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ChamberFest takes its audience on a journey in “Songs, Signs, and Souvenirs” (June 28)

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by Stephanie Manning

During this year’s ChamberFest, the “Lost and Found” theme showed up in all kinds of ways. Sometimes that meant performing recently-unearthed works from historic composers like Mozart and Chopin. Sometimes it referred to an emotional resonance, as when Judith Markovich’s music told the story of the grief and loss of a son.

But the listener has a role to play in this as well. As ChamberFest’s past Board chair Rebecca Carmi reminded the audience on June 28, getting “lost” in the music is also an experience to strive for. Thankfully, the engrossing final concert of ChamberFest’s 2025 season — held in Severance Music Center’s Reinberger Chamber Hall — provided plenty of opportunities.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Sing Hallelujah!” (June 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Sometimes the only thing that connects works in a concert is that they all appear on the same program page. That certainly characterized the mix of two Brahms songs, the premiere of a violin and piano work, a “repetitive music” classic for duo pianists, and a well-known piano trio that were featured in ChamberFest Cleveland’s sold out program “Sing Hallelujah!” on June 26 in Mixon Hall.

Johannes Brahms was partial to works that explore the lower, more mellow range of voices and instruments, as represented here by a pair of songs. Throughout both Gestillet Sehnsucht and Geistliches Wiegenlied, mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, violist Kim Kashkashian, and pianist Amy Yang produced rich, expressive musical lines that projected beautifully into the hall. The “Sacred Crib Song” was especially endearing for quoting the well-known 14th-century Christmas song “Joseph lieber, Joseph mein,” a little joke referring to the work’s dedicatee, Joseph Joachim.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Inventions of Memory” (June 27)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

ChamberFest Cleveland’s June 27 program, “Inventions of Memory,” offered three distinct meditations on musical remembrance. Presented in the tranquil setting of Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University, eight of the festival’s standout artists illuminated works by Claude Debussy, Brett Dean, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The program opened with Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Bilitis, a cycle of idealized and slightly prurient visions of antiquity. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and pianist Roman Rabinovich offered a reading attuned to the music’s erotic undertow and bathed in Lydian and whole-tone harmonies.

In La Flûte de Pan, Rabinovich’s shimmering textures evoked the strumming of a lyre as Barron spun out the tale of a young girl’s intimate flute lesson. Her voice, pliant and sumptuous, moved easily between innocence and seduction.
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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Vortex” (June 25)

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by Mike Telin

If you are familiar with William Cowper’s 1785 poem The Task, then you know the famous line “Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.” On Sunday, June 25 at Harkness Chapel, ChamberFest Cleveland presented a program that was steeped in musical variety and spices for the ear.

Written in 1977, Alfred Schnittke’s Moz-Art (after the fragment K. 416d) is based on the first violin part from Mozart’s unpublished pantomime, with dollops of the opening theme of his 40th Symphony stirred into the mix. The quirky five-minute work for two violins asks the players to throw caution to the winds as they seemingly compete to see who can turn a classical line into something absurd faster than the other.

The performance by Itamar Zorman and Diana Cohen was bust-your-gut funny. Bowed notes turned into plucked ones, then scratchings, in tune became out of tune, and slow tempos became fast enough to break the sound barrier. Hilarity ensued when the players swapped out their instruments, Zorman grabbing a very tiny violin while Cohen opted for a viola. After reclaiming their rightful fiddles, the players mischievously walked away whistling.

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ChamberFest Cleveland — Together Again (June 13)

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by Mike Telin

The weather on Sunday morning, June 13, was bright and sunny but not too hot  — perfect for a ChamberFest lawn concert. Not to miss out on the occasion, a multitude of people, lawn chairs in hand, made their way down Guilford Road in Cleveland Heights to hear a wonderfully varied program titled Bach and More. [Read more…]

ENCORE and ChamberFest: World Class Music in the eastern suburbs (June 11 & 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Since many Clevelanders don’t have a clue why State Route 91 in Cuyahoga and Lake Counties is called SOM Center Road, maybe it’s time to rename at least one five-mile segment of that thoroughfare that passes through the centers of Solon, Orange, and Mayfield townships.

Based on recent events, its new designation might well be “Chamber Music Way” in honor of the fine performances that are taking place this month at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills and The Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield, courtesy of ENCORE Chamber Music Institute and ChamberFest Cleveland, respectively. In addition to the distinction of presenting some of the first in-person performances to come onto the calendar since the pandemic, both organizations were making their debuts in new venues. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a conversation with Shai Wosner

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by Mike Telin

After a long wait, the next edition of ChamberFest Cleveland will kick off on Wednesday, June 9 at 7:00 pm at The Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield. Admission is free, but reservations are required. The program, titled “Legends,” will include Antonín Dvořák’s Legends, Enrique Granados’ Sonata for Violin and Piano, Paul Wiancko’s American Haiku, and Franz Schubert’s Trio No. 2 in E-flat.

The evening will begin with pianist Shai Wosner’s arrangement of the Dvořák performed by clarinetist Franklin Cohen, violist Dimitri Murrath, and Wosner, who will be making his ChamberFest debut.

Originally written for piano four-hands, the ten pieces that comprise the work were later arranged for orchestra by the composer. I asked the pianist why he decided to make his own arrangement, and why he chose this particular instrumentation?

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ChamberFest Cleveland: a chat with Zlatomir Fung

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by Daniel Hathaway

Photo Credit: I-Jung Huang

Bearing a name that reflects his Bulgarian-Chinese heritage, 21-year-old cellist Zlatomir Fung scored a big victory in the 2019 XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition, becoming the first American in forty years to win Gold — and the youngest contestant ever to earn that distinction in the Russian contest.

Fung will make his first visit to Cleveland this week to play six works in the first four concerts of ChamberFest Cleveland. “I’ve worked with Roman Rabinovich and New York’s Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players. We’d been hoping for a few years that I could come, and now it’s finally panned out,” he said in an early morning phone call on Tuesday before heading off to a rehearsal.

ChamberFest will keep Fung busy during his sojourn in Cleveland. He’s slated to play Paul Wiancko’s American Haiku with violist Dimitri Murrath, Schubert’s Trio No. 2 with violinist Itamar Zorman and pianist Shai Wosner, Ernö Dohnányi’s Piano Quartet No. 2 with Zorman, violinist 
Diana Cohen, Murrath, and Wosner, Alexander Zemlinsky’s Clarinet Trio, Op. 3
 with Franklin Cohen and pianist Roman Rabinovich, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Lamentations Suite
 for cello solo, and Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello with Zorman.

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ChamberFest Cleveland – “Youth” (June 25)

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by Samantha Spaccasi

DunhamDunham Tavern Museum is a perfect venue for an afternoon of chamber music. On Sunday afternoon, June 25, the seventh installment of this year’s ChamberFest explored the theme of “Youth” and featured early works by Beethoven and Bartók. The concert began with Wilhelm Popp’s Rigoletto Variations, performed by flutist Demarre McGill and pianist Zoltán Fejérvári. McGill gave a nuanced performance of this flashy piece, bringing it to light with impeccable phrasing. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland explores “Hommage” (June 23)

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by Joshua Rosner

CFCBachJune23On June 23, as beautiful light poured through Mixon Hall’s many windows, ChamberFest Cleveland presented “Hommage,” a program showcasing composers paying tribute to J.S. Bach. The concert began with the final two movements of Bach’s Suite No. 2 in b, replacing the originally programmed Cantata BWV 209 due to the withdrawal of mezzo-soprano Lauren Eberwein. [Read more…]

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