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Review: ChamberFest Cleveland second concert — Mélange à Trois at Harkness (June 20)

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by Daniel Hautzinger

ChamberFest-LogoChamberFest Cleveland is doing it right. With ten concerts over eleven days blends thoughtful programming, diverse venues, exceptional musicians, and a convivial vibe for a musical experience as refreshing and sweet as the ice cream that’s served after some of the concerts.  It’s an ideal model for the future of classical music.

On June 20 at Harkness Chapel, all of these attributes mixed beautifully in a “Mélange à Trois” (the twee but clever program titles are just another aspect of ChamberFest’s affability). The program linked trio pieces spanning a 270-year period, with each consecutive work more than a century distant from its neighbors. Yet the music evinced stronger connections than are often found in a standard concert. Three of the four pieces featured Eastern European accents (be they Gypsy, Hungarian, or Jewish), and each had a rambunctious wildness fearlessly channeled by the musicians. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Concert 4: The Harmony of Numbers at MOCA Cleveland (June 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CFC-June-21-Moretti-CabezasChamberFest Cleveland’s savvy programming strategy continued on Saturday, June 21 with a 5:00 pm concert at MOCA Cleveland that paired an edgy solo cello work by Iannis Xenakis with a daring arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations for string trio.

Johann Sebastian Bach has to be one of the most frequently arranged composers of all time, and we have yet to meet a rescoring of his music that didn’t work at least on some level. But taking a piece originally scored for two-manual harpsichord and reworking it for violin, viola and cello would seem to be a real stretch.

In keeping with ChamberFest’s obsession with the number three during its third season, there were that many reasons why this arrangement worked on Saturday. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Chamber Music Society — Albers Trio and Orion Weiss triumph over weather (February 4)

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by Timothy Robson

Albers Trio Orion WeissThe Albers Trio (Laura Albers, violin, Rebecca Albers, viola, and Julie Albers, cello) and guest pianist Orion Weiss were greeted by a large audience on Tuesday, February 4, in their concert for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at Plymouth Church UCC in Shaker Heights. This was despite a winter storm warning and steady snowfall as the audience arrived. The concert was a pleasant respite from this year’s seemingly unending blasts of Cleveland winter.

There was a certain down home feeling between the audience and the performers; three of the four have strong Cleveland connections, either through family relationships or study at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The local ties for the concert were further emphasized with some cross-organizational marketing: Richard Fried, the President of the Chamber Music Society, introduced the program and gave the usual plug for future concerts. He then introduced Diana Cohen and Frank Cohen, masterminds of the summer ChamberFest Cleveland, who spoke about the close relationship between the two organizations, as well as with the evening’s performers. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland final concert — Mirrors at Dunham Tavern Barn (June 30)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CFC-June-30-AdamsFor the last of the eight concerts in its expanded second season, ChamberFest Cleveland moved from traditional concert halls (and a new art gallery) to our local urban version of a rustic summer New England venue, the Dunham Tavern’s barn on Euclid Avenue in midtown. The structure, built in 2000, replaced an 1840 horse and crop storage barn that was leveled by a fire in 1963. Though it looks rather modern and utilitarian from the outside, its wooden beams frame an interior space with warm acoustical properties.

There’s barely room to swing a viola there, much less accommodate a grand piano, so Mirrors was devoted to music by Purcell, Britten and Mendelssohn for three, four and five string players who stood (except for the cellists) to save room, optimize sight lines and broadcast the music over the heads of the capacity audience, who were packed into the space on folding chairs. The seating was uncomfortable and the temperature a bit on the warm side, but the afternoon was otherwise completely delightful, with the bonus of free ice cream outside afterward. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland — A Tempo at Harkness Chapel (June 28)

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by Mike Telin

CFC-June-28a-AdamsAlthough the 2013 ChamberFest Cleveland theme is [It’s] About Time, a secondary theme could easily be Variety is the Spice of Life. On Friday, June 28 at Harkness Chapel the superb ChamberFest musicians presented a thoroughly engaging program full of musical variety from start to finish titled A Tempo.

The technically commanding and musically sensitive cellist Robert deMaine began the evening with a high energy performance of Alberto Ginastera’s Pampeana No. 2, Rhapsody for cello and piano. The brief work depicting the Argentine pampas or treeless plains gave deMaine ample room to demonstrate his soulful side as well as his virtuosic prowess. Pianist Matan Porat was a keen collaborator, performing with rhythmic precision.

Porat, together with violinist Yehonatan Berick and cellist Julie Albers, were of one musical mind during their captivating performance of Ravel’s Trio in A minor. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland continues with Companion Guide to Rome (June 26)

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by Timothy Robson

CFC-June-26-AdamsChamberFest Cleveland continued its winning ways on Wednesday, June 26, at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, in a well-attended concert with the alluring theme Layers: The Architecture of Time. Although the relationship of the theme to the actual music was not explicated, there were elements of layering and polyphony in all of the works presented.

After some introductory remarks by Frank Cohen and Diana Cohen, the festival directors, the concert opened with a Baroque musical curiosity, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Battalia for ten string instruments and harpsichord continuo (3 violins, 4 violas, 2 double basses and harpsichord). In eight short movements, Biber depicts scenes of an army preparing for battle, fighting, and finally lamenting the lost and wounded soldiers. There are many “advanced” instrumental techniques: various kinds of plucking and bowing the strings, including the double bass wrapping a piece of paper around the strings and then bouncing his bow to create a sound that simulates that of a snare drum. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland at the Transformer Station — an impressive concert venue debut

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by Timothy Robson

Transformer-Station-062113In only its second season, ChamberFest Cleveland is already a summer musical force to be reckoned with. The brainchild of Cleveland Orchestra clarinet principal Franklin Cohen and his daughter, violinist Diana Cohen, the festival is akin to such notable gatherings as Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro or Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh, where the founders invite a “family” of musical guests — in this case, mostly rising artists — attuned to their own artistic goals, with a variety of programming in interesting venues.

The second concert of the 2013 season took place on Friday, June 21, at 9:00 pm (the better to enjoy the Summer Solstice sunlight?) at the Transformer Station, a new Ohio City gallery on W. 29th Street a block south of Detroit Avenue, developed by art collectors Laura and Fred Bidwell in collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland 2013 opening concert — Continuum: The Divine Cosmos at Mixon Hall (June 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Mixon-062013The second iteration of ChamberFest Cleveland opened June 20 in CIM’s Mixon Hall on festive, thoughtful and ecstatic notes with music by Matan Porat, Mozart and Messiaen, preceded by a free preludial concert by Sphinx Competition prize-winning cellist Gabriel Cabezas and pianist Orion Weiss.

ChamberFest is an extended family affair that draws a number of close musical friends into its orbit, but its immediate family is Franklin, Diana and Alexander Cohen, an unusual trio of clarinet, violin and timpani for whom Matan Porat wrote an ingratiating festival fanfare entitled Start Time. Ringing changes on ChamberFest’s theme, (It’s) About Time, the short piece gave all three instruments a workout as they joined in and responded to one another after an arresting timpani solo.

The main work on Thursday evening’s program was Olivier Messiaen’s mystical Quartet for the End of Time, a work so emotionally intense that it can fill out an entire concert all by itself without the need for musical companionship. [Read more…]

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