The days become shorter and hotter. School resumes. Vacationers unpack. We all know how this part of the summer feels: at once hazy and pell-mell, static and sped up. Northeast Ohioans can celebrate the fact that, for the fifth year running, The Cleveland Orchestra is inviting listeners into its cool urban home for the Summers@Severance series. In the second of three concerts, conductor Vasily Petrenko made good on the Orchestra’s new vow to tell “stories…without a single word,” through music born of travel and migration.
The repertoire for brass quintet embraces a range of periods and styles. Arrangements of vocal music take on a certain muscle and gleam, Baroque pieces ring triumphant, classics gain in pep, and recent music can audibly push the ensemble’s limits. Jazz often makes for a natural fit. Small wonder, then, that the Dana Brass Quintet delighted in a program at Hudson’s Christ Church on April 8 with a program that incorporated all of the above. [Read more…]