by Peter Feher
Franz Welser-Möst led the final bows on Saturday night at Severance, like the star of any show should. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director is in his element presiding over the ensemble’s annual opera production, which this season packs the drama. Verdi’s Otello — in a concert staging that opened May 21 and runs for two more performances (May 26 and 29) — demands big voices, instrumental forces to match, and a conductor who can give it all shape and direction. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Literal and metaphorical miles from the cool luxury of the concert hall, outdoor concerts can imply a looseness that extends beyond attire, seating options, and environmental sound. With crickets singing and picnic blankets unrolling, it seems only natural that musicians might relax as well, either in repertoire or level of performance. Not so for The Cleveland Orchestra, who were spot-on as ever in a recent Blossom program that avoided fizz and fanfare in favor of sober, engrossing American classics. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
For Vinay Parameswaran, leading The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom on Saturday, August 17 at 8:00 pm will be only one important event in what has to be called a good couple of months. He’s also conducted in Europe, driven about 5,000 miles back and forth across the U.S., and gotten hitched.
We spoke last week over the phone, and first he filled me in on all the details of June, July, and the first bit of August. Then we talked about this Saturday’s program, which includes Ives’ “Decoration Day” from the Holidays Symphony, Bernstein’s Jeremiah: Symphony No. 1 with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances.
by Jarrett Hoffman
When Halloween is on a Wednesday, it’s only right to celebrate it all week, and on the two weekends that fall on either side. That applies to arts organizations as well: the schedule of the musically spooky continues on Saturday, November 3 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron, when this year’s Tuesday Musical Fuze Series gets under way.
At the heart of the program is Gregg Kallor’s setting of a classic story which recently turned 175 years old: Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. (Quick refresher for those with only vague memories of high school: the narrator hears the sound of a beating heart coming from under the floorboards…and it’s the heart of the person they’ve murdered under mysterious, grisly circumstances.)
Kallor will take the keyboard part in the Poe setting, joined by cellist Joshua Roman and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano. They’ll mix and match each other throughout the program, which also includes music by Brahms, Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and John Jacob Niles, in addition to further works by Kallor. Tickets are available online.
by Daniel Hathaway
What a week at Severance Hall! On Tuesday, September 26, The Cleveland Orchestra’s revival of Leoš Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen received its third and final performance, and two days later, Franz Welser-Möst returned to the podium to lead the Orchestra in a spellbinding performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Performing Handel’s most famous oratorio poses a challenge for modern conductors, choruses and orchestras. Even in 1742 when it was being created prior to its debut in Dublin, its composer found himself steering a perilous course between the values of puritans, who wanted it to be religious, and thespians, who saw it as a piece of theater. Nowadays, conductors, orchestras and choruses also find themselves navigating between the values of the historically informed performance movement and the desire to make this hugely popular work accessible to a wide public. Decisions, decisions! [Read more…]