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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Mozart the Giant” (June 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Mozart the influencer was documented in music for winds by Beethoven and Poulenc for ChamberFest Cleveland’s fifth program on Thursday, June 20 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, while the notion of “Mozart the Giant” was affirmed by the composer’s own String Quintet in D. The first part of the evening was distinguished by elegant wind playing every bit as refined as what you would expect from a world-class string quartet, yet fully capable of incisive punctuation when the music called for emphatic gestures.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “A Soldier’s Tale” at Maltz Performing Arts Center
(July 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CFC-July-2-5The twelfth and final event of ChamberFest Cleveland 2016 was a festive, multimedia concert at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on Saturday, July 2. The event was built around Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, complete with puppetry and video projections — with free admission for 17 and under, and ice cream for all afterwards. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Schubert Journeys” at Reinberger Chamber Hall (July 1)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CFC-July-1-2Expanding its “Tales & Legends” theme in the direction of expeditions, ChamberFest Cleveland presented “Schubert Journeys” on Friday, July 1 in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance. In this case, the composer’s journeys were either brief and dramatic (in the Quartettsatz in c) or agreeably rambling — like a stroll in the countryside with no destination and no timetable (in the Octet). In between, Kurt Rohde’s … maestoso … mysterioso … sent two musicians off into uncharted territory with a curious set of tools. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland closes 2015 season with “Stars and Stripes” (July 1)

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by Timothy Robson

BlackstoneOrganThe 2015 season of ChamberFest Cleveland closed with a mostly American program in a spectacular venue: the angular, modernist home of Dr. Eugene and Janet Blackstone in Bratenahl along the shore of Lake Erie. The house, with its west-facing glass curtain wall, overlooks manicured lawns, and, after weeks of unending rain in Cleveland, there were sailboats on the lake as the sun set. The house also integrates a four-manual, custom-built pipe organ sprouting seemingly from every surface. The spaces not occupied by organ pipes (and a concert grand piano) were taken by audience members, in the main living area, an upper gallery and on the stairs. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a conversation with bassoonist Fernando Traba

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by Mike Telin

TRABA-FernandoOn Wednesday, July 1 at 7:00 pm, ChamberFest will pull out all the stops when it caps off its season with a concert at the Blackstone Pipe Organ Residence in Bratenahl. The concert, titled “Stars and Stripes,” will feature Todd Wilson on the home’s custom-built organ in a performance of Ives’s Variations on a National Hymn, “America.” The prize-winning Echo Saxophone Quartet will play Terry Riley’s Tread on the Trail, and the concert will conclude with Dvořák’s String Quintet No. 3, Op. 97. At 6:15 pm, festival speaker Joel Smirnoff will present a prelude talk, and a picnic on the lawn will follow the performance.

At the suggestion of bassoonist Fernando Traba, the concert will also include Ned Rorem’s rarely-performed Winter Pages for clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello, and piano. “Frank Cohen asked me to let him know if I hear any great piece that hasn’t been played at the Festival,” Traba recalled during a recent telephone conversation. “I often visit YouTube and Spotify to try to find pieces that I don’t know. I came across a performance of this one, and it immediately struck me that it should be played at ChamberFest. I sent Frank the link, and he got back to me saying that he had actually played the piece shortly after it was premiered. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t know a lot about Ned Rorem. He is 91 years old now, and he’s mainly known as a composer of art songs.”

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Review: ChamberFest Cleveland second concert — Mélange à Trois at Harkness (June 20)

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by Daniel Hautzinger

ChamberFest-LogoChamberFest Cleveland is doing it right. With ten concerts over eleven days blends thoughtful programming, diverse venues, exceptional musicians, and a convivial vibe for a musical experience as refreshing and sweet as the ice cream that’s served after some of the concerts.  It’s an ideal model for the future of classical music.

On June 20 at Harkness Chapel, all of these attributes mixed beautifully in a “Mélange à Trois” (the twee but clever program titles are just another aspect of ChamberFest’s affability). The program linked trio pieces spanning a 270-year period, with each consecutive work more than a century distant from its neighbors. Yet the music evinced stronger connections than are often found in a standard concert. Three of the four pieces featured Eastern European accents (be they Gypsy, Hungarian, or Jewish), and each had a rambunctious wildness fearlessly channeled by the musicians. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland opening concert, Celebrate 3!!! at Mixon Hall (June 19)

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by Nicholas Jones

RachmaninoffJune19-Adams

The third season of ChamberFest Cleveland opened Thursday in CIM’s Mixon Hall, on a beautiful late spring evening. With a packed house and a splendid program, the concert was a third birthday party for this young and thriving member of northeast Ohio’s vibrant musical family.

One of the joys of a festival is the variety of performers one hears on any one night, in this case all excellent. This first night of ChamberFest featured ten musicians – including the festival’s founders and driving forces, Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinet Franklin Cohen and his daughter Diana, concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic. By the time the festival ends next week, ten concerts will have presented 24 musicians from around the world.

After a warm welcome from the Cohens, the music got underway with Rachmaninoff’s exuberant Suite for Two Pianos, Opus 17, a piece of grand pianistic music in the late nineteenth century tradition (the piece was premiered in 1901). [Read more…]

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