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Cleveland Orchestra with Alain Altinoglu and Alisa Weilerstein at Severance (Feb. 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Orchestra’s program on Thursday at Severance Music Center looked strange on paper, beginning as it did with the Cleveland premiere of an intellectually thorny cello concerto and ending with two of Richard Strauss’s dazzling tone poems played back-to-back.

But Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and Don Juan proved to be effective palate cleansers following Alisa Weilerstein’s commanding performance of Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto. Setting its challenges for the listener aside, you could concede control over the proceedings and let conductor Alain Altinoglu be your tour guide through the mischievous and lascivious exploits of the two bad boys that Strauss immortalized in his virtuosic scores.

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‘Frenzied Tangos’ from Adams, Diehl headline Cleveland Orchestra premieres (Feb. 19)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Just like his music, insistent and perpetually in motion, John Adams has little interest in slowing down. At 79, the celebrated composer and conductor is as busy as ever, and he’s never far from his next premiere.

A Cleveland Orchestra regular, Adams returned to the Mandel Concert Hall podium on Thursday, February 19 for “Frenzied Tango,” a program of firsts that reunited him with pianist Aaron Diehl. The performance revealed plenty of gems, both in his own works and those he chose to precede them.

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Cleveland Orchestra, conductor Dalia Stasevska celebrate music of North America (Nov. 20)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Although written by a European composer, Antonín Dvořák’s beloved “New World” Symphony represents a particularly “American” idea of music to many.

An audience favorite ever since its premiere in New York in 1893, this symphony is often performed together with works by American composers — an approach taken by The Cleveland Orchestra the last time they played it here in 2023.

This time around, the program expanded its scope to encompass the North American continent, pairing the Dvořák with a piece by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. Conductor Dalia Stasevska led a memorable performance of both works on Thursday, Nov. 20 at Severance Music Center.

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Conductor Kazuki Yamada’s stylish Cleveland Orchestra debut features Elgar, Mozart, and pianist Francesco Piemontesi (Apr. 24)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Edward Elgar’s first symphony was a long time coming. But once the British composer finally put pen to paper at age 51, audiences at the time simply couldn’t get enough. But tastes change, and that rapturous response in 1908 couldn’t guarantee eternal success. The piece has now settled into relative obscurity for many American orchestras.

Today, Britain is still the most likely place to hear Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 — so it made sense that The Cleveland Orchestra’s performance on April 24 should be led by the conductor of a British ensemble. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra music director Kazuki Yamada ascended the Severance Music Center podium, making his assured and elegant Cleveland Orchestra debut.

Elgar’s symphony is unconcerned with quaint, pastoral English scenes — instead, it’s often stormy, celebratory, and in-your-face, sometimes all at once. On Thursday, Yamada confirmed his reputation for passion and expressivity as a conductor in his interpretation of the symphony.

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The Cleveland Orchestra serves up another treasure in fan-favorite Rhapsody in Blue (Nov. 29)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s an all-American extravaganza this holiday weekend at Severance Music Center. With Thanksgiving now in the books and December approaching fast, The Cleveland Orchestra has wasted no time gearing up its next few programs, many of them headlined by fan-favorites, to finish the calendar year on a high note.

On Friday, the marquee piece was George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, an orchestral staple — especially in 2024, which marks the work’s 100th anniversary. This isn’t the first time The Cleveland Orchestra has played it this year, as Béla Fleck performed his banjo-and-orchestra transcription at Blossom Music Center in July.

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Generosity and poise at the Rocky River Chamber Music Society (Nov. 6)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Generosity and poise are two qualities a chamber musician would be fortunate to possess. Fortunately for those of us in attendance at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River on Monday, November 6, cellist Keith Robinson and pianist Hyunsoon Whang are endowed amply with both, thus conveying only the pleasure of performance in two difficult cello sonatas — Barber’s early Op. 6 and Prokofiev’s late Op. 116. Whang also lent ease and grace to Brahms’ solo Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2, and clarinetist Daniel McKelway lent luster in the Brahms Trio, Op. 114 on the second half.

Poise was tested early, as no sooner had our musicians sat down to begin when a stentorian “Ah-choo!” boomed out from somewhere in the audience. Startled, Robinson nodded in the sneezer’s direction with a good-natured, “You scared me!” [Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society: a conversation with cellist Keith Robinson

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by Mike Telin

While it is common to discover that a trio of musicians all attended the same conservatory or university, it is not so common to discover that the trio all attended the same high school. “Hyunsoon and I were in high school together at the North Carolina School of the Arts,” cellist Keith Robinson said during a recent phone call. “In fact, Dan went there too.”

On Monday, November 6 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, Robinson will be joined by pianist Hyunsoon Whang and clarinetist Daniel McKelway in a concert that includes Samuel Barber’s Cello Sonata in c, Sergei Prokofiev’s Cello Sonata in C, and Johannes Brahms’ Intermezzo in A, Op. 118, No. 2 as well as his Clarinet Trio. The free concert is part of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society series. Click here for the livestream.

Robinson, who is a founding member of the Miami String Quartet, noted that Monday’s concert will be his debut performance of the Prokofiev Sonata. “Hyunsoon and I have played the Barber and Rachmaninoff sonatas together and we were thinking about doing the same. Then we said, ‘Wait, let’s learn a new piece’ — it just makes it interesting for us.”

The cellist said that he has found the Prokofiev to be “really enchanting,” and that it complements Barber quite well. “They’re pretty close in age — Barber wrote his in 1932 and Prokofiev was in the late ‘40s. The Barber is dark and brooding, and the Prokofiev can be pretty funny at times. You can tell the Barber is heavily influenced by Brahms, and because it’s in the key of c-minor, it is dark.”

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All-Stravinsky in Rocky River: variety and charm (May 15)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Variety and charm abounded in an all-Stravinsky program at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church Monday evening, May 15, presented by the Rocky River Chamber Music Society. How delightful to hear this repertoire — Stravinsky’s droll and cerebral inventions in small combinations — heard almost exclusively on conservatory or college programs these days. Top-flight musicianship on the part of Cleveland Orchestra members and fellow professionals helped make the case. Congratulations to trumpeter Amanda Bekeny and clarinetist Daniel McKelway for putting it all together.

The succinct duos that opened the program, Fanfare for a New Theatre for trumpets and Lied Ohne Name for bassoons, made a nice pairing for their length and affective dissimilarity. Where the trumpets skirmished, the bassoons chatted dispassionately — both in under a minute. Accurate and faithful playing of both works only left us wanting more.

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Rocky River Chamber Music Society goes all-Stravinsky for season closer

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Clarinetist Daniel McKelway and trumpeter Amanda Bekeny are familiar collaborators in a sense. Both are on the board of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society and both are frequent performers on the series — although it has never actually brought them face-to-face, instrument-to-instrument, bell-to-bell, onstage together at the same time for the same piece. Something they decided they ought to change.

To be fair, there isn’t a whole lot of music that could bring them together. But there is a pair of beloved pieces with unusual, colorful instrumentations, both by the same composer. “I don’t know which of us thought of it first, but there was an immediate idea of, ‘Wait a minute — Stravinsky,’” McKelway said during a recent interview.

They were thinking in particular of the Octet, which combines woodwinds and brass, and L’Histoire du Soldat (“Soldier’s Tale”), which brings together woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion — plus narrator, telling the story of a soldier who strikes an ill-advised bargain with the devil.

Those two pieces and those two people — L’Histoire, the Octet, McKelway, and Bekeny — form the nucleus of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s season-ending concert, which will take place on Monday, May 15 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. Attendance is free, and the concert will also be livestreamed. [Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society: Arsentiy Kharitonov, piano (Nov. 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Russian pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov played the second concert in the Rocky River Chamber Music Society Series on Monday evening, November 15, not in the Society’s home venue — West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church — but at Lakewood Congregational Church, due to COVID-19 concerns. I watched the recital, a hybrid event with in-person attendance permitted, via the live stream.

Unlike most concert pianists, who seem to have taken to the keyboard while they were still learning to walk, Kharitonov only began his studies at the age of 16. But he plays with such naturalness and easy virtuosity that you’d never imagine he came late to the party. [Read more…]

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