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ChamberFest takes its audience on a journey in “Songs, Signs, and Souvenirs” (June 28)

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by Stephanie Manning

During this year’s ChamberFest, the “Lost and Found” theme showed up in all kinds of ways. Sometimes that meant performing recently-unearthed works from historic composers like Mozart and Chopin. Sometimes it referred to an emotional resonance, as when Judith Markovich’s music told the story of the grief and loss of a son.

But the listener has a role to play in this as well. As ChamberFest’s past Board chair Rebecca Carmi reminded the audience on June 28, getting “lost” in the music is also an experience to strive for. Thankfully, the engrossing final concert of ChamberFest’s 2025 season — held in Severance Music Center’s Reinberger Chamber Hall — provided plenty of opportunities.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Sing Hallelujah!” (June 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Sometimes the only thing that connects works in a concert is that they all appear on the same program page. That certainly characterized the mix of two Brahms songs, the premiere of a violin and piano work, a “repetitive music” classic for duo pianists, and a well-known piano trio that were featured in ChamberFest Cleveland’s sold out program “Sing Hallelujah!” on June 26 in Mixon Hall.

Johannes Brahms was partial to works that explore the lower, more mellow range of voices and instruments, as represented here by a pair of songs. Throughout both Gestillet Sehnsucht and Geistliches Wiegenlied, mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, violist Kim Kashkashian, and pianist Amy Yang produced rich, expressive musical lines that projected beautifully into the hall. The “Sacred Crib Song” was especially endearing for quoting the well-known 14th-century Christmas song “Joseph lieber, Joseph mein,” a little joke referring to the work’s dedicatee, Joseph Joachim.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Inventions of Memory” (June 27)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

ChamberFest Cleveland’s June 27 program, “Inventions of Memory,” offered three distinct meditations on musical remembrance. Presented in the tranquil setting of Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University, eight of the festival’s standout artists illuminated works by Claude Debussy, Brett Dean, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The program opened with Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Bilitis, a cycle of idealized and slightly prurient visions of antiquity. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and pianist Roman Rabinovich offered a reading attuned to the music’s erotic undertow and bathed in Lydian and whole-tone harmonies.

In La Flûte de Pan, Rabinovich’s shimmering textures evoked the strumming of a lyre as Barron spun out the tale of a young girl’s intimate flute lesson. Her voice, pliant and sumptuous, moved easily between innocence and seduction.
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ChamberFest: a conversation with violist Kim Kashkashian

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by Mike Telin

There are certain musicians who you can’t believe have never been to ChamberFest Cleveland. Case in point: Kim Kashkashian.

“Diana Cohen has been asking me for years,” the celebrated violist said during a Zoom conversation. “We know each other from Marlboro, and when I was in the Baltimore area I knew her father Frank very well. So we’ve all been friends for decades.”

On Thursday, June 26 in Mixon Hall, Kaskashian will be featured in Brahms’ Two Songs for alto, viola, and piano. On Friday, June 27 in Harkness Chapel she’ll be part of the ensemble who will be playing Brett Dean’s viola quintet, Epitaphs. And on Saturday, June 28 in Reinberger Chamber Hall she’ll take part in Brahms’ Piano Quintet in f. Tickets for all performances are available online.

That third program will also include György Kurtág’s Signs, Games, and Messages for solo viola. Kashkashian said that she’s had a long association with the composer and his music.

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ENCORE Chamber Music: 2019 festival overview

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Bohemian music celebrating life and the arts is the theme for ENCORE Chamber Music’s fourth season, titled “La Bohème.” From June through mid-July, the festival will present eight ticketed faculty concerts, seven free student performances, and seventeen free master classes, all at the Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills. Both single tickets and season passes are available.

The Jupiter String Quartet (above) kicks off the season on Friday, June 7 at 7:00 pm at the Tudor House with a program that includes Puccini’s Crisantemi (“Chrysanthemums”), Janáček’s Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata,” and Dvořák’s Quartet No. 13 in G.

Another side of the Jupiter will be on display the next day, June 8 during master classes at 10:00 am and 4:00 pm at the campus’s middle school band room.

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ENCORE Chamber Music begins second season June 11

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by Mike Telin

Jinjoo-Cho-(Woo-Ryong-Chae)With the overarching theme of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” ENCORE Chamber Music is ready to begin its second season. “Last year was a pilot year for us, so there was a lot of experimentation,” ENCORE founder and artistic director Jinjoo Cho said during an interview. “I think this year is going to be even better. We’ve made some changes to the format, and the level of the students who are attending is even higher.” [Read more…]

Music for Food concert to benefit Cleveland Kosher Food Bank Nov. 13

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by Mike Telin

music-for-foodIn a recent study published by the United States Department Agriculture Economic Research Service, an estimated 12.7% of American households were food insecure at least sometime during 2015, meaning they lacked access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. “The statistics are shocking, and it is a problem in all communities,” said violist Kim Kashkashian, who founded Music for Food, a Boston-based, musician-led non-profit for local hunger relief.

On Sunday, November 13 at 3:00 pm at a private residence in Cleveland Heights, Kashkashian will be part of a benefit concert for the Cleveland Kosher Food Bank. The event, titled “Sharing the Bounty,” is sponsored by the Cleveland Chapter of Music for Food, which was founded in 2015 by noted cellist Sharon Robinson. The concert will feature Kashkashian, Robinson, violinist Jaime Laredo, violist Yu Jin, and the Cavani Quartet in performances of works by Bartók, Schulhoff, and Brahms. Seating is limited and the deadline for reservations is Sunday, October 30. Click here for further information. [Read more…]

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