by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Cooper Competition: the winners, and their winnings
•New appointments: Gabe Pollack as director of performing arts at CMA, Brian Wendel as principal trombone of The Cleveland Orchestra
•Les Délices tickets on sale
•Almanac: the trailblazing George Walker
COOPER WINNERS:
The results of the Cooper International Competition came in late on Friday evening, August 19. In the final round — a performance with the Canton Symphony under Gerhardt Zimmermann — Seohyun Kim (13, Seoul) played the Brahms Violin Concerto en route to winning First Prize.
That award comes with $20,000, a two-year partnership with MKI Artists (to include up to ten engagements in concerto or recital settings in the U.S.), and the opportunity to give the world premiere of a new six-minute work for violin and orchestra by Jeff Scott. Kim will also have exclusive rights to the piece for two years, during which time she will be loaned a rare Italian instrument from Jonathan Solars Fine Violins of New York.
The Cleveland Orchestra worked overtime last weekend, making every note count. The season at Severance Music Center came to a close with final performances of Verdi’s Otello, plus two additional programs that showed just how much repertoire the players can master. These special, one-off concerts, presented under the banner “Breaking Convention,” fit the experimental model the ensemble has established in recent years, trying out tricky music in unconventional formats around the schedule of an opera.
On Saturday, November 1 at 8:00 pm in Finney Chapel, guest violinist Gregory Walker will join the Oberlin Orchestra under the direction of Raphael Jiménez in a performance of George Walker’s Poème for violin and orchestra. The concert also includes Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2.