by Robert Rollin
Kent Blossom presented its fifth and final faculty series program in Ludwig Recital Hall last Wednesday, August 1. The evening’s highlight was the gorgeous performance of Charles-Marie Widor’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in A by Richard Weiss, Cleveland Orchestra first assistant principal cello, and Joela Jones, Cleveland Orchestra keyboardist.
by David Kulma
Wind players take every opportunity to play Mozart, and when they are musicians at the highest level, it’s easy to come away smiling. That was the case on the Kent Blossom faculty concert on Wednesday, July 25 in Kent State’s Ludwig Recital Hall, where an array of Mozart’s works for winds made for a splendid evening.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Beginning with a silly plot of romance, then traversing the dramas of capital-R Romance, and ending with a look back at a spouse’s death — the first faculty concert at this year’s Kent Blossom Music Festival will be “quite a journey, for sure,” cellist Mark Kosower said during a phone call.
He and pianist Jee-Won Oh will take the stage of Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State on Tuesday, July 3 at 7:30 pm for a program that’s especially intriguing for its ending: the cellist’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2 in d.
“It’s part of a project I launched in the spring here in Cleveland called ‘Bach for Humanity,’” Kosower said. “Basically what I’m doing over three years is bringing all of the cello suites and the violin sonatas and partitas to a cross-section of the community through educational performances, outreach, and performances in concert halls and perhaps some unconventional venues.”
by Robert Rollin
Last Saturday night, April 28 at Ludwig Recital Hall, the Kent State University New Music Ensemble presented a retirement concert for co-director Frank Wiley in celebration of his 38 years at Kent. Of the four Wiley works played, the two most recent were Rituals of Earth and Fire (1999) and the premiere of Violet Spirals at Twilight (2018).
by Daniel Hathaway
This Saturday evening’s concert by the Kent New Music Ensemble on April 28 at 7:30 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall will mark the end of an era at the University. Composer Frank Wiley, who founded the group in 1980 and now co-directs it with saxophonist Noa Even, is retiring from the KSU faculty at the end of the current academic year after nearly four decades — but not to a life of shuffleboard and crossword puzzles. When I asked him in a recent telephone conversation what he’d do first thing the morning after he retires, he didn’t have to think. “I’ll probably be composing,” he said.
Wiley has a long list of promised pieces in his inbox. “I’ve got a violin concerto I’m going to be writing for Jameson Cooper, a wind ensemble piece for Jesse Leyva, a percussion quartet for Michael Burritt and his Eastman percussion ensemble, a flute and clarinet duet, and the second version of a piece we’re going to perform on Saturday night,” he said. “That’ll keep me busy.”