by Daniel Hathaway
The first piece of business at ChamberFest Cleveland’s June 25 concert in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music was rearranging the order of the program. “Timeless Explorations” was to have begun with a new piece, but probably for practical reasons involving a prepared piano, Yevgeniy Sharlat’s Dumka-22 and Beethoven’s Piano Trio, Op. 70, No. 2 traded places.
Violinist Diana Cohen, cellist Jonathan Swensen, and pianist Andrius Žlabys launched the sixth concert of ChamberFest’s tenth anniversary season with an effervescent performance of Beethoven’s least-performed trio. Bedecked with sparkling runs and ensemble flourishes and set in the gemütlich key of E-flat, the piece made an attractive opener and served as a lovely vehicle for the musicians to express their unassuming virtuosity.
The weather on Sunday morning, June 13, was bright and sunny but not too hot — perfect for a ChamberFest lawn concert. Not to miss out on the occasion, a multitude of people, lawn chairs in hand, made their way down Guilford Road in Cleveland Heights to hear a wonderfully varied program titled Bach and More. 
On Wednesday, June 16 at 7:00 at The Grove Amphitheatre, ChamberFest’s theme of the evening was Luscious Soundscapes and included music by Richard Strauss and Amy Beach.
The second week of ChamberFest Cleveland begins on Wednesday, June 16 at 7:00 pm at The Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield. Admission is free, but 
The theme of ENCORE Chamber Music’s fourth season is “La Bohème: Art and Freedom,” mixing meanings of Bohemianism. It has brought together the 19th-century artistic movement that sought to break down conventions (think the characters from Puccini’s opera) with composers from Bohemia, of which Dvořák is the most famous. I attended three concerts where the overarching theme was successfully bent to include music from Mozart to living American composers.
