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ENCORE spotlights the “Next Gen” (June 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

A good sized crowd came out to hear the fruits of the labor of ENCORE Chamber Music Institute’s Young Artists on Saturday afternoon, June 20, packing the Gates Mills Community Hall with energy and enthusiasm.

The program began with York Bowen’s Fantasia for viola quartet and gradually added players and gathered momentum, ending with a confident performance of a complicated Benjamin Britten work plus an exuberant, infectious finale by Shelly Washington.

Violists Ilgyeong Shin, Vivienne Lucier, Mai Ikemura, and Ellis Peterson produced the kind of rich, dark blend you’d hope to hear from an ensemble of tenors of the string family. Based on a simple theme whose long lines were seamlessly passed from player to player, Bowen’s piece would be perfect for an English Garden Party.

The rest of the program featured works for large string ensembles, all played senza conductor.

[Read more…]

ENCORE: Fantasies of Aino Sibelius at Federated Church (June 6)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

At a charged turning point in Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, the arrival of D major brings release: upper strings turn glassy and weightless, a sound like snowfall. It was a memorable sonority, one of several that lingered in “Fantasies of Aino Sibelius,” the second concert of ENCORE’s Music & Ideas Festival, presented on Saturday, June 6, at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls.

The program centered on Ainola, the house in Finland where Jean Sibelius and his wife Aino lived for half a century. Artistic Director and violinist Jinjoo Cho reminded us in her welcoming remarks that home is “not simply an address, but a set of conditions — rooms, landscapes, and people that make belonging possible.” [Read more…]

ENCORE: Voice of the Dunkleosteus (June 15)

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by Stephanie Manning

Perhaps nothing exemplifies a festival themed around “Planet Earth” quite like a concert performed underneath a prehistoric fish. Specifically, the 359-million-year-old Dunkleosteus terrelli, known as “ancient Ohio’s apex predator.” But you can just call him Dunk.

The ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival drew a packed crowd at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on June 15, and audience members were in for a treat at this concert in the visitor hall. The skeleton of Dunk may have been the closest to the action, but the bright and airy space was filled with other neat creatures for attendees to peruse. (On the left was a reconstruction of Lucy, the most famous human ancestor fossil, and to the right were the bones of Happy, a “reptile hipped” dinosaur.)

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ENCORE Chamber Music Institute: two Sunday afternoons at Harkness (June 9 & 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

ENCORE Chamber Music Institute brought its Music & Ideas Festival —  and its entire student body — to Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University on two adjacent Sunday afternoons, June 9 and 16. Lectures by experts on the natural world’s often overlooked musicians were followed by artist-teacher showcase performances featuring the human participants in this summer’s institute.

On June 9, in a collaboration with the Cleveland Humanities 2024 Festival, bird and insect song was the subject of an engaging, illustrated, half-hour lecture, “The World’s First Musicians” by composer and naturalist Lisa Rainsong. On June 16, in “Earth Makes Us Equal,” the songs of male humpback whales (the females don’t sing!) was the topic of a fascinating talk by David Rothenberg, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who brought his bass clarinet along to engage in expressive duets with some of his subjects.

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ENCORE: A conversation with Jasmine Choi about George Crumb’s Voice of the Whale

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by Max Newman

“It’s natural, organic, and enjoyable, but shocking as well. It’s shocking that this modern nature sound could be depicted like this through music.”

That’s how Korean flutist Jasmine Choi described George Crumb’s avant-garde 1971 composition Vox Balaenae, or Voice of the Whale, during a recent conversation. That work for electric flute and cello and amplified piano will be performed on Saturday, June 15 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History as part of ENCORE Chamber Music. This year the festival is themed around “Planet Earth” with the aim to “highlight the universal connection that we humans have with nature,” according to founder and artistic director Jinjoo Cho. Tickets are available online.

Jinjoo Cho and Jasmine Choi’s connection is a long-standing one, the two having known each other since attending the same middle school in Seoul. It is in part this relationship that is bringing Choi to Cleveland for this performance. “She reached out to me last year to ask me about this project, and I’ll always say yes to Jinjoo. I’ve always wanted to perform with her.”

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Festival season in Cleveland gets underway

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by Daniel Hathaway

The early onset of summery weather even before May has run its course heralds a shift in Northeast Ohio’s classical music activity from concert series to festivals — six of which will launch in the next few weeks.

Local 4 of the American Federation of Musicians will present the fourth edition of She Scores, a celebration of music written by underrepresented composers, from May 30 through June 2 (Thursday through Saturday at 7 and Sunday at 4) in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In a preview article, Mike Telin writes, “what began with performances of works by 16 composers has now blossomed into a four-concert series featuring works by 31 living composers who identify as female or nonbinary.” Emily Laurance will give a pre-concert lecture an hour before each performance. Admission is free.

Encore Chamber Music’s 9th annual Music and Ideas Festival gets underway on June 2, and continues through June 24. [Read more…]

Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper bring bluegrass to new audiences in July 4 celebration at ENCORE

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by Stephanie Manning

As has been the case throughout this season, on July 4, the ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival will once again try something new. In a celebration of American music, classical and bluegrass will share the stage at the Dodero Center for Performing Arts in Gates Mills. The 4:30 pm concert will begin with Copland’s Appalachian Spring performed by ENCORE artists, before shifting to Michael Cleveland and his band Flamekeeper, who will deliver what is certain to be a high energy performance.

“We’re gonna get up there and jam out,” Cleveland said in a recent phone interview. “That’s what we do.” The band won’t formally decide on a set list until concert day, but the fiddler said the performance will last 30 to 45 minutes and will include songs from their records.

With six albums to their credit, Flamekeeper has a lot of music to choose from. Their most recent release, Tall Fiddler, won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. Cleveland, who is blind and partially deaf, has wowed audiences with his fiery playing from a young age. He formed the group in 2006, which includes Chris Douglas on bass, Nathan Livers on mandolin, Josh Richards on guitar, and Jasiah Shrode on banjo.

[Read more…]

ENCORE Chamber Music Institute: The Cavani String Quartet (June 20)

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by Cait Winston

In her pre-concert introduction, ENCORE artistic director Jinjoo Cho praised the Cavani String Quartet for their tradition of music-making that is rooted in friendship, selflessness, and a strong sense of community. 

These principles were in full effect in the June 20th Sparked by Rosa concert, where the quartet’s synergy and graceful musical dialogue helped them to move effortlessly through a wide variety of musical styles.  [Read more…]

ENCORE Chamber Music: Sparked by Murakami (June 13)

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by Cait Winston

ENCORE Chamber Music’s June 13 program, “Sparked by Murakami,” held at the Dodero Center for Performing Arts, explored the narrative potential of chamber music, both through dramatic music conveying characters and story, and through different artistic disciplines that created a hybrid storytelling experience.

Pianist Shuai Wang began the program with Debussy’s “Arabesque No. 1” (from Deux Arabesques) and Jardins sous la pluie (“Gardens in the Rain”), capturing a mood inspired by nature with a hint of the ethereal. [Read more…]

ENCORE Chamber Music: Evelyn Wright on Billie Holiday

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Scientists, activists, a writer, a visual artist, a jazz singer, and a former president all sparked inspiration in the mind of Jinjoo Cho as she developed this summer’s Music & Ideas Festival as part of ENCORE Chamber Music Institute.

That jazz singer? The great Billie Holiday, whose life and music will be explored in two events on Friday, June 18 as ENCORE begins its Juneteenth Celebration Weekend.

At 7:00 pm, the Evelyn Wright Jazz Quartet — made up of Wright herself on vocals (pictured), pianist Dave Thomas, drummer Bill Ransom, and bassist Peter Dominguez — will play a program titled “Sparked by Billie,” made up of songs that Holiday either wrote, such as God Bless the Child, or famously recorded, like Strange Fruit. See the full setlist here.

An hour earlier, at 6:00 pm, Cho will join Wright and Thomas for “Billie Holiday: Tragedy and Triumph,” a panel discussion about the intersection of those two elements in Holiday’s life. Both events take place at the Dodero Center for the Performing Arts, located on the Gilmour Academy campus in Gates Mills. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

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