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Review: ChamberFest Cleveland — Ghost Opera at Kulas Hall, CIM (June 28)

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by Mike Telin

GO-Dancers

Ghosts from the past, the present and the future were brought to life on Saturday, June 28 in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. But these were not the ghosts made famous by Charles Dickens but rather, through a 4,000 year-old Chinese tradition, where humans, spirits of the past and future and nature communicate with one another. All of this happened during ChamberFest Cleveland’s spectacular production of Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera for String Quartet and Pipa, [Chinese lute] with Water, Stones, Paper and Metal. Commissioned by the Kronos Quartet nearly 20 years ago, ChamberFest added another dimension to the haunting work with the world premiere of inventive and stylistically sensitive choreography by Groundworks Theater artistic director David Shimotakahara. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland — 3X in Mixon Hall (June 29)

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by Nicholas Jones

CFC-June-29-TrioThree has been the magic number throughout ChamberFest 2014, and nowhere more than in its closing concert in CIM’s Mixon Hall on Sunday afternoon. The music was rich and, as usual with ChamberFest, the musicianship masterful. This very enjoyable program, titled “3X,” included three works, each featuring instruments in multiples of three.

The contribution of “three” was the well-known Beethoven Piano Trio in D, opus 70, known as the “Ghost.” Like other chamber works from Beethoven’s middle period, the “Ghost” is intense, full of contrasts that surprise and excite. Violinist Diana Cohen (ChamberFest’s artistic and executive director), cellist Gabriel Cabezas, and pianist Orion Weiss gave a performance that brought out both the strength and the subtlety of the piece. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Concert 5: Revolving Thirds: From Darkness to Light at Dunham Tavern (June 22)

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By Mike Telin

Oboe-Quartet

It appears that the stars have aligned for ChamberFest Cleveland’s third season birthday party. Inspired by the number three, Artistic Directors Diana Cohen and Franklin Cohen have put together some truly creative concert programs, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by my reviewer colleagues. And, as we have come to expect from ChamberFest, the performances by the outstanding group of musicians that have assembled for these concerts are second to none. Such was the case on Sunday, June 22, at Dunham Tavern Museum Barn, when the players – keeping with the number three – scored a Hat-Trick before a capacity crowd during a concert titled “Revolving Thirds: From Darkness to Light,” that featured music by Mozart, Penderecki and Schubert. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland: family concert with Alex Klein at MOCA Cleveland (June 21)

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By Mike Telin

KleinIn an interview last week, oboist Alex Klein told us that he looked forward to ChamberFest’s Family Concert. “I confess that when I was with the Chicago Symphony the thing I liked to do most were the family concerts. To walk on stage and hear the buzz of children talking is very stimulating.” Klein went on to say that his program would not be the typical Peter and the Wolf concert but rather would include works by experimental composers as well as portions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations arranged for sting trio. “OK I thought, a room full of kids listening to Berio and Xenakis – what could possibly go wrong?” On Saturday morning, June 21 a large number of families gathered at MOCA and were treated to a 50-minute concert that that held everyone in rapt attention.

“Today’s magic word is context. It’s the most important word in chamber music,” Klein told the crowd following a splendid performance of the opening movement of Kodaly’s Serenade performed by Diana Cohen and David Bowlin, violins, and violist Yura Lee. [Read more…]

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 Concert 4: The Harmony of Numbers at MOCA Cleveland (June 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CFC-June-21-Moretti-CabezasChamberFest Cleveland’s savvy programming strategy continued on Saturday, June 21 with a 5:00 pm concert at MOCA Cleveland that paired an edgy solo cello work by Iannis Xenakis with a daring arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations for string trio.

Johann Sebastian Bach has to be one of the most frequently arranged composers of all time, and we have yet to meet a rescoring of his music that didn’t work at least on some level. But taking a piece originally scored for two-manual harpsichord and reworking it for violin, viola and cello would seem to be a real stretch.

In keeping with ChamberFest’s obsession with the number three during its third season, there were that many reasons why this arrangement worked on Saturday. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland: Let’s Dance! at Harkness Chapel (June 23)

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by Nicholas Jones

Harkness-062313After opening with two intense concerts on Thursday and Friday, the musicians of ChamberFest Cleveland 2013 let their hair down on Sunday. This was my first opportunity to attend this second year of Franklin and Diana Cohen’s ambitious and highly successful venture, and it was a pleasure to be there with a hall full of Cleveland’s seasoned musical connoisseurs. In addition, thanks to the festival’s decision to give free tickets to 18-and-unders, there were a bunch of youngsters in the audience.

The first half was for strings only. The concert opened with a Boccherini quintet from Opus 11, the one with the famous Minuet that every beginning violinist learns. It is not a demanding piece, technically, but the excellent players brought to it every bit of their formidable technique anyway. Scrupulous attention to Boccherini’s dynamics made the most of his pre-Romantic expressionism, rich with ebbs and flows. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland at the Transformer Station — an impressive concert venue debut

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by Timothy Robson

Transformer-Station-062113In only its second season, ChamberFest Cleveland is already a summer musical force to be reckoned with. The brainchild of Cleveland Orchestra clarinet principal Franklin Cohen and his daughter, violinist Diana Cohen, the festival is akin to such notable gatherings as Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro or Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh, where the founders invite a “family” of musical guests — in this case, mostly rising artists — attuned to their own artistic goals, with a variety of programming in interesting venues.

The second concert of the 2013 season took place on Friday, June 21, at 9:00 pm (the better to enjoy the Summer Solstice sunlight?) at the Transformer Station, a new Ohio City gallery on W. 29th Street a block south of Detroit Avenue, developed by art collectors Laura and Fred Bidwell in collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Read more…]

Preview: ChamberFest Cleveland — conversations with cellist Gabriel Cabezas, speaker Patrick Castillo and composer Andrew Norman

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by Mike Telin

CABEZAS-GabrielBeginning on Thursday, June 20 and running through Sunday, June 30 with performances and activities in traditional concert and non-traditional venues around Cleveland, the 2013 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland has something to offer to all. During the past week we have had the opportunity to speak with three ChamberFest artists: returning guest speaker Patrick Castillo, composer Andrew Norman and the renowned young cellist Gabriel Cabezas (left), who will open this season’s festival with a free prelude recital on June 20 in Mixon Hall beginning at 7:00 pm. Cabezas, the winner of the 15th annual Sphinx Competition, and Sphinx’s 2012 Isaac Stern Award, will be joined by pianist Orion Weiss in a program that features the music of Janáček and Debussy.

Although Cabezas has already amassed an impressive list of performances with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the National Symphony of Costa Rica, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New World Symphony, and the Nashville Symphony, he says that he equally enjoys playing chamber music, “I really look forward to working with Orion and all of the musicians who will be part of ChamberFest.” In addition to Thursday’s recital Cabezas will also be part of the performances at the Transformer Station on June 21 andin Harkness Chapel on June 23. [Read more…]

Preview: ChamberFest Cleveland season two — (It’s) About Time — June 20-30

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by Mike Telin

COHEN-Frank-&-DianaFollowing on the heels of their highly successful premiere season, ChamberFest Cleveland artistic directors Frank and Diana Cohen have again assembled an impressive lineup of artists who will perform a variety of musical offerings in an expanded array of diverse venues.

Beginning on Thursday, June 20, and running through Sunday, June 30, (IT’S) ABOUT TIME explores the different elements of time as related to the musical experience, through metaphoric and literal representations of musical time. “We struggled a lot with the title,” Diana Cohen told us by Skype. “Our returning guest speaker, Patrick Castillo, had the idea that the title should be about the interesting aspects that exist in the relationship between time and music. We couldn’t come up with a name, then somebody said, ‘so, it’s about time,’ and it stuck.”

Cohen says the decision to expand to eight ticketed concerts as well as increasing the number of free programs this season was not easy. “There was a lot of debate in terms of how much we should expand, in part because what we liked about last season was the fact that everything was sold out in addition to the incredible amount of community support we received.” Cohen says that last season’s audience surveys, which were full of “honest” feedback,  helped them a lot in making decisions about this season. [Read more…]

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