by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday evening, June 18 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Jewish patriarchs, matriarchs, and rabbis held works by Haydn, Kljuco, Britten, and Golijov in their embrace for a ChamberFest Cleveland concert titled “Isaac’s Dreams.” No matter how closely the pieces adhered to the theme, the performances were uniformly superb. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
ChamberFest Cleveland’s concerts organize chamber works under imaginative themes. On Friday evening, June 17 in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance, the connective tissue that linked works by Bridge, Dvořák, Kurtág, Beethoven, and Brahms in a concert titled “To My Distant Beloved” was the idea of separation anxiety. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The fifth in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists
“ChamberFest is very special,” pianist Roman Rabinovich said during a telephone conversation from Wales, where he was performing three solo recitals. “It’s not a generic festival at all. It has such a warm atmosphere, and such interesting programming. This will be my third Festival, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Tonight, June 20 at 8:00 pm at Dobama Theatre, Roman Rabinovich will make his first 2016 ChamberFest Cleveland appearance during “Movie Night” when he teams up with pianists Marat Portan and Orion Weiss for some comical and lighter works, including Sousa marches and a piece for piano six-hands. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
The fifth season of ChamberFest Cleveland — titled “Tales and Legends” — has officially begun, and the world-class festival of chamber music is off to a thrilling start.
WCLV listeners and audience members in Ideastream’s Smith Studio were treated to “Nosh at Noon,” an unofficial inaugural concert on Wednesday, June 15. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The fourth in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists
“The first time I improvised to a silent film I was frightened because I didn’t know if I could,” pianist-composer Matan Porat recalled during a Skype conversation from his home in Berlin. “And I picked the hardest movie there is, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis from 1927 — which is quite long.”
On Monday, June 20 at 8:00 pm at Dobama Theater, the Israeli-born pianist will share his improvisational skills during ChamberFest Cleveland’s “Movie Night” screening of the 1928 Buster Keaton silent film Steamboat Bill, Jr. [Read more…]
by Guytano Parks
ChamberFest Cleveland again presented Movie Night — back by popular demand — for their second season as part of this year’s 10-day schedule of creative programs on Thursday, June 27 at The Cedar Lee Theatre, followed by a cabaret-style concert by ChamberFest artists at The Wine Spot.
Israeli-born pianist and composer Matan Porat, a ChamberFest artist, improvised on piano during the 1926 silent film, The General, written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman and based on Daring & Suffering: A History of the Great Train Adventure by William Pittenger. ChamberFest’s Artistic Director Franklin Cohen said in his brief welcoming remarks that Porat “had no idea what he was going to play” during the screening. But Porat obviously had an arsenal of material up his sleeves, improvising non-stop for the entire 75-minute duration of the film. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Although the 2013 ChamberFest Cleveland theme is [It’s] About Time, a secondary theme could easily be Variety is the Spice of Life. On Friday, June 28 at Harkness Chapel the superb ChamberFest musicians presented a thoroughly engaging program full of musical variety from start to finish titled A Tempo.
The technically commanding and musically sensitive cellist Robert deMaine began the evening with a high energy performance of Alberto Ginastera’s Pampeana No. 2, Rhapsody for cello and piano. The brief work depicting the Argentine pampas or treeless plains gave deMaine ample room to demonstrate his soulful side as well as his virtuosic prowess. Pianist Matan Porat was a keen collaborator, performing with rhythmic precision.
Porat, together with violinist Yehonatan Berick and cellist Julie Albers, were of one musical mind during their captivating performance of Ravel’s Trio in A minor. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The second iteration of ChamberFest Cleveland opened June 20 in CIM’s Mixon Hall on festive, thoughtful and ecstatic notes with music by Matan Porat, Mozart and Messiaen, preceded by a free preludial concert by Sphinx Competition prize-winning cellist Gabriel Cabezas and pianist Orion Weiss.
ChamberFest is an extended family affair that draws a number of close musical friends into its orbit, but its immediate family is Franklin, Diana and Alexander Cohen, an unusual trio of clarinet, violin and timpani for whom Matan Porat wrote an ingratiating festival fanfare entitled Start Time. Ringing changes on ChamberFest’s theme, (It’s) About Time, the short piece gave all three instruments a workout as they joined in and responded to one another after an arresting timpani solo.
The main work on Thursday evening’s program was Olivier Messiaen’s mystical Quartet for the End of Time, a work so emotionally intense that it can fill out an entire concert all by itself without the need for musical companionship. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Following on the heels of their highly successful premiere season, ChamberFest Cleveland artistic directors Frank and Diana Cohen have again assembled an impressive lineup of artists who will perform a variety of musical offerings in an expanded array of diverse venues.
Beginning on Thursday, June 20, and running through Sunday, June 30, (IT’S) ABOUT TIME explores the different elements of time as related to the musical experience, through metaphoric and literal representations of musical time. “We struggled a lot with the title,” Diana Cohen told us by Skype. “Our returning guest speaker, Patrick Castillo, had the idea that the title should be about the interesting aspects that exist in the relationship between time and music. We couldn’t come up with a name, then somebody said, ‘so, it’s about time,’ and it stuck.”
Cohen says the decision to expand to eight ticketed concerts as well as increasing the number of free programs this season was not easy. “There was a lot of debate in terms of how much we should expand, in part because what we liked about last season was the fact that everything was sold out in addition to the incredible amount of community support we received.” Cohen says that last season’s audience surveys, which were full of “honest” feedback, helped them a lot in making decisions about this season. [Read more…]