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Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts return with plenty of festive cheer (Dec. 11)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — If the twinkling lights, leafy green garlands and festive poinsettias didn’t already clue you in, the holidays have arrived at Severance Music Center. ‘Tis the season for annual traditions — including The Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts, which began on Wednesday evening.

Running through December 22, the programs feature plenty of seasonal classics plus some potential new favorites. The first performance proved that this mix is a delightful recipe for festive cheer.

“Look at you all, out on a school night!” conductor Sarah Hicks proclaimed joyfully from the podium. Just as many concertgoers donned red outfits to get into the spirit, Mandel Concert Hall was also decked out with decorations and stage lighting effects.

[Read more…]

Klaus Mäkelä and Cleveland Orchestra treat listeners to a magical musical feast (Apr. 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical

Originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Music can transport you — not only emotionally, but physically — to another time and place.

Cleveland Orchestra fans who hopped on guest conductor Klaus Mäkelä’s magic carpet at Severance Music Center on Thursday evening were swept away to the streets of Lima to hear Peruvian street vendors hawking their goods, then to England for a ramble through the Malvern Hills, and finally to ancient Iraq to quaff wine with the king of Babylon and a thousand of his idol-worshiping lords. Although the evening didn’t turn out well for Belshazzar, Walton’s music raised the roof of Mandel Concert Hall by a yard or two with resplendent orchestral and choral sound.

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Cleveland Orchestra kicks off 2023 holiday series with festive Severance concert (Dec. 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Originally posted on Cleveland.com

The Cleveland Orchestra will perform a series of heartwarming holiday concerts for the whole family through Dec. 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni). Roger Mastroianni

Dear Predictive Chatbot (or Siri, or Cortana, or other AI digital assistant),

How long should I wait before asking you to play me holiday music in December?

Dear Consumer,

It depends. It used to be proper to wait until the Thanksgiving dishes had been washed and put away (for the mercantile launch date, ask me about Black Friday). But for some chain stores, Christmas goods begin appearing soon after the Fourth of July, when letters to the editor decrying the commercialization of the holidays also begin to proliferate.

Now I see from my GPS that you’re writing from Cleveland. It’s a safe bet to hold off on the Noëls and Fa-la-la-la-las until The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus launch their Holiday Concerts. This year there are 14 of them, and my data suggest that these events are regarded by the local population as the true beginning of the Holiday season. Let the celebrations begin!

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Cleveland Orchestra Chorus:
Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil (Oct. 20) 

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Sacred Veil, as one might expect from an hour-long work about death and grief, is not an easy listen. Eric Whitacre’s music, evocative and emotional, makes potent company with Charles Anthony Silvestri’s words, a chain of poems on the loss of his wife Julia Lawrence Silvestri (Julie), who died of ovarian cancer in 2005 at the age of 36. The inclusion of Julie’s own poetry, along with Whitacre’s, increases the impact.

On Friday, October 20 during a performance by The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, the Severance Music Center audience, perhaps expecting lighter fare, listened closely, though gloomily. Told through particularities — one couple’s experience of early love and childbirth, the young woman’s diagnosis, prognosis, and ultimately her death — Sacred Veil’s power lies in its wider applicability. The words, projected in supertitles above the stage, penetrated the heart; the music sealed the deal.

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The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus welcomes Eric Whitacre

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by Mike Telin

“What if our departed loved ones are not truly gone, but are closer than we think? How can we mourn those we have lost while still moving forward? We have all experienced the loss, in one way or another, of someone or something we have loved deeply. How do we know when it’s time to move forward?”

-Charles Anthony Silvestri

Written in 2018, The Sacred Veil — with music by Eric Whitacre (pictured left) and text by Charles Anthony Silvestri — tells a story of love, loss, and grief. Silvestri’s wife, Julie, died of ovarian cancer at age 36 in 2005, leaving behind two young children. “It’s an extensive, twelve-movement work that is just beautiful,” Lisa Wong, The Cleveland Orchestra’s Director of Choruses, said during a telephone conversation.

On Friday, October 20 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Whitacre will lead the 140-member Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and 14 singers from the College of Wooster in The Sacred Veil for SATB choir, solo cello, and piano — his most recent collaboration with Silvestri. The concert also includes Reena Esmail’s When the Violin for chorus and cello, based on a 14th-century text by Persian poet Hafiz, conducted by Wong. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Verdi’s Otello (May 21)

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by Peter Feher

Franz Welser-Möst led the final bows on Saturday night at Severance, like the star of any show should. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director is in his element presiding over the ensemble’s annual opera production, which this season packs the drama. Verdi’s Otello — in a concert staging that opened May 21 and runs for two more performances (May 26 and 29) — demands big voices, instrumental forces to match, and a conductor who can give it all shape and direction. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Chorus sings Brahms’ Requiem with duo pianists (Oct. 28) 

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by Daniel Hathaway

Like the exiles in The Book of Isaiah who returned rejoicing to Zion, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus jubilantly revisited Severance Music Center, the scene of many past triumphs, on Thursday evening, October 28. Chorus director Lisa Wong was on the podium, Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem was in singers’ hands and on their lips, a pair of Steinways manned by Carolyn Warner and Daniel Overly sat dovetailed at center-stage, and a near-capacity audience witnessed the homecoming.

Had the Chorus been missed during its many months of silence? You bet it had. A thunderous welcome greeted the 120-some singers as they smartly filed onstage, to be matched at the other end of the evening by a warm and lengthy ovation for a job well done. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Chorus returns with Brahms’ A German Requiem 

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by Mike Telin

Whether it was the passing of his mother in February 1865 or the death of Robert Schumann later that same year, no one is certain what motivated Johannes Brahms to compose his large-scale, non-liturgical Requiem in the German language.

On Thursday, October 28 at 7:00 pm, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus under the direction of Lisa Wong will return to the Mandel Concert Hall Stage for a performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. The evening will feature soprano Andrea Carroll, baritone Chris Kenney, and pianists Daniel Overly and Carolyn Warner. Tickets are available online. Click here for COVID-19 protocols.

I spoke to Lisa Wong by telephone and began by asking her why she selected the Brahms for the first Chorus concert in over 18 months.

Lisa Wong: Part of it was thinking practically. When we were scheduling the season, the vaccines were just starting to roll out and we weren’t sure what the situation would be this fall. So we looked for a piece that would work with piano or organ — something that wouldn’t involve the full orchestra but would still be substantive for the chorus. So, we came to the two-piano version of the Brahms Requiem. That was the practical thinking behind the choice. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus: Mendelssohn & Křenek (Mar. 5)

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by Timothy Robson

Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra presented a very unlikely pairing of musical works this weekend at Severance Hall, Ernst Křenek’s austere and modernist Static and Ecstatic, Op. 214, sharing the program with Felix Mendelssohn’s joyous, life-affirming Lobgesang (“Song of Praise”), Op. 52. In Mendelssohn’s mashup of symphony and cantata, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus continued their upward trajectory of excellence, joined by soloists Christina Landshamer and Martina Janková, sopranos, and Julian Prégardien, tenor. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus: Martina Janková & Lisa Wong talk about Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang

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by Daniel Hathaway

The artistic planners at Severance Hall have taken profit of soprano Martina Janková’s current visit to Cleveland to create a mini-Mendelssohn festival. Janková appeared with Vinay Parmareswaren and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Chorus on Sunday evening, March 1 in the motet Hör mein Bitten, and will be featured as a soloist in Lobgesang on March 5, 7, and 8 with The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus led by Franz Welser-Möst.

“I feel at home in Cleveland with my beloved orchestra. I think they are the best in the world,” the Swiss soprano said in a telephone conversation. She’s had plenty of opportunity to get to know the ensemble, having starred in three Mozart operas, sung the title roles in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (twice) and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, and most recently appeared as soloist in Schubert’s Mass in E-flat.

The opportunity to revisit the Mendelssohn motet was nostalgic for Janková. “It was like coming back to my roots. I began my study at the Basel Academy of Music with Hör mein Bitten twenty years ago.” [Read more…]

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