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BlueWater Chamber Orchestra celebrates the great outdoors (May 2)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Early May is when things begin again — the ground softens, and routines return.

Under the direction of Daniel Meyer, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s program on Saturday, May 2, “Rustic Reverie,” traced that process in works by Douglas Moore, Joseph Canteloube, and Joseph Haydn.

The concert’s high point was American-Canadian soprano Midori Marsh’s return to Cleveland and Covenant Church. A native of Cleveland Heights who attended the church in her youth, Marsh has spent recent months touring as Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera, including a stop at Playhouse Square.

Marsh offered a poised account of several of Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne. A young singer still finding her ease onstage, she brings a springlike quality to her voice — bright highs alongside a honeyed middle, and a quiet inwardness that lends the melodies and texts a settled, almost conspiratorial depth.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra with violinist David McCarroll in Rocky River (Nov. 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Let’s cut to the chase and simply say that it would be difficult to imagine a more perfect and moving performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto than the one David McCarroll gave with Daniel Meyer and BlueWater Chamber Orchestra on Sunday afternoon, November 23 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. We’ll come back to that thought.

The straight-through performance preceded the Beethoven with works by Cleveland composer Margaret Brouwer and a youngish Aaron Copland.

Brouwer’s engaging and popular The Art of Sailing at Dawn evokes memories of growing up on the Great Lakes. A flute conjures sonic images of gulls, and subtle waves support a lovely oboe solo before the wind kicks up and dark clouds assemble. A storm erupts, but soon passes, leading to a quiet ending. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir: “I Believe!” (May 17)

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by Peter Feher

Trust in a higher purpose is part of what’s sustained BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir for many seasons now.

So it was fitting that the two local ensembles came together in a concert titled “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith” on May 17 at Trinity Cathedral. The evening not only marked major milestones for BlueWater and CCC — their 15th and 10th anniversaries, respectively — but also spoke to a shared mission. Making classical music more accessible is a priority for both organizations, whether through pay-what-you-wish performances or programming that forges new connections.

Saturday’s concert paired Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c in a righteous demonstration of belief that swelled to fill the magnificent space of Trinity.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra turns fifteen! (Part 2)

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm in Trinity Cathedral, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith,” with conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Katherine Jolly. The program includes Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available at the door and online.

The concert also marks the culmination of the fifteenth anniversary season for BlueWater Chamber Orchestra. We spoke to BlueWater founding member and administrator Nancy Patterson and music director Daniel Meyer.

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BlueWater Chamber Orchestra Continues its 15th Anniversary with Covenant Concert (Mar. 1)

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by Daniel  Hathaway

When BlueWater Chamber Orchestra made its debut at the Breen Center on September  12, 2010, its founder and conductor Carlton Woods introduced the new ensemble with an ambitious program of works that included Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Howard Hanson’s Serenade for Flute, Harp and Strings, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Romance in F for violin and orchestra, Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, and Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes.

In a review of that performance, I wrote

The orchestral showpiece of the afternoon was Ginastera’s Concert Variations, described by Woods as “the South American Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” Beginning with Kent Collier’s big cello solo accompanied by harpist Jody Guinn, the work showcased the fine solo talents of violist Laura Shuster, clarinetist Alix Reinhardt, concertmaster Kenneth Johnston, hornist Ken Wadenpfuhl and bassist Ann Gilbert, as well as the fine ensemble acumen of the rest of the orchestra.

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BlueWater Chamber Orchestra turns fifteen! (Part 1)

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by Mike Telin

Conductor Carlton Woods led the Midland, Michigan Symphony from 1997 to 2007 while teaching at Central Michigan University. When he and his wife Ladonna retired, they chose to relocate to Westlake, where they spent their first year soaking up all that Northeast Ohio’s classical music scene had to offer.

“We had season tickets to everything — The Cleveland Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire — and we went to concerts at CIM, Baldwin Wallace, Oberlin, and Cleveland State University,” Ladonna said during a Zoom conversation.

Describing her late husband as the quintessential promoter in the world of classical music, Ladonna Woods said that after spending a lifetime in music, during that first year of retirement she could see that her husband was getting bored. Then one day he asked her what she would think if he started a chamber orchestra.

“I thought, ‘Oh, no, here we go.’ I knew that he wasn’t asking my permission, he was telling me that he had already worked all out. So I told him, ‘I think you’re crazy, and I was really looking forward to us just going places and being a normal everyday couple.’ The interesting thing was that he had so much fun conducting. It was his love. And he kept saying, ‘Ladonna, someday they’re going to find out how much fun I’m having.’ When he said that, I thought, ‘Well, this is a done deal.’”  [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra crosses the pond without ever leaving Cleveland (Nov. 23)

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By Peter Feher

On Saturday, Nov. 23 at University Circle’s Church of the Covenant, the outstanding BlueWater Chamber Orchestra transported listeners across the Atlantic with a pleasantly English program of Gerald Finzi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Franz Joseph Haydn. Artistic director Daniel Meyer described his affinity for this repertoire — and explained how Haydn happens to qualify as an “honorary Englishman” — in several amiable asides throughout the evening.

Yet the focus of this concert was undoubtedly on the exceptional caliber of musician that one can find right here in Cleveland.

Violinist James Thompson — a Northeast Ohio native, graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as BlueWater’s guest concertmaster this season — was the star of the night. He soared while soloing in Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, that sentimental favorite that somehow never loses its shine.

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BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: James Thompson reflects on Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending

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by Mike Telin

Two personal interests of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams were poetry and the violin, both of which are magically entwined in his work for violin and orchestra, The Lark Ascending, inspired by George Meredith’s poem of the same name. The composer’s wife Ursula wrote that in the work Vaughan Williams had “taken a literary idea on which to build his musical thought…and had made the violin become both the bird’s song and its flight…”

On Saturday, November 23 at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Covenant, violinist James Thompson will join the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in Vaughan Williams’ethereal, single-movement work. Under the direction of Daniel Meyer, the English-themed program — Interlaced Brilliance and Love — also includes Gerald Finzi’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 (“London”). The program will also be presented on Friday the November 22 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. (Pay-what-you-wish format).

During a recent telephone conversation, Thompson, who is BlueWater’s guest concertmaster this season, said that he understood that the work was under consideration when he was asked to join the ensemble. “I know Daniel is excited to include it on the program, so in a lot of ways, mathematically and logistically, it fits the bill. And it’s actually going to be a first performance for both of us. I’ve not had the opportunity to play the piece either, so we’ll be discovering it together this week.”

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra meditates on the passage of time (Oct. 5)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On October 5 at the Church of the Covenant, artistic director Daniel Meyer led the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in an engaging program of new and familiar works, including David Biedenbender’s River of Time, with former BlueWater principal trumpet and co-artistic director Neil Mueller as soloist.

As a glorious opener, the Cleveland School of the Arts R. Nathaniel Dett Concert Choir (Robert McCorvey, director) and the BlueWater Orchestra combined forces during four spiritual and gospel arrangements. CSA also supplied select string players from the school to sit alongside the professionals, adding tonal depth and youthful energy. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra with guitarist Jason Vieaux at the Covenant (May 4)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Saturday evening, May 4 found the excellent Blue Water Chamber Orchestra wrapping up their 14th season with guitarist Jason Vieaux playing Vivaldi and Avner Dorman, and the orchestra finishing up with Beethoven 7 at the Church of the Covenant under Daniel Meyer.

Blue Water comprises musicians and features soloists who live in Northeast Ohio, asks its audiences to “Pay what you wish,” and has committed itself to straight-through programs that normally run less than 90 minutes.

Grammy-winner Jason Vieaux, the featured soloist in a collaboration between BlueWater and the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, is both an international touring artist and a local hero, who treated the capacity audience to an elegant performance of Vivaldi’s D-major concerto — originally for lute — with a fine sense of pacing and crisp articulations. [Read more…]

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