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…]
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…]
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 Jarrett Hoffman
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Clevelanders haven’t heard their orchestra live since mid-May. In the interim, The Cleveland Orchestra has been on the road, finishing off their centennial-capping Prometheus Project with performances at Vienna’s Musikverein and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Oh, how we miss them.
We’ll get reacquainted with TCO soon, thanks to their schedule at this year’s 50th anniversary season of Blossom Music Festival, plus their fourth Summers@Severance series.
The Cleveland Orchestra marks the unofficial beginning of summer when they open their Blossom season on Saturday, July 7 at 8:00 pm. At the helm will be music director Franz Welser-Möst, leading the Orchestra in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in its orchestration by Ravel, Reznicek’s Overture to Donna Diana, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, featuring TCO’s own soloists –– pianist Joela Jones, violinist Stephen Rose, and cellist Mark Kosower. At this concert and two others, check out the Image Magnification system, which displays live video of the performers on LED screens in the Blossom Pavilion. Fingers crossed for the weather — a firework show is planned for afterwards.
by Daniel Hathaway
With less than two weeks to go before students in the 50th Kent/Blossom Music Festival descend on the Kent State University campus for five weeks of rehearsals, master classes, and coachings, festival director Ricardo Sepulveda is close to solving the annual puzzle of scheduling daily activities for 43 students and 30 faculty members — mostly from The Cleveland Orchestra. “It keeps me up at night,” he said in a recent telephone conversation.
This summer’s students (16 of whom are international, hailing from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Japan, and Colombia) will arrive on July 1 and begin their experience with a dinner for participants, faculty, donors, and host families who will house eight of the students. “Rehearsals, coachings, and lessons start right up the next day,” Sepulveda said.
Recruitment began in mid-winter. “I changed the process a bit, shortening it to end before the first of March. Instead of print, we did online promotion using the Violin Channel and Facebook, which allows us to reach people faster,” he said, noting that the Festival is now old enough that it’s fun to see students of former students applying. Once they settle in at Kent, there are busy days ahead. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
In honor of the Baroque master’s 333rd birthday on the 21st of the month, Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower played an all-Bach recital on Sunday, March 18 on the Arts Renaissance Tremont Series at Pilgrim Congregational Church. It was a splendid and generous concert, musically, spiritually, and temporally — and at over two and a quarter hours, there were a lot of notes! [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Joseph Haydn’s two great oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, came along late in his life after the composer had visited London and was impressed by Handel’s large dramatic works for chorus and orchestra. After bravely performing a stripped-down version of The Seasons on Thursday — two of the soloists were ailing — Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in an enthralling performance of the complete oratorio on Saturday evening. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
After BlueWater Chamber Orchestra founder Carlton Woods’ untimely death in February, the Orchestra decided to continue with his plans for 2017-2018, calling on guest conductors and its own concertmaster to lead the new season’s programs. On Sunday afternoon, September 17 at the Breen Center in Ohio City, Octavio Más-Arocas led the ensemble in “The Captivating Cello,” and the captivating cellist was Cleveland Orchestra principal Mark Kosower. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Once a year, tens of thousands of people from around the world come to conductor Octavio Más-Arocas’ hometown of Buñol, Spain, for a tomato fight.
“It’s like the famous phrase about Times Square,” Más-Arocas said in a recent conversation. “If you stand there for two or three minutes, you can hear all the languages of the world. That happens in my little town on the last Wednesday of every August.”
After answering that yes, it can hurt to get hit by a tomato — especially a frozen one — the conductor made a surprising comparison: the tomato fight known as La Tomatina is not unlike music. “It’s funny to connect these two things, but I believe something unique happens in that moment in the fight, when you’re in the middle of it and thousands of people are around you. It’s barbaric, but at the same time it’s very touching in a way — human beings from all different backgrounds coming together to have fun.”
Más-Arocas hopes to bring that spirit of human connection to his debut as guest conductor with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra this Sunday, September 17 at 3:00 pm for the ensemble’s season-opening concert. “I have some dear friends in this orchestra, and it’s always great to make music with them. But in the end, they’re all going to be my friends because when I work with an orchestra, I want to create a friendship — that’s the only way I can make good music.”
by Daniel Hathaway
After the gradual spinning down of the summer concert season, September can sneak up on you. Here’s a list of early season openers and one-off events that Northeast Ohio music lovers should be sure to jot down in their calendars.
Ars Organi at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Heights
Organist Karel Paukert has created a festival to celebrate the collection of organs (and a harpsichord) that grace the music program at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. The seven events in “Ars Organi” between September 15 and October 1 will feature the Walter Holtkamp Sr. instrument as well as the Vladimir Slajch chamber organ, the Gerhard Hradetzky Italian Baroque organ, and the Matthias Griewisch harpsichord — a fleet of keyboard instruments any church would be delighted to have at its disposal.
Performers include Prague organist Jaroslav Tuma (right) on Friday, September 15 at 7:30 
pm and Saturday, September 16 at 4:00 pm (featuring his paraphrase of Smetana’s My Country); Oberlin professor James David Christie with members of Oberlin’s Collegium Musicum on Tuesday, September 19 at 7:30 pm; and University of Kansas professor James Higdon in a lecture and masterclass on Jehan Alain on Saturday, September 23 at 2:00 pm and a recital of Alain’s works on Sunday, September 24 at 4:00 pm. [Read more…]