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Cleveland Orchestra to premiere Anthony Cheung’s Topos this week

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by Mike Telin

cheungWhat do you think of when you hear horn calls filling the hall with majestic sound during Haydn’s The Seasons, or any Mahler symphony? Perhaps you visualize hunting, a warning of encroaching armies, or a ship sailing into a foggy harbor.

What listeners think of when hearing such musical gestures served as inspiration for Anthony Cheung’s new work, Topos, which will receive its world premiere by The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst this week at Severance Hall. Check our concert listings page for dates and times.

In the program notes, Cheung, the Orchestra’s ninth Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow, writes:

Each movement is based on one or several related musical topics: representational tropes with special recurring characteristics that evoke scenery, psychological affect, natural and cultural phenomena, etc. The fluidity of meaning in these topics fascinates me. For example, horn calls were originally indicative of hunting, signaling, and fanfare but reemerged in the 19th century as symbols of nostalgia and even leave-taking. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra to perform Anthony Cheung’s Lyra this weekend

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by Mike Telin

cheungIn his program notes for Lyra (2013), composer Anthony Cheung writes, “The strumming or plucking of a lyre: if Western music has an origin myth, the lyre is inextricably linked to it. Apollo with his lyre, truth emanating from its well-proportioned vibrations. Orpheus soothing all manner of flora and fauna, as well as the keepers of the underworld…. And with Beethoven, modern and ancient mythology are conjoined. When the composer supposedly channels the Orpheus narrative in his fourth piano concerto, he puts the soloist in the heroic role, pitting it against an orchestra of Furies, and makes a lyre of the piano.”

On Thursday, March 31 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, April 2 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in performances of Cheung’s Lyra. The program will also include Thomas Adès’s Concentric Paths (for violin and orchestra) with soloist Leila Josefowicz, as well as orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. On Wednesday, March 30 at 6:30 pm, Anthony Cheung will present a lecture in Bibbins 224 at the Oberlin Conservatory. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra’s ‘Composers Connect’: an interview with Susan Botti

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Composers Connect, the last event in the Cleveland Orchestra’s current season on Saturday, June 6, features the music of four of the orchestra’s former Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellows, Marc-Andre Dalbavie (1998-2000), Matthias Pintscher, who will also be on the podium for the concert (2000-2002), Susan Botti, a Cleveland native who will also assume singing duties (2003-2005), and Johannes Maria Staud (2007-2009).

We reached Susan Botti last week by phone to ask how she became a Daniel R. Lewis fellow and how that experience has helped to advance her career.

Mike Telin: You are a Clevelander?

Susan Botti: Yes, I was not born here but transplanted at about six weeks.

MT: What part of the city did you live in?

SB: Cleveland Heights. I was schooled through the Catholic School system and I went to Beaumont High School. My father was the head of cardiology at University Hospital.

MT: You have such an interesting background, singing, composing and you have also embraced so many musical styles; does this or at least part of it come from the fact that you were raised in a city like Cleveland?

SB: Yes in many ways it was, because music is something that is kind of hard to escape here. We have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to our credit and the R&B scene was good. It was like it just sort of came to me, it wasn’t even going out and getting it. I am also the 6th of 7 children, so I had 5 personalities older then me that went through all kinds of musical events. So I absorbed all of them, whatever they were going through. I have vivid memories of the Beatles from my oldest sister, and I remember when Miles Davis, “Man with the Horn”, came into the house with one of my older brothers. There were a lot of musical styles. My oldest sister was also trained as a ballerina, so that music was probably my very earliest classical music memory. Then, of course there was the Cleveland Orchestra, so yes, there were a lot of different styles. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra’s ‘Composers Connect’: an interview with Matthias Pintscher

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Composers Connect, the last event in the Cleveland Orchestra’s current season on Saturday, June 6, features the music of four of the orchestra’s former Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellows, Marc-André Dalbavie (1998-2000), Matthias Pintscher, who will also be on the podium for the concert (2000-2002), Susan Botti, a Cleveland native who will also assume singing duties (2003-2005), and Johannes Maria Staud (2007-2009).

We reached Matthias Pintscher last week by phone to talk about how he finds conducting and composing to be complimentary, and how he defines himself as a composer.

Mike Telin: It is a pleasure to speak to you and we are looking forward to your return to Cleveland.

Matthias Pintscher: Thank you and I look forward to being back in Cleveland. I have many fond memories, and the people are so proud of their orchestra.  I remember my very first trip; I landed at the airport and I told the taxi driver that I needed to go to Severance Hall. He asked me why, and I told him that I was a composer and they were playing one of my pieces, and he looked back at me and said, it is an honor to drive anyone who is connected to the Cleveland Orchestra. Yes, the people are so friendly and very proud of the orchestra.

MT: You have had a very non-traditional educational path, and I was reading that composers such as Hans Werner Henze and Luigi Nono recognized your ability at an early age.

MP: I was privileged to meet all these great people such as Henze, Nono, and lots of wonderful conductors at a very early age, Claudio Abbado was an early supporter of my work. He brought me into his room and said, Matthias, I had a look at your scores and this looks really difficult, but we want a piece from you. I was in my early twenties. So this is how it happened, people trusted me, but I also worked very hard. [Read more…]

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