by Stephanie Manning
Errollyn Wallen is many things — composer, vocalist, and published author, just to name a few. But you could also say she’s a little bit of a psychic.
As the sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in Mixon Hall rapidly darkened with storm clouds on June 18, she launched into her song “Tree.” “I’m perplexed by rooted trees,” she crooned over pizzicattos from her accompanying string quartet, as lightning flashed and the real-life trees bent and twisted in the fierce wind.
Shortly after, ChamberFest co-artistic director Diana Cohen stopped the concert to make a rare request: that everyone in the room make their way down to the Cleveland Institute of Music basement to shelter from the storm. This unusual little detour was just one way the Wednesday evening program lived up to its name, “Mood Swings.”
Robert Schumann wrote his three string quartets in a span of less than two months during the summer of 1842. We think of such intensely productive times as manic, especially for Schumann, who is now thought to have suffered from bipolar disorder. But in some ways, the music of Op. 41 belies that.
On Tuesday, December 3 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, the Dover Quartet will return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society bearing a healthy, six-week-old piece of music by David Bruce alongside works by Britten and Brahms.
What do marriage and an octopus have in common? They both served as inspirations for Gregg Kallor’s new work for string octet. On Wednesday, October 30 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall, Tuesday Musical will present “October Octets” featuring the Dover and Escher String Quartets. The program will include the premiere of Kallor’s 
Since winning the grand prize and three special prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Dover Quartet — Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violins, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, and Camden Shaw, cello — have quickly risen to the forefront of young, internationally touring string quartets. Following that 2013 breakthrough, the ensemble has added to their resume a Cleveland Quartet Award, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, and most recently an Avery Fisher Career Grant.