Several media outlets reported on Saturday that Cleveland Orchestra principal trombone Massimo La Rosa has been suspended in conjunction with an ongoing investigation into sexual harassment prompted by the July 26 Washington Post report that resulted in the suspension of concertmaster William Preucil. Read more here.
Cleveland Orchestra announces its 2017-2018 Centennial Season
by Daniel Hathaway
Some 1,200 patrons gathered at Severance Hall on Friday evening, March 17 to hear details of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 100th-anniversary season in 2017-2018. The evening began with a sumptuous reception in the lobbies accompanied by string music from members of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra playing alongside Cleveland Orchestra musicians.
Moving to the main auditorium, the crowd heard remarks from executive director André Gremillet and newly-elected Musical Arts Association president Richard K. Smucker, and reflections from Orchestra musicians Massimo La Rosa, Martha Baldwin, and Joshua Smith on their experiences. [Read more…]
Cleveland Women’s Committee Benefit to feature Joela Jones, Michael Sachs & Massimo La Rosa on March 4
by Mike Telin
“Behind every great institution there are women,” Cleveland Orchestra principal keyboard Joela Jones pointed out during a conversation in the Taplin Room at Severance Hall. The Women’s Committee of The Cleveland Orchestra will sponsor a benefit for the Orchestra on Friday, March 4 beginning at 6:00 pm at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven in Mayfield Heights. Joela Jones will join her Orchestra colleagues Michael Sachs, principal trumpet, and Massimo La Rosa, principal trombone, for a special evening of music and conversation. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: Mahler’s third at Severance Hall (October 1)
by Daniel Hathaway
If The Cleveland Orchestra’s recent performance of Gustav Mahler’s third symphony were a restaurant, it would deserve the maximum three stars in the Michelin Guide (“exceptional…worth a special journey”). Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra, two of its choruses, and mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor took a captivated audience on a 95-minute journey into Mahler’s magic world on Thursday evening, October 5, the first of a pair of performances that weekend at Severance Hall, and an experience audiences in Paris and Vienna can look forward to during the Orchestra’s October tour. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: Hindemith, Widmann & Dvořák with Christian Tetzlaff & Franz Welser-Möst (May 14)
by Daniel Hathaway
Franz Welser-Möst returned to the Severance Hall podium on Thursday, May 14 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a dynamic concert of music by Paul Hindemith, Jörg Widmann and Antonín Dvořák. Though the marketing department successfully advertised Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony as the main attraction (resulting in a large turnout for a Thursday evening), Christian Tetzlaff’s riveting performance of Widmann’s Violin Concerto was the most musically intriguing entry on the program, with The Orchestra’s reading of Hindemith’s Concert Music for Strings and Brass not far behind. [Read more…]
Review: Cleveland Orchestra Lakewood Residency — Community Concert at Lakewood Civic (May 24)
by Guytano Parks
The Cleveland Orchestra performed a concert at Lakewood Civic Auditorium last Saturday evening, May 24, the last of fifteen free public events in its 2014 neighborhood residency, “At Home in Lakewood.” The featured soloist was the orchestra’s principal trombone, Massimo La Rosa, and music director Franz Welser-Möst conducted. The event was broadcast live on WCLV 104.9 FM, streamed through the orchestra’s own website, and recorded by IdeaStream WVIZ/PBS for telecast on Friday, May 30 at 9:00 pm. Excitement ran high as the 2,000 seat Civic Auditorium filled to capacity well before curtain time.
The exuberance of the opening bars of Richard Strauss’s richly colorful tone poem, Don Juan, set into motion a performance notable for extremely clean and precise playing by all sections of the orchestra, with an abundance of marvelous solo contributions. Welser-Möst kept everything under exacting control, mustering up quite a bit of gusto, and shaping phrases that spoke beyond mere perfection of execution. The audience cheered heartily at the conclusion. [Read more…]
CD Review: Massimo La Rosa, trombone — Sempre Espressivo
by Daniel Hathaway
Three years after releasing his CD, Cantando, Cleveland Orchestra principal trombone Massimo La Rosa has once again teamed up with pianist Elizabeth DeMio — and added four Cleveland Orchestra string colleagues — for a new solo album entitled Sempre Espressivo. Recorded in July, 2013 at Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Clonick Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory, the album was shepherded into production by the eminent team of Elaine Marton (Sonarc Music) and Thomas C. Moore (5/4 Productions) and engineered by 5/4’s Michael Bishop.
The playlist is an intriguing mix of music intentionally written for the trombone and arrangements of solo pieces originally conceived for other instruments. The original works are Frank Martin’s Ballade, Camille Saint-Saëns’s Cavatine and Ferdinand David’s Concertino. The arranged pieces are Puccini’s Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut and Antonio Carlos Gomes’s Grande Valsa de Bravura — both repurposed by Yury Leonovich — and La Rosa’s own adaptations of Wagner’s Träume (Wesendonck Lieder), Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Sinfonia in F and J.S. Bach’s first solo cello suite in G. [Read more…]
Review: Oberlin Artist Recital Series: The Cleveland Orchestra with Gianandrea Noseda & Massimo La Rosa (February 8)
by Daniel Hathaway
The
Cleveland Orchestra’s 211th visit to the Oberlin Artist Recital Series in Finney Chapel last Friday evening featured two debuts: Gianandrea Noseda’s as guest conductor, and principal trombonist Massimo La Rosa’s as concerto soloist. Nino Rota’s sunny Trombone Concerto shared the program with two more emotionally complicated Russian works by Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev.
One of the pieces featured during Sergei Rachmaninoff’s visit to Severance Hall in 1942 was his 1907 tone poem, The Isle of the Dead, based on a symbolist painting by Arnold Böcklin so famous that the Swiss artist made five versions of it and reproductions, said Vladimir Nabokov, could be found hanging in every Berlin home. Rachmaninoff saw only a black and white photograph of the strange Toteninsel with its mysterious pair of figures in a boat, its rocky mausoleum and tall yew trees, before writing his work, but it took hold of his imagination strongly enough to inspire a 20-minute piece. [Read more…]
Preview: Gianandrea Noseda & Massimo La Rosa to appear with The Cleveland Orchestra at Finney Chapel & Severance Hall
by Mike Telin
The
Risorgimento that united the Italian peninsula’s crazy-quilt of city states and regions into a single nation during the nineteenth century will be reenacted in a small way at Finney Chapel in Oberlin and Severance Hall this weekend, when guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda (born and raised in the North near Milan) and Cleveland Orchestra principal trombonist Massimo La Rosa (a native of Sicily) join together in Nino Rota’s Trombone Concerto. (Also on the program, Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6).
It gets even better with an Italian composer in the mix. “Two Italians in Cleveland playing music by an Italian composer,” Noseda said. “The ingredients are intriguing.” “When I found out that my solo debut would be conducted by Mr. Noseda,” La Rosa recalled, “I immediately thought to myself that the Rota concerto would be the right thing to share with our audiences.” There are also parallels between composer, conductor and soloist. Both Rota and Noseda were born in Milan, and the first performance of the concerto took place in 1974, the year La Rosa was born. [Read more…]