Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble Archives

Les Délices & Kaleidoscope: Purcell plus at Lakewood Presbyterian (Sept. 29)

October 10, 2023 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

Debra Nagy, director of Cleveland’s period instrument ensemble Les Délices, invited Arianne Abela and her geographically widespread vocal ensemble Kaleidoscope to the first installment of its 15th anniversary season on September 29 at Lakewood Presbyterian Church.

After extensive opening remarks, the two organizations collaborated in “The Pow’r of Musick,” a two-hour concert intermingling works by English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with four contemporary choral pieces, two of them by members of Kaleidoscope. [Read more…]

Les Délices celebrates fifteen years

September 14, 2023 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

Anniversaries are an opportunity to reflect and to forge new adventures. When Debra Nagy set out to plan Les Délices’ 15th season, she wanted it to be “familiar and extremely ambitious.”

Les Délices will launch their season next week by taking the award-winning SalonEra series to another level. On Saturday, September 23 at 3:00 pm at Heights Theater, audiences are invited to attend the debut of SalonEra Sessions with a program titled Songs for Social Justice. The 75-minute concert and conversation, hosted by Nagy, will feature countertenor Michael Walker and tenor Haitham Haidar, who will explore themes of identity and representation, struggle and resilience, and community and belonging. The event will be recorded, edited, and released as a SalonEra episode later in the season. During the program Walker and Haidar will be joined by Nagy (oboe), Rebecca Reed (cello), and Brian Kay (lute and oud).

[Read more…]

Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s season opener contemplates circles of life (Nov. 2)

by Stephanie Manning

“This moment is full of wonders.” Composer Anna Clyne meditated on those words — written by Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh — as she wrote her orchestral work This Moment. That theme, of learning to cherish life more by reflecting on death, underscored most of the music chosen for the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s program on November 2.

The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Christian Church hosted the season-opening concert, titled “Reflection and Revelations.” The venue’s dry acoustic helped the textures remain clear in Clyne’s piece, a somber and meditative seven minutes. [Read on…]

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson, conductor Daniel Reith lead Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven concert (Nov. 9)

by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A relaxed understanding born of a long career helped pianist Garrick Ohlsson bring easy grace and Proto-Romantic sensibility to Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra.

The program on Saturday at Severance Music Center featured early and middle works, the second set of concerts in the Orchestra’s cycle of Beethoven piano concertos.

Despite its number, the Second Concerto is actually the composer’s first, begun in 1790. Ohlsson treated this early Beethoven work expressively, with sinuous rubato, keeping his rhythms precise, his touch light, and his rhetoric clear. Nothing, not even Beethoven’s many technical snares, seemed to faze him.

[Read on…]

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