by David Kulma
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra entered an exciting second era with the final concert of its 9th season on Saturday, May 4 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. Last month, conductor Daniel Meyer was named the orchestra’s artistic director, so now this important Northeast Ohio institution can chart a course into its second decade.
by Jarrett Hoffman
“We’re definitely talking about some return visits and some more intensive work together.”
That’s what conductor Daniel Meyer told me over the phone in early April after I asked him about further engagements with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in the seasons to come.
And I can only assume that he was winking when he said it. Less than two weeks later, on April 22, Meyer was announced as the ensemble’s new Artistic Director and Conductor, succeeding founder Carlton Woods, who passed away in 2017.
He will lead his first concert as Music Director on Saturday, May 4 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights (more on that program in a bit). He already knows the players well, having appeared as guest conductor with BlueWater several times over the past few seasons.
And he seems to genuinely love the orchestra. “I took to them right away,” he told me. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Variety can be the salvation or the undoing of a concert. A century and a half ago, most Americans would have heard what we now think of as the bedrock repertoire of the classical tradition in bewildering shows that often included comedy and drama as well. In recent decades, however, even diversity of historical period and musical style — let alone type of entertainment — has become optional, rather than expected. In a recent concert led by Daniel Meyer, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra successfully embraced stylistic pluralism, mixing new music and a rarity with standard audience favorites.
by Daniel Hathaway
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra will present music by Osvaldo Golijov, Anton Bruckner, Antonio Vivaldi, and Franz Schubert in concerts this weekend at Rocky River Presbyterian Church (Friday, February 1) and Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights (Saturday, February 2), both at 7:30 pm.
I reached conductor Daniel Meyer on the road between his home in Pittsburgh and one of his regular podium positions in Erie, where he was rehearsing for a concert last weekend with the Erie Philharmonic. I started by congratulating him on his recent appointment as conductor of the Lakeside Symphony.
Daniel Meyer: I’ve been looking for a summer home for a while. My family loves Lakeside, and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to work there. One promising thing is its collaborative possibilities. We’re looking to expand what we do.
DH: Besides Erie, what other conducting positions do you hold down at the moment?
DM: I also conduct the Westmoreland Symphony just outside of Pittsburgh. I just got back from a guest appearance in Silicon Valley with the former San José Symphony. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Sometimes, the concerts that a music-lover remembers best revolve around isolated points of interest: a moving phrase here, a glowing chord there, the consistent verve of one player over the course of an evening. However, some performances contain such long successions of bright points that a pattern forms, and the entire experience becomes one protracted highlight. When the musicians of BlueWater Chamber Orchestra opened their ninth season last weekend, it became difficult to miss the forest for the trees: delightful moments kept arriving. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Friendships: each one is different, based around everything from a mutual career to telling weird jokes. Occasionally both of those come into play, as with hornist Joseph Leutgeb and one pretty famous composer. “Wolfgang Amadé Mozart takes pity on Leutgeb, ass, ox, and simpleton, at Vienna, 27 March 1783,” Mozart wrote on the autograph of the Concerto No. 2 in E-flat, K. 417, one of several works he wrote for the hornist.
Whatever the nature of that bond, hornists around the world are grateful for it, including Cleveland Orchestra fourth hornist Richard King. “Mozart’s my favorite composer, and that we horn players happen to have multiple works by him is just wonderful — and lucky,” King said during a recent phone call. “If Mozart’s friend had played the trumpet, then we might not have anything.”
King will take on Mozart’s Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 during the aptly titled “All Hail the Horn,” BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s first concert of its ninth season. Conductor Daniel Meyer will lead the performance at the Breen Center in Ohio City on Sunday, September 16 at 3:00 pm. The program will also include Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks chamber concerto and Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, featuring mezzo-soprano Corrie Stallings. “I’ve been in the audience before and I’m a big fan of this group, so it’s great to have this opportunity,” King said.
by Daniel Hathaway
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s “Strings After Sundown” program at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday, February 3 was advertised — as late as the afternoon before in an email blast — as a conductor-less performance to be led by concertmaster Kenneth Johnston. Instead, the audience was greeted by a program insert noting that the concert would be conducted by Erie Philharmonic music director Daniel Meyer. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Laura Pederson were the featured guests for the first of two weekend concerts by BlueWater Chamber Orchestra on Saturday, November 11 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The Saturday performance was a ticketed event, while a repeat performance the following afternoon at Pilgrim Church in Tremont was free, thanks to Cuyahoga Arts and Culture — perhaps accounting for a rather slim audience on Saturday. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
“When I put together a program, I look for interesting threads that connect the pieces, but I also look at how the pieces resonate with me,” Daniel Meyer, music director of the Asheville Symphony and Erie Philharmonic, said in a recent conversation. “I’m going to be interpreting them, putting my stamp on them, and standing in front of incredibly trained musicians who will want to know my opinion, so it’s important that I have a personal connection to the works.”
On Saturday, November 11 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s “Lush Autumn Musings” brings together guest conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Laura Pedersen in Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, bookended by Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin and Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 2 in B-flat.