Kenia Archives - Cleveland Classical

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra’s Fridays @ 7 — after party to feature Brazilian Carnival music by Kenia

April 8, 2014 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Mike Telin

Kenia Brazilian vocal sensation Kenia wants to remind audiences of one thing about Friday’s Cleveland Orchestra Friday’s @ 7 post-concert: “Remember to bring your dancing shoes,” she exclaimed. “People should expect to take a little trip to Brazil and I’d love it if they would close their eyes and find themselves transported to Rio in the midst of Carnival.”

On Friday, April 11 in Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra continues its popular Fridays @ 7 series. The evening begins at 6:00 pm with a Pre-Concert in Reinberger Hall featuring Classical Indian Music with Steven Gorn, bansuri bamboo flute, and Samir Chatterjee, tabla. At 7:00 pm, Giancarlo Guerrero leads the Orchestra in a performance of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Yuja Wang as soloist. Then, on to Festa Brasileira…Carnival!

“The show is all about revisiting Carnival from the 1940’s and 50’s,” Kenia told us during a recent telephone conversation. We’ll be playing some of the marches and some of the sambas from those days. It’s away from the bossa nova but something new, exciting and very upbeat.” [Read more…]

Les Délices welcomes the festive season with “Noel, Noel” (Dec. 7)

by Stephanie Manning

Once December kicks in, an almost overwhelming number of holiday programs pop up around Northeast Ohio. But Les ›Délices’ offering should draw your attention.

While other festive concerts may create the atmosphere of a bustling party by the fireplace, “Noel, Noel” is like observing a snowy evening from the warmth of the indoors. This is music best enjoyed in quiet contentment, and especially live — so it’s no surprise that the early music ensemble brought back this signature program for three performances this month.

On December 7 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the six-member group presented a lovely ninety-minute program, which is also available on CD and via streaming until the end of the year.

[Read on…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir: In Four Voices (Dec. 3)

by Kevin McLaughlin

Renaissance polyphony can bloom in resonant spaces, but the Donna and James Reid Gallery at the Cleveland Museum of Art presents particular challenges: hard surfaces and a long reverb tend to blur consonants into watercolor. The Cleveland Chamber Choir’s four-voice ensemble met those conditions head-on during its “In Four Voices” program on December 3. What emerged was an evening of consistently beautiful vocal timbre shaped by a group navigating the sonic characteristics of the room.

The concert, to be followed in January and March by appearances of various-sized ensembles, is part of a new development for the Cleveland Chamber Choir, called the Camerata Series — more information here.

To improve their chances of hearing one another, the quartet — soprano Lauren Vanden Broeck, mezzo-soprano Kira McGirr, tenor Joel Kincannon, and bass Dominic Aragon — stood in a traditional “part book” formation, like a diamond, facing inward. This meant that their sound was directed toward each other, rather than outward to the listeners around them.

[Read on…]

Labadie leads fresh-sounding performance of Messiah with Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus and solo quartet (Dec. 4)

By Daniel Hathaway|Cleveland Classical

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – On Thursday evening at Severance Music Center, guest conductor Bernard Labadie did far more than just hold the performance of Messiah by the Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus and solo quartet together, he led a surgically clean account of George Frideric Handel’s 1741 oratorio.

Like a London cabbie, Labadie knew all the available highways and byways for the two-hour musical journey and pointed out interesting sights we might otherwise have missed.

And to change metaphors, like a skilled restorer he gently removed layers of interpretive grime that has accumulated over the years from Handel’s score, allowing us to hear it with fresh ears. He also tucked in some surprises of his own for those of us who thought we knew the piece and how it should go.

[Read on…]

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