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Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble ends CMA season with Ligeti works (April 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

LIGETI-GyorgyBorn in Romania, displaced by the Nazis, educated in Hungary, and finally settling first in Vienna then in Germany after the 1956 Hungarian revolution, György Ligeti spent a lot of his life on the move. Musically nomadic as well, he chased after a number of different compositional styles. Two of Ligeti’s pieces composed thirty years apart formed the backbone of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble’s arresting program in Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday afternoon, April 11. [Read more…]

Review: NEOSonicFest Concerts 1—3: Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Ensemble HD, Verb Ballets & Jonathan Moyer (March 28, 30 & 31)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CCS-032814-Bill-Nairnan

The Cleveland Chamber Symphony, long-time keepers of the new music flame in our region, nearly vanished from public view after its founder, Edwin London, retired and its residency at Cleveland State University eventually came to an end. The orchestra, made up of some of Cleveland’s finest and most adventurous free-lancers, kept a few concerts going under its current music director, Steven Smith, and found a new host in Baldwin Wallace, but the momentum of regular performances was lost.

Last weekend, CCS burst suddenly into bloom like a crocus after a long winter with the first of two concerts anchoring its promising new enterprise, NEOSonicFest on Friday, March 28 in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State. [Read more…]

Preview: NEOSonicFest — Third concert features organist Jonathan Moyer in “Music from the Abyss” on March 31

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by Mike Telin

Moyer-Newberry-OrganMost listeners encounter the organ through church services, which rarely venture into avant-garde music. NEOSonicFest’s third concert on Monday, March 31 at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Covenant will offer a different view of organ music, according to recitalist Jonathan William Moyer.

“If people come with a different set of expectations and open themselves to new and exciting sounds from the organ, I think it will be a very entertaining evening,” Moyer told us in a phone conversation. “And these are works that are rarely performed because there’s not often a context to do them in. Even at conventions and festivals they shy away from these stronger, more modern expressions.”

Moyer, who is assistant professor of organ at Oberlin in addition to his position as music director and organist at the Covenant, went on to describe his program in detail.

[Read more…]

Review: Church of the Covenant unveils splendid new organ in a day of celebration (May 12)

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by Timothy Robson

Covenant-Gallery-OrganIn a day of music and celebration on Sunday, May 12, the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland’s University Circle formally unveiled and dedicated its brilliant new organ, the Newberry Organ, built by Richards, Fowkes & Company of Ooltewah, Tennessee. The new organ was tested to its limits in a festival service in the morning featuring multi-choir works with Baroque-style instruments, and three other organs (two small Dutch portative organs as well as the church’s large mid-20th-century American Classic organ), followed by a concert in the afternoon by Oberlin Conservatory organ faculty head James David Christie, with a repeat of the multi-choral works from the morning. In between the two major events, the church’s director of music, Jonathan Moyer, gave a lecture on the new organ.

The new two-manual and pedal organ, which sits in a renovated rear organ gallery, is modeled on organs of 17th-century Holland and northern Germany. Its pitch and tuning enable the organist to simulate the sounds that would have been heard by the composers of the time, the late Renaissance and Baroque periods. [Read more…]

Preview: New gallery organ at Church of the Covenant to be dedicated in two events on Sunday, May 12

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by Daniel Hathaway

Christie-CovenantAs pipe organ projects go, the new Richards, Fowkes & Co. gallery organ at the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland’s University Circle is something quite special. Built in the late 17th century North German-Dutch style that coincided with a great flowering of organ composers beginning with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and continuing on through Dietrich Buxtehude, the instrument is the first church organ in Northeast Ohio to replicate the kind of instrument invented to support the psalm and chorale singing of a Protestant congregation of that era as well as the organ literature that surrounded and enhanced its worship.

The Newberry Gallery Organ will be formally dedicated this Sunday, May 12 in a 10 am service and 2 pm recital. “It’s the crown jewel of Cleveland”, exclaimed Oberlin organ professor and dedicatory recitalist James David Christie, who talked to us during a break from practicing earlier this week. “This organ is so beautiful — you have no idea!”

How did this project come about? The Covenant’s music director and organist Jonathan Moyer told us that soon after he arrived in Cleveland, a renovation project took quite a different turn. “Originally there was an Aeolian-Skinner antiphonal organ in the gallery that was much in need of repair or replacement. The granddaughter of the original donor, who was still alive at the time wanted to donate the funds. She actually gave us too much money.” [Read more…]

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