by David Kulma
Wind players take every opportunity to play Mozart, and when they are musicians at the highest level, it’s easy to come away smiling. That was the case on the Kent Blossom faculty concert on Wednesday, July 25 in Kent State’s Ludwig Recital Hall, where an array of Mozart’s works for winds made for a splendid evening.
by Daniel Hathaway
At 45 minutes in length, the first of 2018’s three Summers at Severance concerts may have been short, but guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt and The Cleveland Orchestra used their three quarters of an hour onstage to make a powerful experience out of a single work — Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. Conducting without a stick and never cracking open the small score on the podium, Blomstedt sculpted every detail of the piece, melding expressive, colorful lines into a pulsing musical organism. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
With less than two weeks to go before students in the 50th Kent/Blossom Music Festival descend on the Kent State University campus for five weeks of rehearsals, master classes, and coachings, festival director Ricardo Sepulveda is close to solving the annual puzzle of scheduling daily activities for 43 students and 30 faculty members — mostly from The Cleveland Orchestra. “It keeps me up at night,” he said in a recent telephone conversation.
This summer’s students (16 of whom are international, hailing from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Japan, and Colombia) will arrive on July 1 and begin their experience with a dinner for participants, faculty, donors, and host families who will house eight of the students. “Rehearsals, coachings, and lessons start right up the next day,” Sepulveda said.
Recruitment began in mid-winter. “I changed the process a bit, shortening it to end before the first of March. Instead of print, we did online promotion using the Violin Channel and Facebook, which allows us to reach people faster,” he said, noting that the Festival is now old enough that it’s fun to see students of former students applying. Once they settle in at Kent, there are busy days ahead. [Read more…]
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…]
by Daniel Hathaway
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. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Dmitri Shostakovich permeated the first half of The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert at Severance Hall on October 14, which included his reorchestration of the placid prelude to Mussorgsky’s unfinished opera, Khovanshchina, and his dark and nervous Second Violin Concerto. But any residual gloom was dispelled after intermission by scintillating performances of Henri Dutilleux’s Métaboles and Maurice Ravel’s second Daphnis and Chloé suite, each radiant and colorful in its own way. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
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.
by Daniel Hathaway
Antonín Dvořák would surely be pleased to know that British pianist Stephen Hough is a passionate advocate for his not-so-often-played piano concerto. His performance of the work with The Cleveland Orchestra under guest conductor Alan Gilbert last weekend at Severance Hall was masterful. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
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. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
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. [Read more…]