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Cleveland Institute of Music to celebrate the legacy of composer/conductor Pierre Boulez

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by Mike Telin

boulez-pierre-seatedFirst in a series of articles.

French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez passed away on January 5, 2016, at the age of 90. In his obituary the following day, The Guardian (London) wrote:

Pierre Boulez was arguably the single dominant figure of the classical musical world through the second half of the 20th century and beyond. Without his compositions, his legacy of recordings as a conductor, his writings on music, and his administrative skill and drive, the musical scene today would be of a quite different order.”

On Sunday, September 25 at 4:00 pm in Mixon Hall, the Cleveland Institute of Music will present the first of seven events celebrating “The Boulez Legacy.” [Read more…]

CIM New Music Ensemble in Mixon Hall (April 3)

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by Mike Telin

Paterson-RobertWhile no title was given to the CIM New Music Ensemble’s concert on Sunday, April 3, the program could have been called “Music For a Sunny Afternoon.” As the sun shone brightly through the Mixon Hall windows, guest composer Robert Paterson exclaimed, “I love this place,” before introducing his three works that take listeners on a fanciful ride though the galaxy, an intensive care unit, and a kitchen from hell. [Read more…]

CIM New Music Ensemble to feature music by Julius Eastman and guest composer Robert Paterson

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by Mike Telin

Paterson-RobertIf you’ve never heard a piece of music that features coffee grinders, blenders, cast iron skillets, cheese graters, and Pyrex glass bowls, you’ll have the chance this weekend. On Sunday, April 3 at 4:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the CIM New Music Ensemble, under the direction of Keith Fitch, will perform guest composer Robert Paterson’s Star Crossing (1999), I See You (2014-15), and Hell’s Kitchen (2014), a work during which those kitchen appliances will take center stage. The afternoon will also include Julius Eastman’s 1973 classic, Stay On It. On Saturday, April 2 beginning at 1:30 in CIM’s room 113, Robert Paterson will present a lecture about his music. Both events are free and open to the public. [Read more…]

Ars Futura to perform Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at CIM & LCCC

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by Mike Telin

Schoenberg-self-portrait-1910“I believe I am approaching a new way of expression,” composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote in his diary on March 12, 1912. The work Schoenberg is referring to is none other than his pioneering Pierrot Lunaire.

On Wednesday March 2 at 8:00 pm in CIM’s Mixon Hall, and Monday March 7 at 7:30 in Lorain County Community College’s Cirigliano Studio Theatre, the Cleveland-based new music ensemble Ars Futura will present Schoenberg’s melodrama. [Read more…]

CIM Orchestra: Steven Smith conducts music by Shulamit Ran (January 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

RAN-ShulamitIn a post-intermission conversation with CIM composition professor Keith Fitch last Wednesday evening, January 27 in Kulas Hall, visiting composer Shulamit Ran showered praise on guest conductor Steven Smith and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. They had just assumed the considerable challenges of performing her Legends and Violin Concerto, and she found that impressive. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d live to hear both of those pieces on the same program,” she said. [Read more…]

CIM New Music:
Keith Fitch talks about Shulamit Ran
(first of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

Ran-ShulamitNortheast Ohio audiences are in for a treat next week when the Cleveland Institute of Music plays host to celebrated composer Shulamit Ran for a three-day residency. On Tuesday, January 26 at 4:30 pm, the Pulitzer Prize-Winner will discuss her music in Studio 113. The event is free and open to the public. The following evening at 8:00 pm in Kulas Hall, guest conductor Steven Smith will lead the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra in a concert that will include Ran’s Legends and Violin Concerto featuring Laurie Smukler as soloist. The program will also include Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question.

“Shulamit is fantastic in every way,” Keith Fitch, who heads the Composition Department and holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, said during a recent telephone conversation. “She’s had such a long and distinguished career as a composer, teacher, and advocate for new music. She’s so good with students, and she’s a great mentor and role model.” Ran recently retired from academia, having taught at the University of Chicago since 1973.

“I’ve always admired Shulamit’s music so much. Not only is it beautifully crafted, it’s also emotionally powerful, and so engaging. There’s this fearless quality to her music that I really love.” [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest concert by Ars Futura at BOP STOP (March 23)

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by Mike Telin

ArsFutura2015Since performing its inaugural concert in 2013, the Cleveland-based new music ensemble Ars Futura has quickly established itself as a dynamic force in the area’s burgeoning contemporary classical music scene. Judging from their engaging BOP STOP performance on Monday, March 23rd as part of NEOSonicFest, the ensemble is not only a collective of six accomplished players, but flutist Madeline Lucas Tolliver, clarinetist Drew Sullivan, violinist Tara Lynn Ramsey, cellist Daniel Pereira, pianist Shuai Wang and percussionist Luke Rinderknecht also know how to present the music in a way that leaves you wanting more. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest 2015: a conversation with Ars Futura pianist and director Shuai Wang

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by Jarrett Hoffman

ArsFutura2015On Ars Futura’s upcoming program, one of the pieces, entitled Broccoli September, received its premiere last month, but Shuai Wang said she didn’t go — composer Jeremy Allen told her she wasn’t allowed. “The piece specifically instructs the performers not to talk or meet or practice together for it. So when we play it on the 23rd, it will be the first time for all of us. I love the concept of it because it’s all about trust. Our trusting Jeremy, his trusting us, our trusting each other as performers, and trusting the audience as listeners.”

On Monday, March 23 at 7:30 pm at the BOP STOP, Ars Futura will continue the 2015 edition of NEOSonicFest with a program of works by Lou Harrison, Olivier Messiaen, Robert Paterson, Jeremy Allen, Keith Fitch, and Mario Davidovsky. Ars Futura pianist and director Shuai Wang, who played with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony for last year’s NEOSonicFest, talked with us by phone, telling us first about the group’s program for Monday.

“I first thought about the repertoire considering the space we’ll be in: the BOP STOP,” she said. “I’ve been there many times, back when it was a jazz club. The ambience is so cool, so relaxed, so cozy. In some ways I picked the program to balance with the space.” [Read more…]

Review: Suddenly It’s Evening — CIM New Music Ensemble at MOCA Cleveland

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by Timothy Robson

CIM-MOCA-EveningThe current exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA) is entitled DIRGE: Reflections on [Life and] Death. As part of the programming accompanying the exhibition, a group of intrepid young performers in the Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble, under the direction of Keith Fitch, gave striking performances of iconic works composed in the last fifty years, all relating in some way to death and its rituals.

(A rhetorical question: Can one describe as “new” such works as George Crumb’s Madrigals, composed almost fifty years ago? Only the closing work on the program, Harrison Birtwistle’s 2007 Cortege, was composed in the last ten years, with Donald Erb’s Suddenly It’s Evening dating from 1997.)

The program was broken into three distinct segments, each in a different location in MOCA. The sections were separated by time allowing the audience not only to move to the next location, but also to examine the exhibition’s objects in the galleries.

[Read more…]

Preview: CIM at MOCA: Suddenly It’s Evening — a conversation with Keith Fitch

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by Mike Telin

FITCH-KeithCurrently on exhibit at MOCA, DIRGE: Reflections on [Life and] Death, explores how contemporary artists use their individual practices to capture, react to, reflect on, and make sense of mortality. On Thursday, March 20 beginning at 8:00 pm, the CIM New Music Ensemble will present a concert titled “Suddenly It’s Evening,” featuring the music of George Crumb, Donald Erb and Harrison Birtwistle. Each of the evening’s works was chosen specifically in keeping with the spirit of MOCA’s current exhibition.

“There is no shortage of repertoire dealing with the subject matter,” Keith Fitch, director of the CIM New Music Ensemble, said in a recent telephone conversation. “Chris Auerbach-Brown from MOCA and I were talking about that when we were planning the program, but all three pieces just kind of said, “Include Us!”

Thursday’s performance is what Fitch calls a progressive concert and begins at 8:00 pm in MOCA’s fourth floor Main Gallery with George Crumb’s Books II and III of Madrigals. [Read more…]

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