by Mike Telin
With the 2026 Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists underway, I took the opportunity to hear a most enjoyable Semi-Final Chamber Round on Tuesday, July 28 in Mixon Hall at CIM. The session featured contestants from the Rising Star (ages 10 to 12) and Senior divisions (ages 16 to 18).
by Stephanie Manning
School’s out for the summer, but that doesn’t mean all learning has to be put on pause. Enter programs like “Summer Fun For Everyone” at the Garfield Heights Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library.
On most weekday mornings during the summer, kids from grades one through six are welcome to drop in to the campus on Turney Road for exploratory educational activities. On Thursday, June 12, what was in store included a concert of string quartets, performed by the young artists of the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute.
While the musicians were warming up, a few kids and caregivers waited in the adjoining room. There, the tables were already lined with crafting supplies — cardboard boxes, rubber bands, and the like — to build makeshift instruments. [Read more…]
by Jacob Strauss
ENCORE Chamber Music held a musical tasting on Sunday afternoon, July 3rd at the Dodero Center for the Performing Arts. “Tales of Travel and Transformation” featured members of the Verona Quartet, artistic director Jinjoo Cho, and other faculty of the summer institute.
Cellist Max Geissler led off with composer-in-residence Andrew Rindfleisch’s Quiet Music for Solo Violoncello. Gymnastic hand positions land on natural harmonics in “Waltz Music.” Heavy rhythmic lines roll under chords played assertively by Geissler in “Fast Music,” then become quiet while wind chimes glisten in “Slow Music.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The last “Sunday Unplugged” concert of ENCORE Chamber Music’s fourth season featured off-the-beaten-track works by Bloch, Dvořák, and Bartók in the sauna-like ambiance of the Tudor House music room at Gilmour Academy on Sunday afternoon, July 7. Fans wafting air over tubs of ice water helped cool the faculty and Young Artist performers, while the audience made good use of the stylish plastic hand fans the management thoughtfully provided. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
The theme of ENCORE Chamber Music’s fourth season is “La Bohème: Art and Freedom,” mixing meanings of Bohemianism. It has brought together the 19th-century artistic movement that sought to break down conventions (think the characters from Puccini’s opera) with composers from Bohemia, of which Dvořák is the most famous. I attended three concerts where the overarching theme was successfully bent to include music from Mozart to living American composers.
by David Kulma
ENCORE Chamber Music’s final Sunday Unplugged concert of the summer on July 8 focused on composers of “diverse cultural backgrounds.” Its title, “Imagine No Country,” paraphrased a line from John Lennon’s peace anthem Imagine. The international music featured was by four composers: two living — American Richard Danielpour and Argentine Osvaldo Golijov, both of Jewish descent — and two deceased — Japanese Tōru Takemitsu and Romanian George Enescu. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
ENCORE Chamber Music continued its third season on Friday, June 29 in CIM’s Mixon Hall with an enjoyable concert celebrating “music written and inspired by fiery female artists” and entitled “Nasty Women.” This reference is to Donald Trump’s ad hominem attack on Hillary Clinton during the third presidential debate, which many liberal women immediately adopted as a badge of honor. [Read more…]