by Peter Feher
The Cleveland Orchestra wasn’t going to let a season go by without Jahja Ling. The veteran conductor was back at Blossom Music Center on August 22, picking up just where he left off.
Concerts cancelled in 2020 may have put a brief gap in Ling’s record with the Orchestra (a program every season since 1984-1985), but the ensemble’s former resident conductor more than made up for it Sunday with a performance both commanding and personal. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When Jahja Ling returns to the Blossom Music Center podium on Sunday, August 22 at 7:00 pm, the concert will mark the continuation of a relationship between Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra which began in 1984.
“My first concert was at Severance in January of ‘85 and my first Blossom concert was in July of ‘85,” Ling said during a recent telephone conversation. “Aside from last year, which was cancelled due to the pandemic, if you count from ‘85 until now, this is the 36th consecutive season. I think it is a record.”
The all-Brahms program will feature the Violin Concerto with Sayaka Shoji as soloist and Symphony No. 3. Tickets are available online.
The past year and a half has been difficult for many people, including the 69-year-old conductor. “I got COVID,” he said. “It was last July, so over a year ago. I was taken to L.A. because my son works at Cedars-Sinai, and was hospitalized for five days. I received very good treatment and have had no issues after that, thank God.”
Ling’s experience with COVID played an important part in his programming choices for Sunday’s concert. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Having performed on three occasions with CityMusic Cleveland, Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji is no stranger to Northeast Ohio audiences. But when she returns to Cleveland this Sunday, August 22, it will be to make her debut with The Cleveland Orchestra, performing Brahms’ sublime Violin Concerto.
“I’m excited and very happy that this is happening,” Sayaka Shoji said by telephone from her home in Paris. “It was programmed last year, and of course we all had a difficult period, but they re-programmed it and I am very grateful.”
Under the direction of Jahja Ling, the 7:00 pm all-Brahms program also includes Symphony No. 3. Tickets are available online.
When asked why she thinks the concerto is one of the greatest in the repertoire, the violinist said it is partly because Brahms was a demanding, self-critical composer. “He also collaborated on the piece with his friend Joseph Joachim. And the result of that intensive collaboration is what makes it a jewel.”
by Daniel Hathaway
The audiences for the Concerto Round of the Cleveland International Piano Competition on August 6 and 7 — both in-person and online — were eager to hear the four finalists play, but they were also about to enjoy the extra treat of hearing The Cleveland Orchestra live, back on its home turf, and at full strength for the first time since March of 2020.
That must have been an equally memorable experience for the four finalists whose performances in the earlier rounds won them the opportunity to play concertos with Jahja Ling and the Orchestra — a prize in itself.
Byeol Kim (31, from South Korea) led off on Friday evening with Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto, followed by Yedam Kim (32, also from South Korea), who chose Rachmaninoff No. 3. On Saturday, Lovre Marušić (28, from Croatia) reached back into the Classical period with Beethoven No. 4, and Martín García García (24, from Spain) closed out the competition with another Rachmaninoff No. 3. [Read more…]
by Rory O’Donoghue
New research published in The New York Times last week touts the benefits of going barefoot, based on case studies in Kenya, but the scientists could have simply attended a Conrad Tao performance instead, and reached the same conclusion. The pianist bounded onstage with unshod feet at Blossom on July 13 to play Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Jahja Ling — and it was miraculous. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
The first Cleveland Orchestra concert at the Blossom Music Center occurred on July 19, 1968. On Saturday evening’s concert there was no official recognition of that 50th anniversary, but the event did mark another tradition in existence since 1990: a “side-by-side” performance in which members of the Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra were interspersed with The Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Because contestants’ repertoire is selected well before the finalists get chosen, it’s always a cliff-hanger to see not only who makes it to the final round in the Thomas and Evon Cooper Competition, but what pieces they’ll be playing. As it turned out this year in Oberlin’s biennial piano competition, three separate works were on the docket for Friday evening’s finals with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall on July 20 — both of the Chopin concertos and Tchaikovsky’s first. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
With over a hundred Blossom Music Center performances to his credit, Jahja Ling was the obvious — and ideal — choice to replace the indisposed Franz Welser-Möst for The Cleveland Orchestra’s opening concert on Saturday, July 7. Perfect weather and a revelatory performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition celebrated the beginning of Blossom’s 50th Anniversary season in a memorable way. And there were fireworks, too. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Piano professor Robert Shannon is eagerly waiting to welcome this year’s participants in the Thomas & Evon Cooper Piano Competition to the Oberlin campus later this week. “This year the lineup is stronger than ever,” Shannon said in a recent telephone conversation. “There’re some impressive people, and the overall level is consistently high.” (Photo: the semifinalists in 2016.)
The biennial piano contest, which alternates with a violin competition, will be fueled by 31 young players from seven different countries (see the roster of competitors and their repertoire here). The 13-18 year-olds have been selected from a field of some 90 applicants who have been drawn to the Cooper event through its reputation alone. “We don’t actively recruit,” Shannon said. “We just publish the announcement and we’re well enough known by now that it just happens. The first year we held the Cooper we had something like 140 pianists apply, but then I think people figured out how challenging it was going to be. We’ve stabilized now at about 90 applicants.”
This year’s competitors include eleven U.S. citizens, seven from China, five from Canada, three from South Korea, two each from Finland and Taiwan, and one from Norway.
by Daniel Hathaway
On Friday evening, July 21, Severance Hall was the final destination for Christina Jihee Nam, Qing Yu Chen, and Johan Dalene, the three young violinists left standing in Oberlin’s Thomas and Evon Cooper International Violin Competition. Their efforts over the last week won them the signal honor of playing concertos with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]