by Daniel Hathaway
Cleveland POPS music director Carl Topilow called in extra forces to celebrate the genius of composer John Williams in Severance Hall on Saturday evening, January 30. To his excellent POPS Orchestra, he added the 50-voice Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, more than 40 members of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, and three local heroes — Howie Smith, Franklin Cohen, and Steven Greenman — who made cameo appearances during the celebration. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The music of the prolific film composer John Williams was a staple of Carl Topilow’s programming long before he launched the Cleveland POPS Orchestra. “We were doing Star Wars medleys in the late ‘70s with the Denver Symphony — now the Colorado Symphony,” the conductor said in a telephone conversation from Pittsburgh, where he was guest-conducting the Carnegie-Mellon Symphony.
“Among everything else, the fact that he can write music as diverse as Schindler’s List and Home Alone — and everything in between — is just incredible. Whether it’s adventure or comedy, or JFK, or Born on the Fourth of July, there’s just a gamut of emotions. Probably the only non-movie piece I’ve ever conducted of his was his Tuba Concerto.” [Read more…]
by Carlyn Kessler
On Sunday afternoon, October 25, Arts Renaissance Tremont presented the third concert of its 25th Season, “Franklin Cohen and Friends,” at Pilgrim Church in Tremont — a delightful autumn afternoon of clarinet and chamber music. Departing from the printed program, the concert opened with Mozart’s Trio in E-flat, K. 498 “Kegelstatt,” featuring pianist Rafael Skorka, clarinetist Franklin Cohen, and violist Kirsten Docter. “Kegelstatt” is German for the location where one would play “skittles,” a lawn game similar to bowling that was popular in Mozart’s era. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Sunday, October 25 at 3:00 pm, Arts Renaissance Tremont will continue its 25th anniversary season at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Tremont. The concert will feature clarinetist Franklin Cohen, violist Kirsten Docter, cellist Bronwyn Banerdt, and pianists Sergei Babayan and Rafael Skorka, in performances of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat, Op. 11, “Gassenhauer,” Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’s Trio in E-flat, K. 498, ”Kegelstatt,” and Franz Schubert’s Sonata in a, D. 821, “Arpeggione.” The program will also include the premiere of a new work by Lakewood-born composer David Conte written for Cohen and commissioned by Arts Renaissance Tremont for their anniversary celebration.
Conte describes his Sonata for Clarinet and Piano as a work in progress, and Sunday’s concert will feature the first movement, Allegro moderato, appassionato. Having grown up in Cleveland, Conte has long admired Cohen’s playing. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Sunday October 4 at 3:00 pm in Pilgrim Congregational Church, Arts Renaissance Tremont (ART) will present its season opening concert with a performance by the award-winning Autana Trio, Yuri Noh, piano, Rubén Rengel, violin, and Anna Hurt, cello. The program will include Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat, Op. 97 (”Archduke”) and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2 in e, Op. 67.
The event will also mark ART’s twenty-fifth anniversary of presenting free concerts in the West Side Cleveland neighborhood. “Twenty five years, I can’t believe it,” ART’s founder and director Chris Haff- Paluck said during a telephone conversation. “It’s amazing how the series has grown and the neighborhood has changed. Many people don’t remember what Tremont was like back then.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
When it’s time for a musician to say goodbye to an ensemble and its audience after 39 years, what piece should he choose for his swan song? Long-time Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinet Franklin Cohen revisited Carl Maria von Weber’s second concerto on Sunday night, July 26 at Blossom, winning a standing ovation before he even played a note. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Although Franklin Cohen played his final concert as a member of The Cleveland Orchestra wind section back in May, on Sunday, July 26 at 7:00 pm at Blossom Music Center, Cohen will make his farewell appearance as concerto soloist after 39 seasons as the Orchestra’s principal clarinet. The program includes Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 2, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
During a recent telephone conversation Cohen said that he looks forward to performing the Weber under the direction of his good friend Jahja Ling. “I love Jahja. He has such seriousness of purpose, yet such a great sense of humor. He’s a wonderful family person, and he brings a lot of humanity to everything he does. And, if I have to play a last performance with this group, he’s the one I want to do it with,” Cohen said. “I think he’s conducted more performances with The Cleveland Orchestra than almost any other conductor.” [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
The 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…]
by Mike Telin
ChamberFest Cleveland added a new spin to the phrase “Something Borrowed, Something Blue” on Saturday, June 27 in Mixon Hall. Although no wedding took place, the program featured music that perfectly marries the classical ethos with jazz and folk idioms. As violinist Jinjoo Cho and pianist Roman Rabinovich prepared to open the concert with Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, suddenly from offstage, the sounds of the opening clarinet line from Rhapsody in Blue filled the hall. [Read more…]
by Jeremy Reynolds
Nancy Osgood, Board Chair of ChamberFest 2015, began на здоровье! (Good Health!) by dedicating the program to the memory of James Ireland III, one of the great benefactors of the arts in Cleveland. On Friday, June 26, CWRU’s Harkness Chapel hosted the festival’s all-Russian program, which attracted a healthy number of younger listeners in addition to a large number of seasoned concertgoers. [Read more…]