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Cleveland Orchestra returns to Severance Hall (Sept. 19 & 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

A compact Schubert symphony, the first half of a Prokofiev ballet score, and both neoclassical and full-out-Romantic works by Richard Strauss were on the docket as Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra returned to Severance Hall last weekend to begin the ensemble’s 102nd season. Thursday evening’s subscription concert on September 19 began with a stylish reading of Schubert’s Third Symphony, a spirited work festooned with amiable melodic fragments you probably couldn’t go away whistling, but that gave the 18-year-old composer an abundance of cheerful material to play with.

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Kent Blossom Music Festival: Kosower & Oh launch faculty series (July 3)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Masterclasses and coachings are valuable, but hearing your mentors perform is one of the most inspiring features summer music festivals can offer their young artists. In his ambitious program that opened the 2019 Kent Blossom faculty series on Wednesday, July 3 in Ludwig Recital Hall, Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower gave a variety of object lessons to an audience largely populated by festival participants. [Read more…]

Digging into Kent Blossom with Mark Kosower

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Cellist Mark Kosower and pianist Jee-Won Oh will find themselves in a familiar place on Wednesday, July 3 at 7:30 pm: in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State University, where they’ll once again open the faculty concert series at this year’s Kent Blossom Music Festival. There’s a reason for that — whether at Kent or elsewhere, they always come up with a program that’s worth talking about.

And that’s exactly what Kosower and I did for about twenty minutes over the phone earlier this week. We discussed his and Oh’s choices of works by Beethoven, Fauré, Bach, Chausson, and Schubert, with conversational side trips both poignant and silly.

Jarrett Hoffman: I’m excited to talk to you about this program.

Mark Kosower: There are a number of themes running through it. There’s the French contingent and impressionism, with Chausson being a bridge composer between Romanticism and impressionism. Then you have the Germanic theme with Bach, Schubert, and of course Beethoven, who had a picture of Bach on his wall in at least 1 of his 39 Viennese apartments. He was always being evicted.

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Kent Blossom celebrates 51st season

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by Rory O’Donoghue

The Kent Blossom Music Festival returns this weekend, marking the 51st season of Kent State University’s collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra. From June 30 to August 4, the Festival boasts a five-concert Faculty Series and a ten-concert Young Artist Series, including its annual side-by-side performance between students and The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Bramwell Tovey. 

“Our faculty concert series will feature fantastic artists from The Cleveland Orchestra, Kent State’s revered faculty, the Miami String Quartet, pianist Spencer Myer and other guest artists,” Festival director Ricardo Sepúlveda said in his letter introducing this year’s season. For these musicians, their tenure at Kent Blossom is more than just performance based — they’ll be working closely with the 43 visiting students accepted this year.  [Read more…]

Opera at Severance Hall: Ariadne auf Naxos (Jan. 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

“In first impressions,” writes David Wright in his Severance Hall program book notes, Ariadne auf Naxos “can feel like little more than impassioned music filled with an ever-flowing river of non-sequiturs.” But on Sunday afternoon, Richard Strauss’ fervent score — superbly sung and played by a top-notch cast and The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst — paved over the gap between high art and comedy, making the opening performance of Ariadne an event to remember for a long time. [Read more…]

Cellist Mark Kosower highlights eclectic Canton Symphony Program (Oct. 27)

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by Tom Wachunas
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

After hearing the very eclectic program offered by the Canton Symphony Orchestra at Umstattdt Performing Arts Hall on October 27, I was finally convinced of something I had suspected on numerous previous occasions: every member of this ensemble, including music director Gerhardt Zimmermann, is an alchemist. What else could explain the transmutation of the instruments they play and the scores they read into vessels of such profound spirituality? [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Gimeno & Kosower (Oct. 18)

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by David Kulma

As autumn finally slammed Northeast Ohio with colder temperatures, the Toronto Symphony’s new music director- designate Gustavo Gimeno led The Cleveland Orchestra in a stimulating and shining program for his Severance Hall debut on Friday, October 18. This concert featured an early, ecstatic overture by Samuel Barber, an Alberto Ginastera concerto starring principal cello Mark Kosower, and a melody-drenched warhorse by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

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Gustavo Gimeno returns to the Cleveland Orchestra podium

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by Mike Telin

When Gustavo Gimeno was appointed principal percussion of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he quickly began doing something that he had wanted to do for some time. “I always wanted to study conducting,” the friendly maestro said by phone from St. Louis. “It was not so much an attempt to become a conductor — that was not really in my thoughts. I did it to become a better musician.”

Later this week, the music director-designate of the Toronto Symphony will make his Severance Hall debut when he leads The Cleveland Orchestra in a program that will feature principal cello Mark Kosower in Alberto Ginastera’s Second Cello Concerto, along with Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. You can hear the full program on Thursday, October 18 at 7:30 pm, Friday, October 19 at 7:00 pm (the first Fridays@7 concert of the season), and Saturday, October 20 at 8:00 pm, or a shorter version without the Ginastera on Friday at 11:00 am (a one-hour matinee). Tickets are available online.

These concerts will mark Gimeno’s third visit to the Orchestra’s podium — the two previous times were at Blossom. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Jahja Ling (July 7)

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by Daniel Hathaway

With over a hundred Blossom Music Center performances to his credit, Jahja Ling was the obvious — and ideal — choice to replace the indisposed Franz Welser-Möst for The Cleveland Orchestra’s opening concert on Saturday, July 7. Perfect weather and a revelatory performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition celebrated the beginning of Blossom’s 50th Anniversary season in a memorable way. And there were fireworks, too. [Read more…]

Kent/Blossom Faculty Recital: Mark Kosower & Jee-Won Oh (July 3)

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by David Kulma

Cleveland Orchestra principal cellist Mark Kosower and his regular collaborator, pianist Jee-Won Oh, inaugurated both the 50th year of the Kent Blossom Music Festival and the newly-laid stage floor of Kent State University’s Ludwig Hall on Tuesday, July 3. This marvelously-played faculty concert featured four B’s: sonatas by Frank Bridge and Samuel Barber bookended by Beethoven at his silliest and solo Bach at his most eloquent. [Read more…]

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