by Jacob Strauss
On Thursday June 2 in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Drew Henderson (Canada) opened the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival with a program of Baroque and Romantic music.
This was the first time the festival had been in-person since the pandemic hit the world in March 2020. Henderson was grateful to be playing in front of an audience again, and he performed generously, his musicianship was thoughtful and earnest.
With his eight-string guitar propped up on a support rest, Henderson informed the audience that he would be adding to the program and begin by playing an unmeasured prelude by Sylvius Leopold Weiss, a preeminent composer for the lute, and a contemporary of J.S. Bach. [Read more…]
Several things can stand in the way of a smooth musical arrangement, including the range of the instrument of destination.
Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival founder Armin Kelly was planning to celebrate the second decade of the event when the novel coronavirus crashed the party. “The 2020 shutdown was too close to our festival time to put an alternate plan together,” he said in a recent phone conversation. “So we put up one streamed concert, and that was our 20th anniversary season.”