Klaus Mäkelä Archives - Cleveland Classical

Replacing van Zweden, Klaus Mäkelä joins Augustin Hadelich at Severance (Oct. 17)

October 23, 2019 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

The original Cleveland Orchestra lineup this month was to have featured former and current New York Philharmonic music directors two weeks in a row, but Jaap van Zweden had to withdraw due to a family medical issue in the Netherlands. He was replaced on the weekend of October 17 by the 23-year-old Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä, who had made a sensational debut with the Orchestra last summer at Blossom, and if anything, topped that performance at Severance Hall. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom: debuts for Mäkelä & Lozakovich (July 20)

July 23, 2019 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

As Scandinavians, Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä and Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich should be well-accustomed to the intentional high temperatures and humidity of saunas, though they probably don’t expect to encounter those while plying their craft on the concert stage. On Saturday, July 20, they rose above miserable weather conditions to make impressive joint debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom. [Read more…]

Young Scandinavians to make their Blossom debuts this weekend

July 17, 2019 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

On Saturday, July 20 at 8:00 pm at Blossom Music Center, Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä and Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich will make their Cleveland Orchestra debuts. The program will feature Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5. Tickets are available online.

While it is not unusual to have two people making their Cleveland Orchestra debuts on the same concert, it is somewhat of an anomaly to have both a conductor and soloist who are under 30 years of age. In fact, their combined ages total 41.

“The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the most important orchestras in the world. I have known them for a long time and I’m looking forward to making my debut with them at Blossom,” 23-year-old Klaus Mäkelä said by telephone from Helsinki. “It is a dream come true to play with such a legendary orchestra,” 18-year-old Daniel Lozakovich said by telephone from Geneva, adding “For me, there’s no better way to make a debut than with young energy, and when I found out that I would make mine with Klaus I was so happy.”

Mäkelä and Lozakovich have worked together before and they have a mutual admiration for each other’s talents. [Read more…]

CD Single: Sachs & Kondonassis in Kernis’ Elegy…for those we lost (Azica)

by Daniel Hathaway

When British musicians have needed a piece of memorial music, their choice since the turn of the 20th century has often been the “Nimrod” movement from Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, or Henry Walford Davies’ A Solemn Melody.

Since 1935 when it was born as the second movement of his Op. 11 String Quartet, Americans have frequently turned to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, a piece the composer later texted with the words of the Agnus Dei and re-published for unaccompanied chorus.

A more recent and very personal entry into the category of musical laments is Aaron Jay Kernis’s Elegy…for those we lost, originally a piano piece composed after the composer had contracted and recovered from COVID-19. He has written, “I strived to create music to counterpoint the terrible pandemic and honor the dead — to try to give some measure of solace to families by sharing a personal expression of grief.”

[Read on…]

CD Review — Verona Quartet: Diffusion

by Cait Winston

In their debut album Diffusion, the Verona Quartet celebrates folk music’s influence on string quartet language at the beginning of the 20th century — a style that reflects their values as an international ensemble with members hailing from all across the globe.

In a statement on their website, violinists Jonathan Ong (Singapore) and Dorothy Ro, (Canada), violist Abigail Rojansky (U.S.A.), and cellist Jonathan Dormand (U.K.) establish the idea of “cultural migration” as central to their identity as a quartet. They describe Diffusion as embracing “the spirit of intercultural exploration that permeates many of the great works of the string quartet canon.”

[Read on…]

Buoyed into the evening:
30 minutes of No Exit (Aug. 27)

by Jarrett Hoffman

By unofficial consensus, it’s best when virtual concerts wrap up in under an hour. The new music ensemble No Exit took that idea to another level on Friday, August 27 with a pre-recorded video of less than half that length.

In person, that might feel like an abrupt end to your plans for the night, given the effort needed to find some decent clothes and squeal out the driveway. But at home on Friday, when the concert was over, I felt refreshed in a way I didn’t expect. While full-length concerts can take something out of you energy-wise, here I felt almost buoyed into the rest of the evening.

[Read on…]

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