by Kevin McLaughlin
Joseph Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto has had an unusual life. Written in the 1760s, likely for the Esterházy cellist Joseph Weigl, it disappeared for nearly two centuries before resurfacing in a Prague museum in 1961. Since then it has become central to the cello repertory — admired for its clarity, proportion, and wit.
Mark Kosower, principal cello of The Cleveland Orchestra, brought distinction to the Heights Chamber Orchestra’s program on Sunday, March 22 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, shaping Haydn’s Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Andante cantabile with clarity and poise. He made Haydn’s charm into a jewel, and the afternoon into something memorable.
Kosower is a smiling, modest man onstage, but his musicianship told the larger story. His playing was assured and clear, his passagework was clean and sonorous, and his phrasing logical. In the intimate space, you could watch his left hand at work — precise, disciplined, like five little soldiers carrying out orders. The cadenzas in all three movements were his own — feats of daring in classical style, full of well-turned, lucid flourishes.
Dean Buck grew up on the West Side of Cleveland, then headed to New York City for four years of school and five years of work. Now he’s back, pursuing a master’s in conducting at the Cleveland Institute of Music and digging into the city’s freelance scene.
The Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at the Temple Tifereth-Israel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University will present a new 
For the fourth event in its five-concert, 32nd season, Heights Chamber Orchestra invited pianist Emanuela Friscioni to be its guest artist in a rare performance of Francis Poulenc’s Piano Concerto. The largely avocational orchestra is playing its first season under its new music director, Mark Allen McCoy. In addition to the Poulenc, HCO offered its audience Charles Gounod’s Funeral March of a Marionette and Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 6 in C at First Baptist Church on Sunday afternoon, March 29. 
