Sergei Babayan, artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music since 1992, is entering into an exclusive recording agreement with Deutsche Grammophon. The initial project will pair Mozart sonatas with solo works from different periods, and future recordings will explore works by J.S. Bach and Rachmaninoff, as well as rarely-heard repertoire and contemporary works. [Read more…]
Oberlin Conservatory’s Brian Alegant named Professor of the Year
Oberlin, OH — The Council for Advancement and Support of Education has named Brian Alegant, Oberlin Conservatory’s longtime Barker Professor of Music Theory, as “U.S. Professor of the Year” for 2015, the first music professor to be so honored since the award was established 35 years ago.
Alegant is one of four faculty members to receive the award in 2015, selected from a field of nearly 400 nominees. In receiving the honor, he joins another Oberlin College faculty member, History Professor Steven Volk, who claimed the award in 2011, making Oberlin one of only a few institutions in the country to boast two national winners.
Alegant received the award at a banquet in Washington, D.C. on November 19. Read the complete story on the Oberlin Conservatory website. (Photo by Tanya Rosen-Jones.)
Review: Cleveland Orchestra with pianists Mitsuko Uchida (April 3) and Yuja Wang (April 11)
by Daniel Hathaway
Mitsuko Uchida is in the course of revisiting selected Mozart concertos after completing a whole cycle of those ravishing pieces with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall from 2002-2007. On Thursday, April 3 she reprised No. 18 in B-flat and No. 19 in F. Between the two, the Orchestra offered Mozart’s early “Symphony” No. 23. The entire concert, including intermission, lasted about 90 minutes.
As Mozart did when he played the solo part, Uchida led the performance from the keyboard, in this case facing upstage at the lidless Steinway. Her graceful, flowing hand gestures served as manual choreography, shaping the music rather than keeping things together — not much of an issue with The Cleveland Orchestra, who are famously alert and responsive to each other.
The soloist’s bio in the program book notes that “Mitsuko Uchida is a performer who brings deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty.” That Apollonian approach to interpretation results in lovely, balanced, fluent and quite flawless performances, as the near-capacity audience who turned out for her latest appearance would surely agree. [Read more…]