by Nicholas Jones
The superb young pianist Yuja Wang is a fiery presence. Recently named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year for 2017, the flamboyant, Chinese-born Wang has justly soared to fame for her gutsy performances of the most technically demanding solo and concerto literature for the piano. She plays with a formidable command of the finger-busting pieces of the Romantic and high modern, and she brings to them a sense of burning intensity. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland Orchestra packed a full dose of excitement into 75 minutes on May 6 with its final Fridays@7 concert of the season. Led by Houston Symphony music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada and further animated by the dark piano pyrotechnics of Kirill Gerstein, music by Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky left different lasting impressions on the ear. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The latest Cleveland Orchestra Fridays@7 event on February 5 took a new tack. Instead of programming world music before and after an hour-or-so long Orchestra performance, the Severance Hall management brought in a DJ and set up both the upper and lower lobbies with couches, comfortable chairs, and tables. This laid-back approach to the evening provided more opportunities for patrons to hang out, enjoy drinks, and have lingering conversations after the performance without having to shout over supercharged sound systems. A nice change. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
A good party doesn’t sit. It moves — from room to room, topic to topic, different people getting to tell their good joke.
Now imagine a party like that, but in a palace. Think golden handrails, spacious rooms, drinks poured and legs dancing, and good music. Think Gatsby.
Or think Severance Hall on Friday night, May 15th. The Cleveland Orchestra’s last Fridays@7 concert of the season featured four musical acts in four rooms, including one last party in the gilded Grand Foyer.
by Jane Berkner
If the goal of the Cleveland Orchestra’s Fridays @ 7 series is to create more diversity in their audiences, the concert in Severance Hall on Friday, March 13 can be considered a fantastic success. Curated by Jamey Haddad, the pre- and post concerts that sandwich the orchestra’s performance included music from singer, songwriter and accordion player Magda Giannikou, students from Oberlin’s performance and Improvisation Ensembles, and the eclectic jazz and funk band Snarky Puppy. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
A party raged at Severance Hall Friday night. Everybody in the house — young and old — had their hands in the air and their bodies on the dance floor, the bartender tapping on bottle caps along to the music. No, this wasn’t during the performance by The Cleveland Orchestra — maybe someday. It was afterwards, in the majestic Grand Foyer, its golden ceiling and tall pillars overlooking a performance by the twelve-piece Latin jazz group Sammy DeLeón y su Orquesta, who invited listeners to take to the dance floor. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Mitsuko Uchida is in the course of revisiting selected Mozart concertos after completing a whole cycle of those ravishing pieces with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall from 2002-2007. On Thursday, April 3 she reprised No. 18 in B-flat and No. 19 in F. Between the two, the Orchestra offered Mozart’s early “Symphony” No. 23. The entire concert, including intermission, lasted about 90 minutes.
As Mozart did when he played the solo part, Uchida led the performance from the keyboard, in this case facing upstage at the lidless Steinway. Her graceful, flowing hand gestures served as manual choreography, shaping the music rather than keeping things together — not much of an issue with The Cleveland Orchestra, who are famously alert and responsive to each other.
The soloist’s bio in the program book notes that “Mitsuko Uchida is a performer who brings deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty.” That Apollonian approach to interpretation results in lovely, balanced, fluent and quite flawless performances, as the near-capacity audience who turned out for her latest appearance would surely agree. [Read more…]
by Guytano Parks
The Cleveland Orchestra concluded its 2012/13 Severance Hall subscription series this weekend with a bang. Riding the wave of success from last week’s “At Home” neighborhood residency program in the Gordon Square Arts District on Cleveland’s West Side, The Happy Dog and its co-owner, Sean Watterson went in with University Circle Inc. and the Orchestra to provide bus service to Severance Hall with a reduced ticket price for the final Fridays @ 7 concert in addition to the festive @fterparty.
Friday evening’s patrons who didn’t ride the bus (it left at 6:00 p.m.) were encouraged to attend the 6:00 p.m. pre-concert st@rters in Reinberger Chamber Music Hall event, a lively sampling of Bobby Selvaggio’s unique saxophone artistry featuring the Bobby Selvaggio Quartet and Strings. Then came the hour-long Fridays @ 7 concert by The Cleveland Orchestra with guest conductor Manfred Honeck. The @fterparty brought the night to a high-energy close with a return to the roots of funk by the 11-piece music collective Mokaad. [Read more…]