Heather Headley Archives - Cleveland Classical

CityMusic with Heather Headley at Masonic Auditorium (May 28)

June 2, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Mike Telin

On Thursday, May 28 at Masonic Auditorium, CityMusic Cleveland, under the direction of Avner Dorman, presented the first of two performances featuring a percussion concerto on the first half and a selection of show tunes on the second. What do these two musical styles have in common? Perhaps nothing, but in the words of Duke Ellington, “if it sounds good it IS good,” and from beginning to end, this was one good concert. The performance was presented as part of CityMusic’s “Wishes and Dreams: A Homeless Children Project.” [Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland presents Wishes and Dreams, a Homeless Children Project

May 22, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Mike Telin

“One day my husband put an article on my desk about the plight of homeless children in New York City,” Eugenia Strauss, executive director of CityMusic Cleveland recalled during a recent telephone conversation. “I read the article and was astonished by the facts, so I began to make some telephone calls to find out what the situation is here in Cleveland.” What Strauss learned from those telephone calls became the seed that grew into CityMusic’s most recent project devoted to heightening community awareness of a social issue.

On Thursday, May 28 and Friday, May 29 at 8:00 pm in Masonic Auditorium Performing Arts Center, CityMusic Cleveland, under the direction of Avner Dorman, will present Wishes and Dreams, a Homeless Children Project. The concert will feature the Grammy- and Tony Award-Winning singer Heather Headley (pictured above). The program will also include Dorman’s Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! featuring percussionists Luke Rinderknecht and Haruka Fuji. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra dazzles with French music, a tribute to Coltrane and Gershwin’s An American in Paris (Jan. 9)

by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally posted on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — You might think that an orchestra that excels in the Austro-German repertoire could prove to be the wrong tool for the special demands of French music. But think again.

On Thursday evening, January 9, at Severance Music Center, guest conductor Stéphane Denève and The Cleveland Orchestra gave elegant, witty, and transparent accounts of works by Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc, worked with soloist Steven Banks in Guillaume Connesson’s wildly virtuosic saxophone concerto honoring John Coltrane, and explored George Gershwin’s ebullient An American in Paris from the point of view of a Frenchman on the podium. [Read on…]

Fireworks in the key of D Major: Cooper Violin Competition Finals (Jan. 10)

by Stephanie Manning

With light snow and a winter wind blowing outside Oberlin’s Finney Chapel, the Final Round of the 2025 Cooper Competition — the January edition of the usual August event — looked a bit different this year. And yet, there was also a healthy sense of déjà vu.

The final three violinists, narrowed down from an initial field of nineteen, presented concertos by Brahms (once) and Tchaikovsky (twice) — coincidentally, the same program from 2022, the last time the competition was held for violin.

Joined by the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra and conductor Norman Huynh, this year’s finalists delivered an impressive evening of performances on January 10. [Read on…]

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