventeen seasons, Cleveland’s enterprising Opera Circle has produced many titles by Bellini, Verdi, Donizetti and Mozart, and has taken on a rare work by Szymanowski, but some stones remain unturned. “We’ve never done Rossini and we wanted to do a comedy for a change”, said executive director and soprano Dorota Sobieska. The obvious choice was Barber of Seville, which will open on Friday, February 22 at 7:30 pm at the Bohemian National Hall in Cleveland with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra led by Robert Cronquist. A second performance will be on Sunday the 24th at 3:00.

“We have a very strong cast for the opera”, Sobieska said in a phone conversation. Two of those singers, bass Timothy J. Bruno (Don Basilio, right) and tenor Matthew Miles (Count Almaviva, center), are especially well prepared for Barber, having sung in Opera Western Reserve’s one-night production last November at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown, a performance headlined by Lawrence Brownlee, one of the great bel canto tenors of our time. [Read more…]

Opera Circle: Il trovatore at Bohemian National Hall (February 17)

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by Robert Rollin

OCTrovatoreLast Friday night, February 17, Opera Circle joined forces with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra to present Guiseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore at the Bohemian National Hall. Opera Circle is headed by executive director Dorota Sobieska, one of Northeast Ohio’s most talented sopranos, and music director and chorus master Jacek Sobieski, a former music director of Warsaw’s Polish National Theater. Robert Croquist, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra’s longtime music director, served as conductor. [Read more…]

A Conversation with Composer Margaret Brouwer

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by Daniel Hathaway

Margaret Brouwer’s Path at Sunrise, Masses of Flowers, was premiered by the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra under Robert L. Cronquist on Sunday, April 11 during its 75th anniversary concert at Severance Hall. The piece was made possible by a Commissioning Music USA award from Meet the Composer. Margaret Brouwer retired in 2008 from her position as professor of composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music. We spoke with her by phone at her home in Cleveland.

Daniel Hathaway: I assume you’ve had a bit more time to compose since you retired from teaching.

Margaret Brouwer:  I have! It’s been wonderful and it’s lucky because I’ve had several big commissions and it’s been terrific to be able to just concentrate on that without trying to fit it in amongst many other things”.

DH: You just had a premiere in Dallas in January.

MB: I did — with the Dallas Symphony. It went beautifully. It really did. It was just a terrific experience. Got terrific reviews, and you know, there was actually a lot of press before the concert  and some radio coverage. And you know there’s a new music group there called Voices of Change — they’ve been around for a long time, probably 20, 35 years — they piggybacked on the Dallas Symphony bringing me down there and so the Dallas Symphony played the concert premiere on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and then they scheduled a concert on Sunday where they did several of my chamber pieces.

DH: Fabulous. They should have given you the key to the city for the weekend.

MB: I know! It was terrific and they were wonderful. A lot of people in that group are members of the Dallas Symphony, so it’s a very high-level group, and they gave two wonderful performances of several chamber pieces in addition to the new concerto for viola and orchestra. It was hard to get back and just get to work again.
[Read more…]

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