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Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: the 2019 edition

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by Mike Telin

If it’s the beginning of June, it’s time for classical guitarists from around the world to gather at the Cleveland Institute of Music for the annual Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival.

For the 2019 edition, which runs from Thursday, June 6 through Sunday, June 9, Founder and Artistic Director Armin Kelly has invited an outstanding lineup of performers, clinicians, and lecturers. The Festival will feature twelve participating artists and ensembles, five concerts, two premiere performances, nine master classes, two youth ensemble performances, three lectures, and one guitar demonstration concert. Click here to view a Festival schedule.

Thursday, June 6

Colin Davin (USA) will kick things off at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall with a program that includes Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 3, BWV 1005 and Violin Partita No. 2, BWV 1004, and the Cleveland premiere of David Crowell’s Point Cloud. A performance by students of Tom Poore and Andrew Poxon in the Pogue Lobby will begin at 6:50 pm.  

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ChamberFest Cleveland announces Season Eight

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ChamberFest Cleveland, the celebrated summer music festival founded by Franklin Cohen, principal clarinet emeritus of The Cleveland Orchestra, and his daughter, Diana Cohen, concertmaster of The Calgary Philharmonic, returns to the Cleveland scene with Season 8, “Under the Influence.” The festival will take place from June 13 through June 29, 2019, at venues throughout Greater Cleveland, and will include nine concerts plus a special late-night electronic violin performance at The Wine Spot on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights.

Concerts kick off on Thursday, June 13 at 7:30 pm at Mixon Hall. ChamberFest will also make stops at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, and Harkness Chapel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University.

ChamberFest will welcome back many favorite musicians in addition to Co-founders and Co-artistic Directors, Franklin and Diana Cohen. Yura Lee, Alexi Kenney, Oliver Herbert, Peter Wiley, Roman Rabinovich, Julie Albers, Amy Schwartz Moretti, and more will join new artists including Israeli Philharmonic principal oboe Dudu Carmel and Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen. Four up-and-coming players will take part in ChamberFest’s “Rising Stars” program.

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CIM New Music Ensemble to celebrate “L’Histoire at 100”
with new film by Kasumi

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by Jarrett Hoffman

There’s nothing quite like Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. And there will really be nothing like the performance this Friday, October 26 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The conservatory’s New Music Ensemble, directed by Keith Fitch, will celebrate the 100th birthday of that classic work with the premiere of a new film: a commission from Cleveland-based video artist Kasumi, to be played simultaneously with the music. (The concert is free, and will also be live-streamed.)

And if you’re at all familiar with the work of Kasumi, you know you’re in for a fascinating, perhaps harrowing ride.

The trailer gives a taste of her style, in which she splices together images from mid-century B-movies, commercials, and training films from the public domain — images which are “completely direct,” as Kasumi told us during an interview last year. “The acting is so bad and corny that it conveys emotion in shorthand — it becomes a symbol, like a stop sign. If you weave together these tiny gestures, you get all kinds of nuances of emotion.”

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CIPC to present duo pianists Ran Dank and Soyeon Lee

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by Mike Telin

DANK-SOYENLife has been good for Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee since they won medals at the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2007 and 2003, respectively. Since those wins, both pianists have enjoyed successful careers as solo artists, as well as holding positions as Assistant Professors of Piano at the Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music.

This week Dank and Lee will showcase their skills as duo pianists when they return to Cleveland for a performance on Thursday, June 7 at 8:00 in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The concert is presented as part of the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists, which began last week and runs through Saturday, June 9.

The Duo’s program will include works by Mozart, Scriabin, Janáček, and Liszt as well as a four-hands version of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. “It’s a special piece for us because we played it at our wedding concert in New York City,” Lee said during a joint telephone call with Dank. “A wedding is sort of a rite,” he added with a laugh. “But you can’t quite call the piece an arrangement because parts of it were originally conceived for four hands. So in some ways, the orchestrated version is the arrangement in the same way Ravel would orchestrate his piano works.”

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ChamberFest Cleveland — Season Seven: In Search of Freedom

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by Mike Telin

Chamberfest LogoSince ChamberFest Cleveland’s inaugural season in 2012, Festival co-artist directors Diana and Franklin Cohen have taken the concept of thematic programming to new heights. (It’s) About Time (2013) explored elements of time as related to the musical experience. Last season’s theme, Cycles: Phases! reflected on the complexity of the human experience at each stage of life.

This season ChamberFest will consider the concept of freedom — an essential ingredient to the creative process. Beginning of June 14 and continuing through June 30, In Search of Freedom will explore the range of freedom in music, with nine concerts in a variety of venues.

In addition to violinist Diana Cohen and clarinetist Franklin Cohen, this year’s roster of returning artists will include violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley, Alexi Kenney, and Amy Schwartz-Moretti, violinist/violist Yura Lee, cellists Julie Albers, Clive Greensmith, and Oliver Herbert, bassist Nathan Farrington, and pianists Zoltán Fejérvári, Roman Rabinovich, and Orion Weiss. Making their ChamberFest debuts are violinist Noah Geller, violists Matthew Lipman and Tanner Menees, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, flutist Lorna McGhee, and singer Amanda Powell.

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Pianist Sandra Shapiro: “In My Father’s Footsteps — a daughter’s search for answers”

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by Mike Telin

ShapiroLike many first-generation Americans whose families had been forced to leave their homes because of Nazi atrocities during World War II, pianist Sandra Shapiro grew up not fully understanding the circumstances that led to her father’s arrival in the United States.

“I grew up in Milwaukee but moved away to study at Juilliard when I was fourteen,” Shapiro said during a telephone conversation, “so my relationship with him did not go beyond that until the very end when he was dying, and then it was too late to ask questions. When you’re fourteen you don’t think about your parents’ lives — they’re just your mother and father. Sadly, I was not interested, and he didn’t talk about his past. There was a sense of taboo to even talk about those years.”

Shapiro’s quest to discover her father’s past has led to the creation of her four-concert project, Musical Roots: an exploration of cultural heritage and influences. The first installment, “In My Father’s Footsteps — a daughter’s search for answers,” will be presented on Wednesday, March 21 at 8:00 pm at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall. Shapiro’s musical documentary will include works by Liadov, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Schubert. The concert is free, but seating passes are required. Call 216.795.3211.

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CIM New Music Ensemble features Fitch’s The Range of Light (Feb. 7)

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by Nicholas Stevens

FITCH-KeithIn a recent concert by the Cleveland Institute of Music’s New Music Ensemble, Keith Fitch — CIM’s composition department chair, and the ensemble’s director — demonstrated his penchant for effective curation. His own new composition, The Range of Light, illuminated the work and words of John Muir, a visionary in American history, and cast the other pieces on the program into sharp relief.

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CIM New Music Ensemble and baritone Dean Southern to perform new work by director Keith Fitch

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by Jarrett Hoffman

FITCH-KeithFor his New Music Ensemble’s biannual concerts, director Keith Fitch often builds programs around guest composers coming to the Cleveland Institute of Music. This year, the addition of a concert in February — one without a visiting artist — gives Clevelanders a further opportunity to hear new music, and provided Fitch extra programmatic flexibility.

“It gave me the freedom to put forward some works I might not otherwise have a chance to program,” Fitch said in a recent interview. Selections by Elliott Carter, Toru Takemitsu, and Frederick Fox came to mind — and to cap off the evening, the esteemed composer, who is head of CIM’s Composition department, looked to a new work in his own catalogue.

On Wednesday, February 7 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall, Fitch will lead the CIM New Music Ensemble in a free concert to include the director’s own The Range of Light. Joined by baritone Dean Southern, head of CIM’s Voice and Opera division, the Ensemble will give the 2017 work its second-ever performance.

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Review: Daniel Shapiro with Jinjoo Cho & Matthew Allen in Mixon Hall at CIM (February 1)

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by Robert Rollin

LastSHAPIRO-Daniel Friday evening Cleveland Institute faculty pianist Daniel Shapiro presented an exemplary and varied Mixon Hall piano recital assisted by two talented student artist string players. About a decade ago I enjoyed hearing him perform a Beethoven Sonatas lecture recital when he visited us at Youngstown State’s Dana School. He demonstrated his layered foreground, middle ground, and background dynamic levels, playing Beethoven with a clarity and expression reminiscent of Sviatislav Richter’s great Beethoven recordings. This three-tiered dynamic approach seemed particularly present in his wonderful first-half Bach and Brahms solo performances.

Shapiro played Bach’s French Suite No 5 in G Major, BWV 816, a delightful Baroque dance collection, beautifully. The stately Allemande’s tempo was steady, yet flexible, enhancing the intricate mix of chromatic linear and harmonic treatment. The spritely Courante was nicely shaped, as Shapiro varied the repetitions with ornaments and dynamic changes. The movement’s second binary portion sparkled with many chromatic harmonies followed immediately by a closing Picardy third. The slow, soulful Sarabande was stunningly expressive, mixing stepwise and surprisingly angular melodic skips. The mood was that of a gorgeous Bach Cantata arioso, and Shapiro negotiated the tempo nuances tastefully. Shapiro continued to vary the repeats in both Gavotte and Bourée, and gave the whimsical and graceful Loure, a tasteful and imaginative performance. The closing fugal Gigue, replete with surging rhythms, was intense, yet graceful and expressive.  [Read more…]

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