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NEOSonicFest: Concert No. 4 to feature CCS, CYO, Young Composers & an Ed London tribute

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by Mike Telin

London-EdWhen NEOSonicFest presents its fourth concert on Tuesday, March 24, at 7:30pm in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony (CCS) will pay tribute to its founder, the late Edwin London. The two-part musical evening will feature pieces by CCS’s 2015 Young and Emerging Composers competition winners, as well as a side-by-side performance with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO) of Bernard Rands’ London Serenade.

“We’re very excited about this concert,” said CCS’s conductor and Festival music director Steven Smith. “For the first time we will join forces with CYO for a side-by-side performance. This will be one of the highlights of the Festival, because Bernard wrote his London Serenade for the Chamber Symphony. We’ve played it several times over the years, and, I think there’s something poignant about bringing the piece back to life alongside a new generation of players.” [Read more…]

Contemporary Youth Orchestra alumni to gather for a concert on Dec. 20

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by Mike Telin

Season19

This time of year there is a seemingly endless number of holiday concerts on the calendar. If you’re looking for something different, just for one evening, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra invites you to be part of their 20th anniversary celebration. On Saturday, December 20 at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, Liza Grossman will lead the 120-member CYO Reunion Orchestra in a free concert featuring Igor Stravinsky’s “Berceuse” and “Finale” (Firebird Suite), Derek Snyder’s Sun Up, Tan Dun’s Internet Symphony, Gustav Holst’s “Mars” (The Planets) and Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2.

Grossman could not be more pleased with the fact that Saturday’s orchestra will include alumni representing each of CYO’s past nineteen seasons. “For the first time in our history alums are coming back for one magical night! There are a few charter members returning and I believe there will be at least one member from each season after that. Some people I haven’t seen in 18 years, but we’ll have nametags for everybody so we’ll know who is who. I think some of them may be older than I am by now!” [Read more…]

Contemporary Youth Orchestra at Waetjen Auditorium (December 7)

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by Mike Telin

Grossman-&-CYO

For the past nineteen seasons, Liza Grossman has been inspiring young musicians to become enthused about contemporary music. On Sunday evening, December 7, in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, the fruits of her tireless labor were fully realized in a glorious concert that began the Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s twentieth anniversary season. [Read more…]

Contemporary Youth Orchestra, Part 3: A conversation with composer Stefan Podell

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by Mike Telin

Podell-StefanWe continue our preview of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s concert on Sunday, December 7 at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, with a conversation with Stefan Podell, whose Concerto for Two Violas and Orchestra, will receive its premiere that evening with Lynne Ramsey and Jeffrey Irvine as soloists.

Stefan Podell has been arranging music for CYO since 2009. He has created works for artists such as Jon Anderson of YES, Jefferson Starship, Evelyn Glennie, and Sean Beasson. As a songwriter and musician, he has won awards from the likes of Billboard Magazine and VH-1. He has shared the stage with performers such as Cheap Trick, Barenaked Ladies, and Dishwalla. The Concerto for Two Violas is Podell’s second CYO concerto commission: his Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra was premiered by CYO and Cleveland Orchestra Principal Bass Maximilian Dimoff in the fall of 2012.

Stefan and I got together for lunch following Saturday’s CYO rehearsal. We talked about the important role CYO has played in the development of his career and how the music of Jon Anderson and the band YES helped inspire him to pursue classical music.     [Read more…]

Contemporary Youth Orchestra to celebrate its twentieth season with Bernard Rands tribute

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by Mike Telin

GrossmanHeadShot1“How could I possibly enter into our twentieth season without him being a major part of this concert?” Contemporary Youth Orchestra Music Director Liza Grossman exclaimed over the phone. The man Grossman is referring to is Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands. On Sunday, December 7 at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, CYO will present a concert honoring the composer.

The program will include Rands’s London Serenade and Danza Petrificada as well as the world premiere of his Music for Liza and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra: Theme for CYO. The evening also includes the world premiere of Stefan Podell’s Concerto for Two Violas and Orchestra featuring violists Lynne Ramsey and Jeffrey Irvine, and Richard Hill and Chris Barber’s Concerto for Jazz Trombone and Orchestra with CYO concerto competition winner Rachel Waterbury as soloist.

[Read more…]

Review: Contemporary Youth Orchestra with Ben Folds at Severance Hall (June 2)

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by Daniel Hautzinger

CYO--060114-Rob-MullerGenuine beaming smiles are a rare sight among high school students, those supremely self-conscious paragons of effortful cool. But on June 2, dozens of delighted adolescent grins shone forth from the stage of Severance Hall, an occurrence even more remarkable for taking place in the decidedly unhip venue of a classical music concert hall. Sharing the stage with such an exciting performer as pianist, singer, and songwriter Ben Folds elicited not only unembarrassed smiles, but also head banging and exuberant playing from the young musicians of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO), directed by Liza Grossman.

The orchestra, especially the brass and percussion, were uninhibited in dynamic arrangements of Folds’s songs by Iain Grandage, Michael Pigneguy, Paul Buckmaster, Graeme Lyall, Jim Gray, and James Ledger. That freedom from restraint is often absent when young musicians perform canonical music, so hearing CYO unabashedly enjoy their parts was a joy. [Read more…]

Preview: Contemporary Youth Orchestra to explore music of Pixar, Disney and Marvel on March 15

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by Daniel Hathaway

BambiThose of us (of a certain age) who grew up watching the animated films (call them cartoons if you must) of the mid-twentieth century received a subliminal dose of well-crafted music that would hold up well in the concert hall — and probably turned us in a good musical direction as a result.

Now the film music of Disney, Pixar and Marvel has moved from celluloid into symphonic circles, as The Cleveland Orchestra has recently been proving in performances at Blossom. On Saturday, March 15 at 7 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at CSU, the next generation of orchestral musicians will tackle that repertory as Liza Grossman leads the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in its annual Music and Its Industry concert, “The Sound of Imagination: Music of Pixar, Disney and Marvel.”

The performance will mark the seventh time that Grossman has collaborated with Case Western Reserve University musicologist Daniel Goldmark in designing and providing narrative context for its midwinter concert. [Read more…]

Preview: Contemporary Youth Orchestra begins its nineteenth season on December 7

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by Mike Telin

GROSSMAN-Liza“Yes, it’s hard to believe, but this is our nineteenth season and it’s the first year that CYO is older then its members,” says Contemporary Youth Orchestra founder and music director Liza Grossman. On Saturday, December 7 beginning at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium, Cleveland State University, CYO under the direction of Liza Grossman will present a concert featuring the music of John Adams, Frank Martin, Igor Stravinsky and Astor Piazzolla featuring musical guests The Oblivion Project.

The concert also includes a special performance by twenty-six young musicians of the El Sistema University Circle program in a side-by-side performance of Brian Balmage’s Burst. Grossman says that collaborating with El Sistema began actually began a couple of years ago when the program’s founder and Cleveland Orchestra violinist Isabel Trautwein began attending CYO concerts. “I am fascinated by and in awe of her commitment to bringing this kind of education to Cleveland. She even brings her kids to CYO rehearsals in hope of inspiring them,” Grossman said. “What a wonderful opportunity for us to share and inspire the El Sistema kids and the CYO members.”

Anyone who has attended a CYO concert knows that there is always a high level of fun happening on the stage. [Read more…]

Review: Bootsy Collins and Contemporary Youth Orchestra in “Rock the Orchestra” at CSU (May 17)

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by Mike Telin

COLLINS-BootsySince 2001, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra under the direction of its always-creative founder and music director Liza Grossman, have presented an end-of-season Rock the Orchestra concert. Past concerts have given CYO members the chance to work with some of the greats from the world of Rock including the likes of Graham Nash, Jon Anderson, Pat Benatar, Donnie Iris and Jefferson Starship. On Friday, May 17 in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins joined forces with CYO in an electrifying concert titled Psychotic Bump School.

But this concert amounted to far more than a celebrated artist playing his or her beloved tunes backed up by an orchestra; this performance was all about the collaborative nature of music. Collins, the CYO, the 57-member Campus International School Bootsy Choir under the direction of Janice Fields Pohl, and his own band — Keith Cheatham, guitar, “Monster” Mike Cobb, bass, Ken “BAM” Smith, drums, Zac Adams, Candice Cheatham and Lauren Mallory, vocals — plus some cool dance steps by Patti Collins, all added up to one gigantic music-making and dancing machine. [Read more…]

Review: Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s “Singer/Songwriters” — an embarassment of riches (March 16)

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by Timothy Robson

CYO-SS-031613Sometimes good ideas run amok, despite the best of intentions and excellent execution. Such was the case with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s “Singer / Songwriters” concert at CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium on March 16. The orchestra’s brilliantly inventive music director Liza Grossman hit on the idea of having singer/songwriters present their songs in full orchestral arrangements commissioned by the orchestra.

The performer/composers participated in a competition to have their songs chosen. There was a wealth of talent from Cleveland, Michigan, New York, Connecticut and California. And there’s the flaw: fourteen performers (some soloists, some groups) were chosen to perform two songs each. Then there was set up time and spoken commentary in between each performer. The concert was more than three hours long, and many in the audience fled long before the end, which was regrettable, because there were fine performances right through to the end of the evening. [Read more…]

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