by Daniel Hathaway
Members of The Cleveland Orchestra and friends who perform from time to time as the Cleveland Chamber Collective presented the premiere of a work by Geoffrey Peterson and the sneak preview of a Cleveland Orchestra-commissioned piccolo concerto in a chamber format. Filling out the program were well-known pieces by Beethoven and Debussy, performed in front of a small audience at Disciple’s Christian Church in Cleveland Heights on Sunday evening, March 1. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
For hundreds of years some of the greatest music ever written was composed for houses of worship — think of composers such as Palestrina, J.S. Bach, and Moses Hogan. “It’s no mystery why music is so important in the life of a church, but people here can’t seem to get enough of it,” said Geoffrey Peterson, Director of Music and the Arts at John Knox Presbyterian Church in North Olmsted.
On Friday, October 28 at 8:00 pm, the John Knox Performance Series will kick off its third season with a performance by the Cleveland Chamber Choir under the direction of Scott MacPherson. The program, titled “Americana,” will include music by William Billings, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, John Cage, Samuel Barber, and Stephen Foster, as well as folk songs and spirituals. Read a concert preview here. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Friday, April 24 at 7:00 pm, the John Knox Performance Series will present Verb Ballets in a production of Geoffrey Peterson’s Edmund Fitzgerald, a concerto for piano and strings, choreographed by Richard Dickinson. The performance will be held in Trinity Hall at John Knox Presbyterian Church in North Olmsted. Seating reservations required: see our concert listings page for details.
Dickinson’s choreography of Peterson’s concerto was premiered during the 2014 NEOSonicFest. Prior to the premiere, ClevelandClassical.com spoke to Richard Dickinson and Geoffrey Peterson about the work. The following preview was originally published on March 26, 2014.
Geoffrey Peterson’s concerto chronicles the tragic shipwreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in November, 1975. Its four movements are entitled “Embarkment,” “The Gales,” “Six-Fathom Shoal” (‘We’re holding our own’) and “Entombment-Dirge.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
NEOSonicFest opens on Friday, March 28 at 7:30 pm in Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall, when Steven Smith leads the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in a program that features Ed London’s Melodrama and Federico’s Follies. The concert also includes Geoffrey Peterson’s The Edmund Fitzgerald, a concerto for piano and strings with Nicholas Underhill as soloist, and special guests Verb Ballets, Richard Dickinson, choreographer.
Geoffrey Peterson’s concerto chronicles the tragic shipwreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in November, 1975. Its four movements are entitled “Embarkment,” “The Gales,” “Six-Fathom Shoal” (“We’re holding our own”) and “Entombment-Dirge”. The concerto makes use of several musical quotes. The first is Spanish Ladies, an English sea chantey, which appears in both the first and third movements. The second is the funeral march theme from the second movement of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, which is heard in the fourth movement of the concerto. In addition, a chime is rung 29 times during the final bars of the piece to memorialize the men who lost their lives.