by David Kulma
During Daniel Meyer’s short tenure as artistic director and conductor of BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, the ensemble has risen to a new level of quality. On Saturday, February 1 at Plymouth Church, Meyer and his ensemble performed an excellent program titled “A Classical Feast,” focusing on music from the late 18th century.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Two founding members of BlueWater Chamber Orchestra will partner as soloists this weekend, when conductor Daniel Meyer and the ensemble perform “A Classical Feast” at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday, February 1 at 7:30 pm.
Concertmaster Ken Johnston and principal second violin Emily Cornelius will play the Op. 13 Symphonie Concertante in G by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who is remembered as the first known classical composer of African origin. One of his contemporaries was Mozart, whose Symphony No. 40 in g closes Saturday’s program. And in between those two works, soprano Laura Pedersen will be featured in Beethoven’s concert aria Ah, Perfido! Tickets are available online.
Johnston and Cornelius have known each other for at least ten years — BlueWater celebrates its own decade in 2020 — but this will be their first time appearing together as soloists. “At this point, she and I are old friends,” Johnston said by telephone last week. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for her musicianship. I think we share the same sense of humor in a lot of ways, and that comes across.”
by Daniel Hathaway
Conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Laura Pederson were the featured guests for the first of two weekend concerts by BlueWater Chamber Orchestra on Saturday, November 11 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The Saturday performance was a ticketed event, while a repeat performance the following afternoon at Pilgrim Church in Tremont was free, thanks to Cuyahoga Arts and Culture — perhaps accounting for a rather slim audience on Saturday. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
“When I put together a program, I look for interesting threads that connect the pieces, but I also look at how the pieces resonate with me,” Daniel Meyer, music director of the Asheville Symphony and Erie Philharmonic, said in a recent conversation. “I’m going to be interpreting them, putting my stamp on them, and standing in front of incredibly trained musicians who will want to know my opinion, so it’s important that I have a personal connection to the works.”
On Saturday, November 11 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s “Lush Autumn Musings” brings together guest conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Laura Pedersen in Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, bookended by Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin and Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 2 in B-flat.
by Daniel Hathaway
Cleveland Opera Theater got top billing, but students from the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory covered most of the singing and acting duties in Brecht & Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, which received its second and final performance at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in University Circle on Sunday afternoon, October 29. Directed by Scott Skiba, the joint production was supported by a seven-piece instrumental ensemble conducted by Domenico Boyagian. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
“There’s a very raw, visceral style to the language and the drama in Threepenny,” said Cleveland Opera Theater director Scott Skiba in a recent conversation. “Nothing is whitewashed, nothing is varnished.”
On Friday, October 27 at 7:30 pm at Maltz Performing Arts Center, Cleveland Opera Theater opens its season with The Threepenny Opera, co-produced by Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. Presented in English, the work brings together Kurt Weill’s genre-fusing music and Elisabeth Hauptmann’s and Bertolt Brecht’s famously provocative text, adapted from John Gay’s 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera. A second performance will be given on Sunday, October 29 at 3:00 pm.
“It’s a relevant, exciting piece that hasn’t been done here for a long time, and this is going to be a special version,” said Skiba, who also serves as director of opera studies at BW. “Sometimes the word ‘opera’ scares people, but this will feel more like musical theater. It’s outrageous and vibrant.” [Read more…]