by Nicholas Jones
“Who’s Romantic?” may sound like the title of a reality TV show, but it’s actually the tagline for the third concert of ChamberFest’s 2015 season on Sunday, June 21 in the warm acoustics of Case Western Reserve University’s Harkness Chapel. Let’s take the question seriously: who is Romantic? ChamberFest presented Mozart’s E-flat Piano Quartet, K. 493, as its first case study. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
An evening of string quartet music can be a beautiful thing, but with a whole cast of musicians in residence, ChamberFest Cleveland enjoys the luxury of being able to field a variety of different ensembles on a single program. On Thursday, June 25 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, a concert that began with a Haydn quartet took on new sonorities with a Britten piece for oboe and three strings, expanded to include more strings plus harmonium and piano for a Johann Strauss Jr. waltz, then involved two pianists, two percussionists and a stage full of sound-generating devices in George Crumb’s Music for a Summer Evening. It was an amazing program. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
In its first three seasons, ChamberFest Cleveland made itself an indispensable set of summer events that helped satisfy the seemingly insatiable appetite for chamber music in Cleveland. Organized by Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinet Franklin Cohen and Diana Cohen, concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic, this year’s fourth festival has expanded to ten concerts over a two-week period in late June, in six venues, some of them traditional concert halls, others, more unusual sites. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Cellist Clive Greensmith last played in Cleveland in November of 2012. That appearance brought him to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series during the farewell season of the Tokyo Quartet. He will return to town this week to play several works during ChamberFest Cleveland. We interviewed Greensmith in 2012 and caught up again by telephone to ask him about his ChamberFest assignments and his post-Tokyo Quartet activities.
Daniel Hathaway: When we last talked, you were heading off at the end of the Tokyo Quartet’s last season to teach at the Colburn School in Los Angeles. How is everything going for you these days?
Clive Greensmith: Two years on, everything is going wonderfully well. I was very happy with the way we ended as a quartet — we went out on a high. And I’ve just finished two wonderful years at the school now. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Tokyo String Quartet stunned its many fans when it announced its intention to leave the concert circuit in July of 2013, after deciding not to replace retiring violinist Kikuei Ikeda and violist Hazuhide Isomura. The group’s final appearance in Cleveland will take place on October 30 at Plymouth Church on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series, when the Tokyo will play Haydn’s Quartet op. 76, no. 4, Alban Berg’s Quartet op. 3 and Brahms’s Quartet op. 67. British-born cellist Clive Greensmith (left) joined the Tokyo Quartet in 2002 and along with first violinist Martin Beaver made the decision to retire the whole group. We reached Greensmith by phone in New Haven, where the quartet is in residence at Yale, to ask about how a string quartet goes about closing up shop after 44 years.
Daniel Hathaway: Did it come as a surprise to you when Mr. Ikeda and Mr. Isomura decided to retire?
Clive Greensmith: Actually, no. We had been talking about what direction the quartet should go in, and as has been fairly well publicized for a while, Martin and myself thought it would be a good thing to try to find new members. [Read more…]