by Stephanie Manning
Errollyn Wallen is many things — composer, vocalist, and published author, just to name a few. But you could also say she’s a little bit of a psychic.
As the sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in Mixon Hall rapidly darkened with storm clouds on June 18, she launched into her song “Tree.” “I’m perplexed by rooted trees,” she crooned over pizzicattos from her accompanying string quartet, as lightning flashed and the real-life trees bent and twisted in the fierce wind.
Shortly after, ChamberFest co-artistic director Diana Cohen stopped the concert to make a rare request: that everyone in the room make their way down to the Cleveland Institute of Music basement to shelter from the storm. This unusual little detour was just one way the Wednesday evening program lived up to its name, “Mood Swings.”
Ever since Punxsutawney Phil popped his head out to predict six more weeks of winter, Clevelanders have seen no respite from the cold and snowy weather. So February 11 was as good a winter day as any to escape to sunny Spain, via the latest concert from the Cleveland Chamber Music Society.
How do you depict grief? The most personal emotion next to love, it seems incommunicable. Its particularity grows out of a unique relationship between the aggrieved and the one who is lost; no one else can understand the complexities of that tie or the feelings engendered by its severing.