by Kevin McLaughlin
The Cleveland Orchestra’s final classical concert at Blossom Music Center on Saturday, like the last rose of summer, was the unexpected apogee of the season. Transforming a generic-sounding program titled “Impressions of France and Spain,” conductor Fabien Gabel captivated in works of Ravel, de Falla, and Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, with which soloist Simone Lamsma won everyone’s heart.
by Nicholas Stevens
Tell a classical fan that you recently heard an ensemble play a piece from the 1920s that features a solo snare drum, and their mind might snap to any of a number of dubious ultramodern experiments of that era. A late October program by The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, at once offbeat and logical in its selection of delights, short-circuited stereotypical associations of the idiosyncratic with the avant-garde. Ovations for percussionist Marc Damoulakis and clarinetist Afendi Yusuf capped a concert devoted to Romanticism in all its strangeness. [Read more…]
Bassoonist Gareth Thomas, violinist Analisé Denise Kukelhan and oboist Corbin Stair will join the ranks of The Cleveland Orchestra during the winter and spring of 2015. [Read more…]