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DIARY: Weekend of August 12-14, 2022

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by Stephanie Manning

IN THIS EDITION:

•Lots of pianos on stage this weekend at Lakeside, Blossom, and The Madison

•How climate change is affecting summer venues

•Almanac: remembering Janáček, Massanet, and Persichetti

CONCERTS AND EVENTS:

This weekend of piano features will kick off with the Lakeside Symphony, which will close out its 59th summer residency in Lakeside Chautauqua tonight at 7:30 pm. Due to a soloist change, pianist David Allen Wehr will now perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in A, and conductor Daniel Meyer will also lead the ensemble in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel). Click here to purchase pass and parking.

[Read more…]

Giancarlo Guerrero’s return to Cleveland is “like coming home”

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by Mike Telin

“For me, coming back to Cleveland is like coming home,” conductor Giancarlo Guerrero said during a Zoom conversation from Nashville where he has served as music director of the Nashville Symphony since 2009. “The Cleveland Orchestra was my family for almost ten years and this concert is the project this year that I am looking forward to the most because of my history with this orchestra — I am beyond excited to see everyone.”

On Saturday August 13 at 7:00 pm Guerrero will return to Blossom Music Center to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program that features Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Daniil Trifonov, and John Adams’ Harmonielehre. (Note update: Lukáš Vondráček will make his Orchestra debut, stepping in for Daniil Trifonov after an acute arm injury.) Purchase tickets here. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with organist Paul Jacobs (Nov. 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

jacobs-pedal-solo-092916The menu for The Cleveland Orchestra’s Thanksgiving Weekend concerts may have resembled a potluck more than a well-balanced meal, but the main course, Stephen Paulus’s continuously imaginative Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra with Paul Jacobs at the Severance Hall E.M. Skinner, left you wanting a second helping of the late composer’s music. [Read more…]

Conductor Vinay Parameswaran to make COYO debut December 1st

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by Mike Telin

Vinay Parameswaran“When I was in middle and high school I played percussion in the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and those six years were incredibly formative for me,” conductor Vinay Parameswaran said during a telephone interview. “It confirmed my love for classical music, and told me that I wanted to be around it in some capacity. It’s been nice coming back to those years in youth orchestra that meant so much to me.”

On Friday, December 1 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, Parameswaran will make his debut as music director and conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. Tickets are available online.

Parameswaran, who also serves as assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra, said that he’s “had a blast” working with the young COYO musicians. “There’s so much talent in that group. The energy and enthusiasm they bring to this music is unparalleled. They’ve really grasped this repertoire, and I can’t wait to see them in action on Friday.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra to premiere Avner Dorman’s Siklòn in Miami

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by Mike Telin

DORMAN-Avner2In his composer notes for his new work titled Siklòn, the Haitian Creole word for hurricane, Avner Dorman writes, “As I had the opportunity to tour different neighborhoods in Miami and meet artists, musicians, and other members of the community, I was struck by the energy of the people. The mingling of different cultures, foods, politics, and arts concocts a whirlwind of energy that is unique to the city of Miami.”

This weekend the Cleveland Orchestra’s 10th Anniversary Miami season will conclude with performances on March 17, 18, and 19 in Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center led by Cleveland Orchestra Miami principal guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. The concerts will feature the world premiere of Dorman’s new work, commissioned for The Cleveland Orchestra by the Arsht Center to celebrate the organizations’ ten-year partnership. [Read more…]

CIM musicians and performers with local ties win Grammy Nominations (updated)

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Vieaux-JasonCleveland Institute of Music faculty members Jason Vieaux, Jaime Laredo, Alan Bise and Bruce Egre and pianist Daniil Trifonov are among the nominees for the 57th Grammy Awards, to be presented in Los Angeles on February 8. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Giancarlo Guerrero and cellist Alisa Weilerstein (Nov. 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Weilerstein-Alisa2The Elgar concerto was on the agenda for Cleveland native and international cello heroine Alisa Weilerstein’s most recent homecoming. On Thursday evening at Severance Hall, Weilerstein put her individual stamp on that iconic work in a penetrating and daring performance with The Cleveland Orchestra and Giancarlo Guerrero. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra with pianists Mitsuko Uchida (April 3) and Yuja Wang (April 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

UchidaMitsuko Uchida is in the course of revisiting selected Mozart concertos after completing a whole cycle of those ravishing pieces with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall from 2002-2007. On Thursday, April 3 she reprised No. 18 in B-flat and No. 19 in F. Between the two, the Orchestra offered Mozart’s early “Symphony” No. 23. The entire concert, including intermission, lasted about 90 minutes.

As Mozart did when he played the solo part, Uchida led the performance from the keyboard, in this case facing upstage at the lidless Steinway. Her graceful, flowing hand gestures served as manual choreography, shaping the music rather than keeping things together — not much of an issue with The Cleveland Orchestra, who are famously alert and responsive to each other.

The soloist’s bio in the program book notes that “Mitsuko Uchida is a performer who brings deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty.” That Apollonian approach to interpretation results in lovely, balanced, fluent and quite flawless performances, as the near-capacity audience who turned out for her latest appearance would surely agree. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra with Bela Fleck (December 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The ticketsFLECK-Bela touted American in Paris, the publicity focused on Bela Fleck and his new Banjo Concerto, but the centerpiece of Thursday evening’s Cleveland Orchestra concert at Severance Hall led by guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero was Aaron Copland’s wonderful ballet suite from Billy and the Kid, first played by Rodzinsky and the orchestra at subscription concerts in 1943 but thereafter mostly relegated to educational concerts and summertime at Blossom.

Somehow, the Brooklyn-born Copland — paralleling the background of New York-born cowboy Wiliam Bonney, the subject for Lincoln Kirstein’s 1938 ballet — managed to evoke the wide open spaces and the joys and sorrows of the Wild West in music that is unmistakeably and iconically “American”. The suite is a terrific piece of orchestral choreography full of stories, scenes, moods, colors and rhythms that creates its own brilliant scenario without a dancer in sight. [Read more…]

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