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Giancarlo Guerrero’s return to Cleveland is “like coming home”

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by Mike Telin

“For me, coming back to Cleveland is like coming home,” conductor Giancarlo Guerrero said during a Zoom conversation from Nashville where he has served as music director of the Nashville Symphony since 2009. “The Cleveland Orchestra was my family for almost ten years and this concert is the project this year that I am looking forward to the most because of my history with this orchestra — I am beyond excited to see everyone.”

On Saturday August 13 at 7:00 pm Guerrero will return to Blossom Music Center to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program that features Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Daniil Trifonov, and John Adams’ Harmonielehre. (Note update: Lukáš Vondráček will make his Orchestra debut, stepping in for Daniil Trifonov after an acute arm injury.) Purchase tickets here. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: Russian music with Tilson Thomas and Trifonov (March 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Cleveland Orchestra Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor Daniil Trifonov, piano STRAVINSKY - Scènes de ballet PROKOFIEV - Piano Concerto No. 2 TCHAIKOVSKY - Symphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”) Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Was it just a remarkable coincidence, or a pianistic hat trick? In the last three weekends, The Cleveland Orchestra has welcomed Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yefim Bronfman, and Daniil Trifonov as soloists for its concerts in Severance Hall, joining guest conductors Matthias Pintscher, Nikolaj Znaider, and Michael Tilson Thomas in concertos by Ravel, Beethoven, and Prokofiev. That amounted to an undeclared midwinter festival of distinguished pianists and concertos.

[Read more…]

Ross Binnie talks about The Cleveland Orchestra’s fall season

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by Mike Telin

binnie-rossAs The Cleveland Orchestra gears up to launch its fall Severance Hall season, we caught up with Ross Binnie, the Orchestra’s Chief Marketing Officer, and asked him to give his insights into the array of programs. He described them as “a blend of the curious and the familiar which will be wonderful for the audiences.”

The season kicks off on September 29 and 30 when Franz Welser-Möst leads performances of Ives’s Symphony No. 3 (“The Camp Meeting”) and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2. And organist Paul Jacobs (below) will make his Cleveland Orchestra debut as soloist in Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. [Read more…]

Piano Competition Festival to feature Zsolt Bognár’s “Classical Life” interviews

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by Daniel Hathaway

Bognar-Kaupo KikkasClevelanders and classical music fans near and far already know Zsolt Bognár as a talented concert pianist who specializes in Germanic, Russian, and Romantic repertoire. But there’s more. He’s a writer, a speaker, and a skilled interviewer. His speaking engagements have included two TEDMED talks and guest appearances on National Public Radio programs dealing with a variety of subjects. And he’s recently become the Charlie Rose of the classical music world as host of the Elyria Pictures film series “Living the Classical Life.”

As part of the Cleveland International Piano Competition’s 2016 Festival, Bognár will emcee three morning sessions this week in the Lecture Hall at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition plans extensive Festival in 2016

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by Mike Telin

Westhuizen“This summer is going to be a full-immersion experience for our audiences,” Pierre van der Westhuizen (left), President and CEO of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, exclaimed during a recent telephone conversation. “They can attend something in the morning, afternoon, and evening, with lunch and dinner in between.”

When the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition and Festival gets underway on July 24 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, patrons will discover that CIPC is a true destination event. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Jahja Ling & Daniil Trifonov (March 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Trifonov031915If you didn’t catch one of last weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts, you missed an extraordinary experience. Pianist Daniil Trifonov, making his Severance Hall debut on Thursday evening, March 19, was simply breathtaking in Shostakovich’s first concerto — in cahoots with principal trumpet Michael Sachs and guest conductor Jahja Ling. And Ling’s interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s second symphony — the only other work on the program — was as sonorously thrilling as it was expertly paced. [Read more…]

CIM musicians and performers with local ties win Grammy Nominations (updated)

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Vieaux-JasonCleveland Institute of Music faculty members Jason Vieaux, Jaime Laredo, Alan Bise and Bruce Egre and pianist Daniil Trifonov are among the nominees for the 57th Grammy Awards, to be presented in Los Angeles on February 8. [Read more…]

Review: A Stunning Premiere — Trifonov Plays Trifonov in Cleveland (April 23)

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by Zsolt Bognár, Special Contributor

Trifonov1

In a highly anticipated and much-publicized special event last Wednesday at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the young pianist-composer Daniil Trifonov premiered his own First Piano Concerto with the CIM Orchestra, as a benefit to the school’s scholarship fund.

Already known to the musical world for his appearances with most of the world’s major orchestras and for his winning streak in the Rubinstein, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky Competitions, Trifonov’s prolific musical activities have increasingly entered the realm of composition, with several works for solo piano. The Piano Concerto (2014), composed in France, the Dominican Republic, and in Cleveland under the guidance of his teachers Keith Fitch and Sergei Babayan, is his largest work to date. It is an impressive achievement. [Read more…]

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