by Mike Telin
Beginning next week, 43 young classical musicians from around the globe will gather on the campus of Kent State University to begin five weeks of intensive chamber music study with members of The Cleveland Orchestra as well as other renowned artists in the field. Alumni of the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, founded in 1968 by George Szell and Louis Lane, have gone on to hold positions in many of the world’s major orchestras and ensembles.
“This summer we have twelve international students, as well as participants from Juilliard, Rice, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin, the University of Akron, Northwestern, and Kent State as well as others,” KBMF Director Ricardo Sepulveda, who was appointed to his position in late March, said during a recent telephone conversation. “It’s exciting, and I look forward to this season. This Festival is close to my heart, and I’m excited and honored to be leading it.” [Read more…]
Pianist Kirill Gerstein was the center of attention at last Friday’s Cleveland Orchestra Fridays@7 performance at Severance Hall — both during and after the concert. The Russian-born pianist, who is equally at home in classical and jazz, brought a new approach to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue that made the piece sound newly-minted, and enchanted the audience at the After Party in the Grand Foyer with jazz-inspired pieces by Ligeti, Earl Wild, and Oscar Levant. 
On Sunday evening, July 17, The Cleveland Orchestra celebrated the centenary of the National Parks Service with an Americana-themed concert titled “An American in Paris” at Blossom Music Center — their own venue located in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The night’s program consisted of works by Ravel, Copland, and Gershwin conducted by Bramwell Tovey, with guest pianist Javier Perianes.
The Cleveland Orchestra unpacked its bags just long enough between its extended European concert tour and its next Miami Residency to play a three-concert set at Severance Hall from November 6 to 8. Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda was at the helm for colorful, virtuosic music by Goffredo Petrassi and Sergei Rachmaninoff, but the centerpiece of Saturday evening’s concert was a breathtaking trip through Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the imperturbable Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos. 
Franz Welser-Möst led the apparently indefatigable musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra in the third of four challenging, all-in-a-row concerts on Friday evening, May 29, major attractions on the agenda for the League of American Orchestras Cleveland meeting. Olivier Messiaen’s dazzling Chronochromie and Antonín Dvořák’s infrequently performed fifth symphony made different but compelling connections to the natural world, while Messiaen’s theologically-infused Hymne opened a portal to the heavenly realms. 
They should do this more often. Making only their second group appearance, the Cleveland Wind Octet — including members of The Cleveland Orchestra and a couple of esteemed local friends — brought the crowd to its feet at Chagrin Falls’ United Methodist Church last Friday. Performances of a classic, an arrangement, and a new piece composed by one of the group’s own were sublime. 