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Cellist Mark Kosower highlights eclectic Canton Symphony Program (Oct. 27)

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by Tom Wachunas
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

After hearing the very eclectic program offered by the Canton Symphony Orchestra at Umstattdt Performing Arts Hall on October 27, I was finally convinced of something I had suspected on numerous previous occasions: every member of this ensemble, including music director Gerhardt Zimmermann, is an alchemist. What else could explain the transmutation of the instruments they play and the scores they read into vessels of such profound spirituality? [Read more…]

An Electrifying Bernstein Tribute from the Canton Symphony (Oct. 6)

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by Tom Wachunas

I was all of ten years old when I read Leonard Bernstein’s The Joy of Music for the first time. It was a cathartic experience, igniting in me a profoundly passionate appreciation of classical music. That inspiring book also fueled my regular viewing of Bernstein’s beloved Young People’s Concerts on television for the next several years. A particularly memorable highlight in one of those concerts was watching the composer conduct excerpts from his own Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. I was bitten by the Bernstein bug, benevolently infected by all those mad rhythms coming at me like so many punches amid a torrent of luscious orchestral colors. Now, more than 50 years later, that watershed moment of musical enthrallment returned a hundredfold on October 6 during the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s electrifying observance of the centenary of Leonard Bernstein. [Read more…]

CIPC Announces 2018 Prizes in Young Artists Competition

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by Daniel Hathaway

CIPC YA FInalists 2018

Customarily, the Cleveland International Piano Competition announces its winner late in the evening of its final round, which this year featured concertos with the Canton Symphony Orchestra on Friday evening, June 8 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. But for the Young Artists Competition this time around, CIPC kept its competitors and followers in suspense until an awards ceremony the following evening at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Here are the results (L-R: Shuan Hern Lee, Hao Wei Lin, Eva Gevorgyan, Xiaoxuan Li, Yunchan Lim, JiWon Yang):

JUNIOR DIVISION
First Prize ($10,000): Eva Gevorgyan (13, Russia)
Second Prize ($5,000): Yunchan Lim (13, South Korea)
Third Prize ($2,500): Hao Wei Lin (13, Taiwan)

SENIOR DIVISION
First Prize ($25,000): Xiaoxuan Li (16, China)
Second Prize ($10,000): Shuan Hern Lee (15, Australia)
Third Prize ($5,000): JiWon Yang (16, South Korea) [Read more…]

CIPC’s second Young Artist Competition to run from May 30 through June 9

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by Daniel Hathaway

CIPC-Young-ArtistsTwenty-two young pianists from eleven countries will flock to the Cleveland Institute of Music next week to compete in both junior and senior divisions of the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists. (Meet the contestants here.)

The competition — verging on a festival with the inclusion of several extra events — will be set in motion on Wednesday evening, May 30 with a 7:30 pm opening ceremony in Kulas Hall featuring Canadian pianist Leonid Nediak. Only 12 when he took home second prize in CIPC’s junior division in 2015, Nediak will play solo works before joining Liza Grossman and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. WCLV’s Robert Conrad will introduce all of the contestants from the stage, and a reception will follow.

Competition rounds begin on Thursday afternoon, May 31 in Kulas Hall and continue daily through the semifinal rounds on June 6, when three pianists in each of the junior (ages 12-14) and senior divisions (ages 15-17) will advance to the final round. That event, on Friday, June 8 at 7:30 pm at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, will feature concerto performances with Gerhardt Zimmermann and the Canton Symphony Orchestra. [Read more…]

Canton Symphony: Feasting on Carmina Burana (Apr. 21)

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by Tom Wachunas

CSO OrffThanks to all the pre-publicity surrounding this season-ending performance from the Canton Symphony Orchestra, there wasn’t an empty seat in Umstattd Performing Arts Hall on April 21. We were promised a musical feast of epic proportions, to be served piping-hot by 86 instrumentalists, combined choirs numbering more than 100 voices, three solo vocalists, and a modern dance troupe. So we arrived hungry. [Read more…]

An eclectic and illuminating concert by the Canton Symphony Orchestra

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by Tom Wachunas

Bruskin-Julia

I can only guess at why there were so many empty seats in the audience for the March 25 concert from the Canton Symphony Orchestra. If familiar classical music breeds ticket sales, perhaps this program was perceived (undeservedly) as too light-weight, or the selections too obscure. Or perhaps it was local Lenten fasting from orchestral music. In any case, it’s not my place to berate those otherwise faithful concertgoers who were missing in action on this occasion, except to say that they missed a real stunner.

[Read more…]

Canton Symphony: dazzling fluency in three vernaculars (Mar. 3)

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by Tom Wachunas

Klein-RandyThe thematic and formal diversity of the March 3 MasterWorks program by the Canton Symphony Orchestra was a compelling reminder that the sounds emanating from an orchestra constitute a language. Like any spoken language, those sounds can articulate a distinct vernacular — the parlance of a specific time and/or place. Here in Umstattdt Performing Arts Hall, the marvelous expressivity of the CSO was transportive, taking us from America’s Texas plains, then to the mid-20th century jazz era, and finally journeying back to the pinnacle of 18th century European classicism. [Read more…]

Two days, three clarinetists: Richard Hawkins, Allan Ware, and Randy Klein in Oberlin, Rocky River, and Canton

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by Jarrett Hoffman

TriClarinetCollage2A return to a concerto that brought with it a solo debut. The celebration of a long chamber music partnership and friendship. And one final concerto in a 22-year orchestral tenure.

Those landmarks in the careers of three clarinetists — Randy Klein, Richard Hawkins, and Allan Ware — can be heard across two days, March 3 and 5, in Canton, Oberlin, and Rocky River. On the docket are concertos by John Corigliano and Aaron Copland, and clarinet quintets by Carl Maria von Weber and Johannes Brahms.

The clarinet show begins on Saturday, March 3 at 7:30 pm in Umstattd Hall. Randy Klein will join his Canton Symphony colleagues and music director Gerhardt Zimmermann for the Copland Concerto, in between performances of Stephen Montague’s Snakebite and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.

“This is my last season in Canton,” Klein said in a recent conversation. “I’m retiring from the orchestra.”

[Read more…]

Canton Symphony: from impeccable Bach to sensational Mahler (Jan. 27)

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by Tom Wachunas

Bach-MahlerOne way to appreciate the program selections for the January 27 concert by the Canton Symphony Orchestra titled “German Genius,” is as a thrilling homage to the Austro-German tradition of classical music. While the program certainly wasn’t a comprehensive survey, it was nonetheless an astute, two-point perspective on that tradition, spanning nearly 200d years, from the Baroque-era seeds that took root and blossomed in the marvelous compositions of J.S. Bach, to the monumental, verdant pinnacles articulated by Gustav Mahler in the early 20th century. [Read more…]

Canton Symphony: A Christmas gem from Benjamin & a timeless gift from Beethoven (Dec. 3)

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by Tom Wachunas

Benjamin-EricIn the beginning, I thought that the Canton Symphony’s December 3 MasterWorks program, called “Gifts of Fate,” was a peculiar, even arbitrary pairing of very disparate works: The Secret Gift, a Christmas-themed symphonic poem of sorts, written in 2013 by American composer Eric Benjamin, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s iconic 1807 masterpiece, Symphony No. 5. But by evening’s end, I heard the connective light. [Read more…]

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