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Per Enflo to return to Chagrin Series for Mozart concertos on January 21

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by Daniel Hathaway

EnfloMost of us feel fortunate if we can make a dent in a single professional career. Thus it’s inspiring that Per Enflo has distinguished himself both as a theoretical mathematician and a concert pianist. His interest in those parallel but distinct disciplines dates from his childhood in Sweden, where he first showed an aptitude for mathematics and played his first full recital on a professional concert series at the age of 11.

As a mathematician, Enflo has cracked several seemingly unsolvable problems in functional analysis while teaching at Berkeley, Stanford, the École Polytechnique in Paris, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In 1989, he was appointed one of three “University Professors” at Kent State. In addition to teaching mathematics, he also worked on such cross-disciplinary issues as the zebra mussel invasion and the phosphorus loading of Lake Erie, anthropology and human evolution, and acoustics and noise reduction. Upon retirement in 2012, he moved back to Sweden, but still makes regular appearances in the States.

This weekend, Enflo will return to Northeast Ohio to play Mozart’s 17th and 21st Concertos with the Cleveland Virtuosi on the Chagrin Concert Series at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. [Read more…]

Brahms, Schubert & Schumann on Chagrin Series opener (October 15)

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by Robert Rollin

ChagrinPianoQuartetLast Sunday afternoon, October 15, the Chagrin Concert Series presented an exceptional concert of romantic music at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. The highlight was a magnificent performance of Johannes Brahms’s f-minor Piano Quintet, Op. 34. The Allegro non troppo begins with a powerful unison statement. Soon pianist Sungeun Kim’s energetic playing commanded the foreground, as the strings periodically emerged to double her. [Read more…]

Chagrin Concert Series: “The Poet Speaks” — reflections by artistic director Hristo Popov

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by Daniel Hathaway

POPOVOn Sunday, April 10 at 3:00 pm, the Chagrin Concert Series will present its final concert of the season at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. We emailed artistic director Hristo Popov some questions about the series and Sunday’s program.

Daniel Hathaway: What’s in store for the audience this Sunday afternoon in Chagrin Falls?

Hristo Popov: The last concert of the our season features Johannes Brahms’s Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91, performed by mezzo-soprano Lara Nie, cellist Kent Collier, and pianist Sungeun Kim; Manuel de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas performed by myself, Lara and Sungeun; and ends with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet performed by the previously mentioned instrumentalists plus Barton Samuel Rotberg on violin and Wanda Sobieska on viola. [Read more…]

Chagrin Concert Series: Chamber Trios with Popov, Klug & Charnofsky (Mar. 6)

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by Robert Rollin

Chagrin-Concerts-030616The 2015/2016 Chagrin Concert Series lists as its mission statement “bringing fine classical music concerts to the greater Chagrin Falls community.” Last Sunday afternoon’s trio recital fulfilled this goal and more. It brought to the table an entire concert of exceptionally deserving but rarely heard 20th-century works, presented with amazing flair and verve. [Read more…]

Chagin Concert Series: a conversation with guest clarinetist Howard Klug

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by Daniel Hathaway

KLUG-HowardThe Chagrin Concert Series continues on Sunday, March 6 at 3:00 pm in Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls with a free performance of trios and duos by violinist Hristo Popov, clarinetist Howard Klug, and pianist Eric Charnofsky.

Howard Klug is Professor of Clarinet in The Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. We reached him in Bloomington, Indiana to ask about the music he and his colleagues will be playing on Sunday. [Read more…]

Chagrin Concert Series: a chat with mezzo-soprano Lara Nie

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by Daniel Hathaway

NIE-LaraNew York-based mezzo-soprano Lara Nie and her long-time keyboard collaborator, Brandt Fredricksen, will join violinist Hristo Popov for the final concert in this year’s Chagrin Concert Series at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls on Sunday, April 26 at 3:00 pm. The concert is free, but donations are welcome.

“I wanted to sing pieces that move me, but are also related to one another,” Nie said in a telephone conversation. The title of the program, “Songs of Spring — Love and Life,” could embrace a vast range of music, but Nie has carefully chosen her repertoire and had some insightful remarks to share.

“I don’t often sing in English,” Nie said, who has been praised for her performances of Lieder and operatic roles. “But since I’m singing for an English-speaking audience, I thought I’d give them an all-English program.” [Read more…]

Opera Circle: Cavalleria rusticana at First Baptist Church (November 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

OC-Cav-1In just over an hour, betrayal and jealousy in a Sicilian village spill over into tragedy in Pietro Mascagni’s one-act classic opera, Cavalleria rusticana — all the while accompanied by some gorgeous music. Opera Circle staged two performances of “Cav” last weekend at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. I saw the opening performance on Friday evening, November 21. [Read more…]

Opera Circle to stage Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana at First Baptist

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cast-Montage

One of the most popular of all opera titles came about through a contest. 27-year-old Pietro Mascagni barely made the deadline for a new opera competition set up by Milanese publisher Edoardo Sonzogno in 1888, but won out over 72 other aspiring young Italian composers who fulfilled the entrance criterion of never before having had an opera staged. His winning entry, the one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana, received its premiere in Rome in 1890.

Although Mascagni lived until 1945 and penned fourteen other stage works, none ever received the attention that “Cav” attracted. Cleveland’s Opera Circle, having previously produced Mascagni’s second opera, L’Amico Fritz, will mount two staged performances of Cavalleria rusticana on Friday evening, November 21 and Sunday afternoon, November 23, at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. [Read more…]

Preview: Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series ends season with Mozart, Dvořák and Shostakovich on April 6

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by Daniel Hathaway

April-6,-'14-poster“It’s a piece of epic proportions with so many emotions from deep sorrow to sarcasm,” violinist Hristo Popov told us in a telephone conversation. “The Shostakovich Piano Quintet has a lot in common with the current political environment in Eastern Europe, and should be very appealing to people on both sides.”

Popov, who is artistic director of the Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series, has chosen the Shostakovich, along with chamber works by Mozart and Dvořák, for the season finale of the series on Sunday, April 6 at 3:00 pm in Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. The concert is free.

Shostakovich, who had a complicated relationship with the Stalinist government of the USSR, falling in and out of official favor on a regular basis, wrote his only chamber work for piano and string quartet in 1940, a piece that has been described as both rigorous and accessible. It was enthusiastically received at its first performance by Shostakovich and the Beethoven Quartet, who encored both the scherzo and finale.

[Read more…]

Review: Stopping in at two Sunday afternoon concerts — Lara Nie with Cleveland Virtuosi in Chagrin Falls, Buck McDaniel at Trinity Cathedral

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by Daniel Hathaway

NIE-LaraArea concertgoers had their choice of at least seventeen concerts to attend on Sunday, December 15. I took the opportunity to stop in for two events which were of particular interest.

New York-based mezzo-soprano Lara Nie was featured with the Cleveland Virtuosi Orchestra in an afternoon holiday concert presented by Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. I caught the first half of the performance, which departed from holiday music in the direction of singer’s choice. Nie had always wanted to perform the aria, Erbarme dich from J.S. Bach’s Matthew-Passion — and a pair of Handel’s opera arias — with violinist and artistic director Hristo Popov, and this occasion was the perfect opportunity.

The Virtuosi, an eleven-member string ensemble with harpsichord conducted by Michael Gelfand, opened with a lush reading of Bach’s chorale from Cantata BWV 147, known in English as Jesu, joy of Man’s desiring. [Read more…]

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