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Good Company in music by women composers (Nov. 10)

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by Nicholas Stevens

“Greatness,” as a measure of artistic merit, has a fatal flaw: experts and enthusiasts have to will it into existence. As with a ship’s christening, conferral requires masters of ceremonies, an assenting crowd, a suspension of disbelief, and an intoxicant: in this case, a love of the art form. Bias seeps in all too easily. In the past, some denied that entire groups of artists, such as composers who were women, could ever achieve greatness — a falsehood long since aged to unpalatable bitterness. Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble, joining forces with Amethyst Strings and Windsong, focused on versatility, variety, and vastness of vision in a recent concert of music by women. Together, the groups decanted diverse vintages, finding greatness by the barrel. [Read more…]

Good Company with composer Ola Gjeilo at Lakewood Presbyterian (Nov. 3)

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by Timothy Robson

Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble presented what was likely the biggest project in the group’s 23-year history this past weekend — a two-day residency with Ola Gjeilo (pronounced yay-loh), a Norwegian-born composer now based in the United States. On Saturday, November 3, Gjeilo led a workshop about his music with members of Good Company and singers from Bay Village High School and elsewhere. On Sunday afternoon, Good Company music director Mike Carney led a concert of fifteen of Gjeilo’s works to a packed sanctuary at Lakewood Presbyterian Church, with the Amethyst Strings and the composer at the piano for several selections. [Read more…]

Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble in “Winter’s Fire” (January 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

GC January FlyerLeave it to Cleveland to produce spring-like weather in mid-January on a day when your chorus is singing a hibernal program about walking on crunchy snow, sitting in front of cozy fires, and driving the cold winter away. Never mind. The splendid repertory Michael Carney chose for Good Company’s “Winter Fire” concert on Sunday afternoon, January 21 at Lakewood Presbyterian Church perfectly evoked the season that wasn’t. [Read more…]

Save the dates for some January concert highlights

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by Daniel Hathaway

Westminster ChoirClassical music begins stirring from its long holiday nap during the first two weeks of January, revving up from adagio to allegro by mid-month.

The Westminster Choir — the flagship ensemble of Westminster Choir College, now part of New Jersey’s Rider University, will make a stop at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle on Saturday, January 6 at 7:30 pm during its winter tour. Joe Miller will conduct the ensemble in Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir (1926), György Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna (1966), and music by Joel Phillips, Tim Brent, Edward C. Bairstow, Ailo Alcala and Randall Thompson.

Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra will make a big splash the weekend of January 11 with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 and a new work by Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud. Stromab (“Downstream”) is inspired by what Staud calls “one of the finest horror stories of all time,” Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows, a tale of two young people who canoe down the Danube and discover a lonely island where weird things swirl around them. Mahler 9, the composer’s last symphony, has been described by Herbert von Karajan as “music coming from another world, from eternity.” There are performances on Thursday the 11th at 7:30 pm and on Friday and Saturday the 12th and 13th at 8:00 pm.

Another major work will be featured the following week when soprano Golda Schultz, tenor Maximilian Schmidt, and baritone Thomas Hampson join Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in Haydn’s The Seasons. Performances are scheduled for Thursday, January 18 at 7:30 and Saturday, January 20 at 8:00 pm. In between, Welser-Möst and the Orchestra will play all-Beethoven on Friday, January 19 at 8:00 pm — Symphonies 1 and 3 and the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus. [Read more…]

Good Company: “I Dream a World” at Lakewood Presbyterian (May 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

good-companyGood Company: A Vocal Ensemble gave an immensely varied concert at Lakewood Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon, May 21 under its new conductor, Michael Carney, who replaces the avocational chorus’s founder, the late Karen Weaver. The entertaining program followed an unusual format: Amethyst Strings played a prelude (a movement from J.S. Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto), an intermission piece (Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah), and a postlude (a movement from Mozart’s Divertimento No. 1). [Read more…]

Save the dates: January events to log in your classical music calendar

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by Daniel Hathaway

gaffigan-jamesFormer assistant conductor James Gaffigan will return to the podium at Severance Hall from Thursday, January 5 through Saturday, January 7 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein in Bernard Hermann’s Suite from Psycho, Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, the original, jazz band version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Performances include Thursday and Saturday evenings, a Friday matinee and a Fridays@7 event.

From January 6-8, the Philadelphia-based vocal ensemble, The Crossing, will give sixeen performances of David Lang’s Lifespan in Gallery 218 — the glass house that rises above the Cleveland Museum of Art’s East Boulevard façade. Surrounding a 4-billion-year-old rock suspended from the ceiling, three vocalists will whistle and breathe, moving the rock like a pendulum, “a poetic form of wind erosion” (read a preview here). Performances are scheduled for Friday at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 7:45 and 8:30 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday on the hour from noon to 4:00 pm. Weigh in on your experience by sharing your own comments on the ClevelandClassical.com Facebook page. [Read more…]

Musical life after the holidays:
a cornucopia of January concerts

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by Daniel Hathaway

Bronfman-FWM-TCONow that winter has finally arrived and the excitement of the holidays has subsided, it’s tempting to burrow in and hibernate for a few weeks. But there’s plenty to do during January. Let’s have a look at some of what the month has to offer, beginning with orchestra concerts.

Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra are back at work early in the month with a round of all-Beethoven concerts from January 7-9 featuring pianist Yefim Bronfman (left) in the third piano concerto, and Bronfman and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in the Choral Fantasy. Soprano Barbara Hannigan will be featured in the U.S. premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you on January 14 and 15, sharing a program with Dmitri Shostakovich’s fourth symphony. On Saturday the 16th, Robert Porco will lead the annual Martin Luther King Jr Celebration, followed by a Severance Hall Open House on Monday the 17th from 12 Noon to 5 pm. Community ensemble performances will be bracketed by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus (12:30) and Youth Orchestra (4:15). The Cleveland Philharmonic will host its own MLK Observance at Tri-C Metro Auditorium on Sunday, January 17. [Read more…]

Good Company, Stambaugh Chorus & West Shore Chorale announce auditions

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Good-Company1Three area choruses have announced openings for new members and audition details for the 2015-2016 concert season.

Good Company, a mixed chorus “focusing on classical chamber repertoire covering many centuries and composers, numerous languages and many styles,” is planning to present four concerts under the direction of Karen Weaver. The group rehearses on Monday evenings in Lakewood from September through May. To read more about the ensemble and to schedule an audition, visit the Good Company website. [Read more…]

Good Company announces new composer competition

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Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble announces a new composer competition open to composers born after January 1, 1990 or who are full time, post-high school students. The ensemble welcomes original, previously-unperformed works for four-part mixed chorus, either a cappella or with piano or organ accompaniment lasting from 3-5 minutes, to be submitted by November 1. The winning piece will be performed on May 17, 2015 and its composer will receive a cash award of $500. Details here.

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