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Cleveland Chamber Choir shines with music to mark the hours and seasons (Oct. 25)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Often called The Vespers, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil reaches for something beyond an evening service. Its fifteen movements, rooted in Russian Orthodox chant, rise and surround like incense — not to display magnificence, but to deepen the mystery. Rachmaninoff was so fond of the work that he requested the fifth movement, the Nunc dimittis, be sung at his funeral.

On Friday evening, October 25, the Cleveland Chamber Choir, directed by Gregory Ristow, presented this monumental work in Trinity Cathedral — a resonant space of tradition and calm, where the beauty of the setting matched the beauty of the sound.

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BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir: “I Believe!” (May 17)

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by Peter Feher

Trust in a higher purpose is part of what’s sustained BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir for many seasons now.

So it was fitting that the two local ensembles came together in a concert titled “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith” on May 17 at Trinity Cathedral. The evening not only marked major milestones for BlueWater and CCC — their 15th and 10th anniversaries, respectively — but also spoke to a shared mission. Making classical music more accessible is a priority for both organizations, whether through pay-what-you-wish performances or programming that forges new connections.

Saturday’s concert paired Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c in a righteous demonstration of belief that swelled to fill the magnificent space of Trinity.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir: “Little Match Girl Passion”

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by Mike Telin

Cleveland Chamber Choir will present a program centered around David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion on December 20 and 21 at the Cleveland School of the Arts. Artistic Director Gregory Ristow has curated a playlist of Christmas music to precede Lang’s piece — a modern day retelling of the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen story influenced by J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion — and followed by his own arrangement of Good King Wenceslas, the classic Christmas Carol about supporting those in need.

In a recent interview Ristow said, “The Little Match Girl Passion has become a piece that’s performed a lot around the holidays — a time that a lot of us take a moment to stop and think about people who are in need and our and society’s role in supporting them.” The concerts are presented in partnership with Northeast Ohio Food Bank. Register for free tickets for the 7:30 pm performances here.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir sparkles in “Choral Splendor: Old and New” (Mar. 2)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Composers are always looking back to their elders — and whether out of deference, anxiety, homage, or a desire to understand, it is right and good to admit your debt to the past.

Several contemporary composers (Claudia Hinsdale, Jeff Scott, Joshua Estok, Andrew Rindfleisch, and Caroline Shaw) honored old masters — and did themselves honor in return — in a satisfying program of pairings on Saturday, March 2, at the First Lutheran Church of Lorain. Artistic director Gregory Ristow and the exceptional voices of the Cleveland Chamber Choir were their co-travelers in time.

As one of the earliest examples of a composer referencing an older style, Crucifixum in carne (probably by Medieval composer Pérotin, looking back at the anonymous original) served as an appropriate introduction. Here, the old was intertwined with the new as an elongated cantus firmus undergirded fancy new polyphony. Sung by thirteen unaccompanied male voices led by assistant conductor Peter Wright, the piece resonated warmly in the sanctuary.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir — “Choral Splendor: Old and New”

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by Mike Telin

“On some level, all music is in dialogue with the art that came before it,” Cleveland Chamber Choir artistic director Greg Ristow writes in his artistic statement for the ensemble’s upcoming program. “But, when a composer pays direct homage to an older piece, it creates a loop that draws these works together in a conversation that’s possible only in non-linear time, and that reflects our own experience as listeners hearing music of many eras in the context of our modern times.”

On Saturday, March 2 at 7:00 pm in First Lutheran Church of Lorain and on Sunday, March 3 at 4:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ristow will lead the ensemble in “Choral Splendor: Old and New.”

The program creates six “time loops” of older pieces and newer responses performed side by side: Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus will be paired with Claudia Hinsdale’s Joy: A Variation on Allegri’s Miserere, Sebastien de Vivanco’s In Manus Tuas with Andrew Rindfleisch’s In Manus Tuas: A Parody Motet, and Dietrich Buxtehude’s “Ad manus” from 
Membra Jesu Nostri with Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir: “Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula” (Dec. 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

A gorgeous and frequently surprising offering of Christmas and Hanukkah music from Renaissance Spain and Portugal was the focus of Cleveland Chamber Choir’s program “Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula” on Saturday, December 16 in First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland.

Voices and instruments resonated in this grand space without losing focus. For people who wonder why the Renaissance cultivated an unadorned vocal style that did not favor thick vibrato, this concert offered an explanation: the music of the era was conceived for spaces like this one, where voices resound naturally, and words come through clearly. Under the direction of Artistic Director Gregory Ristow, tempos took on a certain speech-like freedom that gave rightful primacy to the words. The projection and translation of texts above the stage also helped to convey meaning.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir: 
“Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula”

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by Mike Telin

“I can’t count the number of holiday programs I have conducted in my life,” Greg Ristow said during a telephone conversation. “But I think I’m more excited about this one than any I’ve ever conducted because the music is all so fun — there’s no other way to put it.”

On Friday, December 15 at 8:00 pm in Oberlin’s Fairchild Chapel, Ristow will lead the Cleveland Chamber Choir in “Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula.” The program includes works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Matteo Flecha el Viejo, Vicente Lusitano, and Salamone Rossi, as well as music from the Sephardic Jewish tradition. The free program will be repeated on Saturday the 16th at 7:00 pm at First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland.

While the concert will feature many audience favorites, Ristow noted that it also includes a number of long-hidden gems, including Flecha’s La Bomba, which opens the program. “He wrote in a genre we call ensalada, the Spanish word for salad, because it is as if you take snippets of madrigals, snippets of church polyphony, and snippets of Renaissance dance, and put them all together in a giant salad bowl and shake them up. And the result is this delightful, constantly changing mix of styles.”

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Oberlin Artist Recital Series: Roomful of Teeth with the Oberlin College Choir (Feb. 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Roomful1Brad Wells’ groundbreaking vocal octet, Roomful of Teeth, spent a few days last week on the Oberlin College campus, giving demonstrations, holding master classes, and answering questions before joining Greg Ristow’s Oberlin College Choir in a jaw-dropping, larynx-challenging concert in Finney Chapel. [Read more…]

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