Eric Poe Archives - Cleveland Classical

GNASH: Graham Nash sings hits with Contemporary Youth Orchestra and Chorus

June 9, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Jeremy Reynolds

Jogging onto the stage of Severance Hall, Liza Grossman wasted no time in launching the barefoot Contemporary Youth Orchestra and Chorus straight into the opening number of their annual “Rock the Orchestra” concert on Friday, June 5. After a slow, somber musical introduction from the students, singer-songwriter and philanthropist Graham Nash walked onstage, serenely and similarly unshod, to a standing ovation from listeners. He began GNASH — a concert celebrating his five-decade musical career — with a spirited rendition of “To the Last Whale” (Nash, David Crosby, 1975). [Read more…]

Preview: Contemporary Youth Orchestra to explore music of Pixar, Disney and Marvel on March 15

March 11, 2014 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Daniel Hathaway

Those of us (of a certain age) who grew up watching the animated films (call them cartoons if you must) of the mid-twentieth century received a subliminal dose of well-crafted music that would hold up well in the concert hall — and probably turned us in a good musical direction as a result.

Now the film music of Disney, Pixar and Marvel has moved from celluloid into symphonic circles, as The Cleveland Orchestra has recently been proving in performances at Blossom. On Saturday, March 15 at 7 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at CSU, the next generation of orchestral musicians will tackle that repertory as Liza Grossman leads the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in its annual Music and Its Industry concert, “The Sound of Imagination: Music of Pixar, Disney and Marvel.”

The performance will mark the seventh time that Grossman has collaborated with Case Western Reserve University musicologist Daniel Goldmark in designing and providing narrative context for its midwinter concert. [Read more…]

Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s season opener contemplates circles of life (Nov. 2)

by Stephanie Manning

“This moment is full of wonders.” Composer Anna Clyne meditated on those words — written by Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh — as she wrote her orchestral work This Moment. That theme, of learning to cherish life more by reflecting on death, underscored most of the music chosen for the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s program on November 2.

The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Christian Church hosted the season-opening concert, titled “Reflection and Revelations.” The venue’s dry acoustic helped the textures remain clear in Clyne’s piece, a somber and meditative seven minutes. [Read on…]

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson, conductor Daniel Reith lead Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven concert (Nov. 9)

by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A relaxed understanding born of a long career helped pianist Garrick Ohlsson bring easy grace and Proto-Romantic sensibility to Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra.

The program on Saturday at Severance Music Center featured early and middle works, the second set of concerts in the Orchestra’s cycle of Beethoven piano concertos.

Despite its number, the Second Concerto is actually the composer’s first, begun in 1790. Ohlsson treated this early Beethoven work expressively, with sinuous rubato, keeping his rhythms precise, his touch light, and his rhetoric clear. Nothing, not even Beethoven’s many technical snares, seemed to faze him.

[Read on…]

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