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Oberlin Artist Recital Series: The Cleveland Orchestra (Sept. 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Last Thursday evening at The Cleveland Orchestra’s season opener in Severance Hall, music director Franz Welser-Möst was honored with the Orchestra’s twenty-third annual Distinguished Service Award. On Friday, an uncommonly hot evening for September, he deserved a medal for leading the ensemble in full concert dress while his colleagues played in shirtsleeves in Oberlin’s steamy Finney Chapel, surely one of the only major concert halls in Northeast Ohio not to offer climate control. (Photo from an earlier performance). [Read more…]

An intimate look at the music of Jeffrey Rathbun before The Cleveland Orchestra’s premiere of Pantheon

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by David Kulma

Most famous orchestral composers are people who either conduct or listen to orchestras rather than play in them. But there is a small cohort of professional orchestra musicians who step into the composer spotlight.

After attending organ school, and before becoming a well-known composer, Antonín Dvořák served as a violist in the orchestra of the Bohemian Provisional Theater for a few years. Carl Nielsen sat in the second violin section of the Royal Danish Opera until he was 40, playing the first performances of some of his own works.

Jeffrey Rathbun, now beginning his 29th season as assistant principal oboe with The Cleveland Orchestra, also fits into this mold. His Pantheon, commissioned by the Orchestra for its centennial celebrations, will be premiered this weekend.

[Read more…]

Got summer plans, Cleveland Orchestra? Blossom + Summers@Severance + a few extra notables

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Clevelanders haven’t heard their orchestra live since mid-May. In the interim, The Cleveland Orchestra has been on the road, finishing off their centennial-capping Prometheus Project with performances at Vienna’s Musikverein and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Oh, how we miss them.

We’ll get reacquainted with TCO soon, thanks to their schedule at this year’s 50th anniversary season of Blossom Music Festival, plus their fourth Summers@Severance series.

The Cleveland Orchestra marks the unofficial beginning of summer when they open their Blossom season on Saturday, July 7 at 8:00 pm. At the helm will be music director Franz Welser-Möst, leading the Orchestra in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in its orchestration by Ravel, Reznicek’s Overture to Donna Diana, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, featuring TCO’s own soloists –– pianist Joela Jones, violinist Stephen Rose, and cellist Mark Kosower. At this concert and two others, check out the Image Magnification system, which displays live video of the performers on LED screens in the Blossom Pavilion. Fingers crossed for the weather — a firework show is planned for afterwards.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Prometheus Project II: Beethoven’s Ninth at Severance (May 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland Orchestra, BeethovenThe Cleveland Orchestra’s Centennial Season came to a festive conclusion at Severance Hall on Thursday, May 17. After performing the first eight of Beethoven’s symphonies in four concerts between May 9 and 13, Franz Welser-Möst led the Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus (prepared by Lisa Wong), and soloists Erin Wall, Jennifer Johnston, Norbert Ernst, and Dashon Burton in a blazing account of “The Ninth,” the final performance in Welser-Möst’s deeply philosophical Prometheus Project. (Read David Kulma’s reviews of the earlier concerts here.) [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Prometheus Project I: Eight Beethoven symphonies in four concerts

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by David Kulma

tco-fwm-092416Severance Hall was filled to the brim with Beethoven lovers for the first four installments of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 100th-season-capping festival.  Framed as an exploration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s nine symphonies through ancient Greek myth, The Prometheus Project began with dazzling performances of the first eight symphonies and four overtures led by music director Franz Welser-Möst from Thursday, May 10 through Sunday, May 13. [Read more…]

“The Prometheus Project,” as seen and heard through the archives

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by Mike Telin

Heinrich_fueger_1817_prometheus_brings_fire_to_mankindIn Greek mythology, Prometheus not only defied the gods by stealing fire, he gave that fire to humanity so that civilization could progress. “I think in a way everyone can be a Prometheus,” Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst says during a video where he discusses examples of Promethean heroes and the difficulty of freedom. “MLK is one, Dr. King clearly…was extremely powerful in taking that fiery spark of an idea and carrying that torch with him to the very end of his life. When you read his speeches there’s constantly that talk that we have to empower people.”

This week at Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra will conclude its centenary season with “The Prometheus Project,” a festival celebrating Beethoven’s Promethean ideas about how art can transform humanity. On Wednesday, May 9 at 7:30 pm in Reinberger Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will discuss his conception for the project and the idea of re-examining Beethoven’s music for modern audiences by looking at the composer’s own thoughts, and the ideas and beliefs of the revolutionary era he lived in. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: “The Ecstasy of Tristan & Isolde” — a three-concert festival

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO Messiaen FWMThe first of two festivals capping off The Cleveland Orchestra’s centennial season was based around Richard Wagner’s groundbreaking version of the Tristan and Isolde legend. Culminating on April 29 with the third performance of his four-hour-long opera (Wagner called it “eine Handlung”), the festival also included a performance of Messiaen’s transcendent Turangalîla- Symphonie, and a concert titled “Divine Ecstasy,” a gathering of works that translate the notion of love-intoxication into the spiritual realm. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: all-Beethoven with Franz Welser-Möst (April 12)

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by Nicholas Stevens

TCO-FWM-Strav-092817The sun is shining, the leaves regenerating — and something wonderfully alive is stirring in Severance Hall. The Cleveland Orchestra billed its programs on April 12 and 13 as “sneak previews” of the concert cycles that close its 100th season: windows into the ensemble’s preparations for The Ecstasy of Tristan and Isolde and The Prometheus Project. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus in Haydn’s The Seasons (January 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO Seasons Whole StageJoseph Haydn’s two great oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, came along late in his life after the composer had visited London and was impressed by Handel’s large dramatic works for chorus and orchestra. After bravely performing a stripped-down version of The Seasons on Thursday — two of the soloists were ailing — Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in an enthralling performance of the complete oratorio on Saturday evening. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra plays Beethoven to a full Fridays@7 house (Jan. 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO-FWM-Strav-092817The Cleveland Orchestra has been tweaking the format for its Fridays@7 concerts. They were originally conceived as hour-long, straight-through performances preceded and followed by non-classical genres of music performed in the lobbies in a party ambiance with food and drink. On January 19, the concert — all-Beethoven — was nearly full-length and included an intermission, but as an innovation, it introduced informal conversations between orchestra musicians and Franz Welser-Möst. Severance Hall was packed with a multigenerational audience whose energy helped make the evening a celebration. [Read more…]

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