Leila Josefowicz Archives - Page 2 of 2

Cheung, Adès, and Wagner with FWM and The Cleveland Orchestra (April 2)

April 12, 2016 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

If planning an orchestral season is like assembling a vast jigsaw puzzle, The Cleveland Orchestra’s program on Saturday, April 2 felt as though it might have been put together from the leftover pieces after everything else had fallen neatly into place. [Read more…]

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Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Isidore String Quartet with Jeremy Denk (May 19)

by Kevin McLaughlin

Presented by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on May 19, the Isidore String Quartet — violinists Adrian Steele & Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon — offered a program that moved from Haydn through Ligeti to Brahms with the addition of pianist Jeremy Denk.

Haydn’s Op. 76, No. 4 (“Sunrise”) begins with a first-violin line unfurling over softly lit inner voices as the quartet waited for daylight. But when Haydn quickly broadened the texture into something fuller and more forceful, the quartet’s delicacy came at the expense of expressive weight.

The second movement opened almost inaudibly, the players hardly breathing, as if afraid of being discovered. By the Menuetto, the ensemble had loosened up, swaying with Haydn’s unexpectedly intricate rhythms, not waiting to be asked to dance. In the finale’s fugue, lines passed so smoothly from one player to the next that the seams disappeared, leaving only music. [Read on…]

Baritone Edward Vogel creates a sentimental “Palace in the Wild” (May 11)

by Stephanie Manning

Plenty of concerts trace a kind of journey, using music to tell a story. But Edward Vogel’s recent recital with the Rocky River Chamber Music Society felt particularly personal.

The baritone, who has lived and performed in Cleveland for five years, announced to the audience at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church that he and his husband would be relocating to Tennessee the very next day. Thankfully, before that happened, we got to hear “A Palace in the Wild: Journeys in British Art Song,” the beautiful program he brought to Rocky River on May 11.

Together with pianist Jenny Parker, Vogel guided the listeners through the five-part evening, contributing oral program notes throughout. The selections celebrate the “beautiful and underrated” genre of art song, specifically from British composers — a combination Vogel noted is less-often heard in the U.S. The structure followed the path of a life, from youthfulness, to seeking adventure, to grappling with a changed meaning of home.

[Read on…]

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