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ENCORE: A Tasteful showcase— “Tales of Travel & Transformation” (July 3)

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by Jacob Strauss

ENCORE Chamber Music held a musical tasting on Sunday afternoon, July 3rd at the Dodero Center for the Performing Arts. “Tales of Travel and Transformation” featured members of the Verona Quartet, artistic director Jinjoo Cho, and other faculty of the summer institute.

Cellist Max Geissler led off with composer-in-residence Andrew Rindfleisch’s Quiet Music for Solo Violoncello. Gymnastic hand positions land on natural harmonics in “Waltz Music.” Heavy rhythmic lines roll under chords played assertively by Geissler in “Fast Music,” then become quiet while wind chimes glisten in “Slow Music.” [Read more…]

ENCORE: Tales of Wünderkinds (July 1)

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by Noah Auby

If their first tale of July 2022 was any indication, ENCORE Chamber Music Institute’s “Storytelling” Music & Ideas Festival is true to its name. On July 1, ENCORE premiered and livestreamed “Tales of Wünderkinds: The Hunt & Chase” — a formidable continuation of this year’s primarily narrative-driven Music & Ideas Festival. Interestingly, Jorg Widmann’s Hunt would be the only piece from the evening’s program to share a word with this title. I watched the livestream.

Performed by a string quartet with periodic shouting from violinist (and ENCORE artistic director) Jinjoo Cho, the players flawlessly executed the intended discordant quality of the piece. [Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium: The Fascinating Life of John Stepan Zamecnik
(second of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

Until recently, only a select few would have recognized the name John Stepan Zamecnik (1872–1953) if it had come up in conversation. But in the past few months the Cleveland-born violinist and composer is experiencing a resurgence. His music and accomplishments are being featured as part of the Cleveland Arts Prize Past Masters Project. And on Sunday, February 13 at 3:00 pm at the Hermit Club, Zamecnik’s music and life will take center stage during the opening event of the inaugural Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium.

The program will include chamber works by Zamecnik and his mentor, Antonín Dvořák, performed by violinists Isabel Trautwein, Alicia Koelz, and Katherine Bormann, violist Eric Wong, cellist Tanya Ell, clarinetist Robert Woolfrey, and pianist Rodney Sauer, who is also the director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, and who will deliver remarks on Sunday. Click here for tickets and here to read the previous article in this series, an overview of the Festival. A complete list of events and ticket information can be found at the end of this article.

In addition to selected movements from Zamecnik’s String Quartette in B-flat and Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello, the concert will include three of the composer’s Photoplay Scenes: Ode to Spring (1923), A Gruesome Tale (1922), and Bon Vivant (1917). 

[Read more…]

Cavani’s “Beyond Beethoven” Finale at Severance Music Center (Dec. 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

What might LvB have thought of having 90 young musicians — led by a professional string quartet — perform the fugue that ends his Quartet Op. 59, No. 3?

That was a present from the Cavani Quartet and the participants in the “Beyond Beethoven” project for the composer’s 250th Birthday — plus one, thanks to the novel coronavirus that put this and many other celebrations off for a year.

Though he could be notoriously cranky, let’s hope that Beethoven enjoyed hearing the fugue from his throne in the Empyrean as much as its performers obviously relished playing it down below. [Read more…]

Cavani and 90 students take last lap of “Beyond Beethoven” project to Severance on Tuesday, Dec. 14   

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by Daniel Hathaway

“It’s like putting on all the Shakespeare plays in a month — it takes all your heart and soul and energy,” Cavani Quartet founder and primo violin Annie Fullard said in a recent telephone conversation about their “Beyond Beethoven” project.

But unlike Shakespeare, no blood was spilled, nobody got poisoned, and no kings were deposed during a three-month program that brought all sixteen of Beethoven’s string quartets — performed in tandem with works by eight living composers — to audiences in as many concerts and different venues around the metropolitan area, and involved working with four high school orchestra programs. “If I had to find one word to describe it, it’s been a lovefest,” Fullard said.

Fullard, a founding member of the Cavani Quartet, played for a decade with its original members, then for 25 years with the second generation of players. Her third time around is also her second time presenting the complete Beethoven cycle, now with three new musicians (she calls it “Cavani 2.0”)

The project will culminate in a Grand Finale on Tuesday evening, December 14 at 7:30 pm in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center, when the Cavani — Annie Fullard and Catherine Cosbey, violins, Eric Wong, viola, and Kyle Price, cello — play Beethoven’s Opus 59, No. 3, followed by two premieres. [Read more…]

Arts Renaissance Tremont: Cavani assume directorship with Beethoven & Montgomery (Nov. 21) 

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Cavani Quartet’s well-attended concert on Sunday, November 21 at St. Wendelin Church marked the sixth of eight performances in the ensemble’s roaming “Beethoven and Beyond” series, as well as the beginning of the 30th season of the Arts Renaissance Tremont series.

Now under the Cavani’s artistic direction following the passing of its founder, Christine Haff-Paluck, ART also introduced a new venue for its concerts, previously presented at Pilgrim UCC.

Each concert in “Beethoven and Beyond” includes two of LvB’s string quartets with a contemporary work in between, usually by way of contrast, although in her introductory remarks, primo violinist Annie Fullard drew thematic connections between the pizzicati in Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet and Jessie Montgomery’s Strum. [Read more…]

Cavani Quartet to embark on eight-concert “Beyond Beethoven” cycle September 19

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by Daniel Hathaway

COVID-19 may have interrupted the celebration of Beethoven’s 250th Birthday in December 2020, but the Cavani String Quartet has made that event a moveable feast.

On Sunday, September 19, the ensemble will play the first of eight concerts featuring all sixteen of LvB’s quartets. The “Beyond Beethoven” performances, to take place in eight different venues, will match pairs of his quartets with contemporary works, culminating in a grand finale in Severance Hall on December 7.

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: Identity and “Syncretism”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

syn·cre·tism — the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought (Oxford English Dictionary).

CityMusic Cleveland will explore that concept with an in-person concert of chamber music on Sunday, April 11 at 3:00 pm at Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus. (The audience will be limited to 250 people, and masks and social distancing are required. Click here to RSVP.)

The program begins with a quartet: Jungyoon Wie’s 2019 Han, played by violinists Miho Hashizume and Catherine Cosbey, violist Eric Wong, and cellist Sophie Benn. Then clarinetist Dan Gilbert will join the ensemble for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s 1895 Clarinet Quintet in f-sharp.

On a purely musical level, it’s hard to pick two pieces that deserve a wider audience — one of them a fresh and riveting contemporary piece, the other a beautiful and unjustly neglected gem of the past. But these two composers also represent an intriguing pairing through the lens of syncretism.

[Read more…]

“Gather Around the Music” at Riverside Park with ENCORE

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by Mike Telin 

With the local weather forecast predicting a sunny 78 degrees with zero percent chance of rain on Friday, September 25, why not pack a picnic, put your lawn chairs and blankets in the car, and head to Riverside Park in Chagrin Falls for a 6:00 pm family-friendly concert presented by ENCORE Chamber Music.

The program, “Gather Around the Music,” will feature classical favorites and American popular music performed by artistic director and violinist Jinjoo Cho, faculty violist Eric Wong, and a pair of ENCORE alums: violinist Kiarra Saito-Beckman and cellist Maya Enstad.

ENCORE staff will enforce social distancing via designated sitting areas on the park lawn. Audience members are asked to bring their masks and be considerate of their fellow listeners’ personal space.

“We think of this concert as a contribution to the community that has embraced us over the years,” Jinjoo Cho said during a recent telephone conversation. “We wanted to give something back that would bring people together in a safe way, and Riverside Park is the perfect venue to do that. We’ll perform in the small courtyard, and people will be able to sit in the Park’s large open area — social distancing tapes will mark the available spots.”

[Read more…]

Cleveland Composers Guild at Drinko Hall, CSU (Oct. 13)

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by David Kulma

It was another fascinating afternoon of recent music by members of the Cleveland Composers Guild at CSU’s Drinko Recital Hall on Sunday, October 13. Opening the Guild’s 60th anniversary season, the concert featured chamber music by eight local composers in the usual explorative potluck format.

[Read more…]

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