by Daniel Hathaway
Music From the Western Reserve, Music and Art at Trinity Cathedral, and Arts at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church all streamed concerts online in September, all without audiences present.
As organizations gingerly take steps to open up for business, it’s refreshing to have new content to listen to and write about after a solid six months of archival footage. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
“Britten is such a master of theater that his Canticle II is like a little 17-minute opera,” countertenor John McElliott said in a telephone conversation. “Any chance I have to sing this music is such a great joy that I savor every one.”
In fact, McElliott has had many opportunities to savor Benjamin Britten’s “Abraham and Isaac” together with his colleagues, tenor JR Fralick and pianist Todd Wilson. “We’ve performed it many times both at the Church of the Covenant and at Trinity Cathedral. At this point, it’s become an old friend.”
McElliott, Fralick, and Wilson will renew that friendship in the third of Music and Art at Trinity’s live streamed concerts this summer, an episode that will air in real time with no audience present on Friday, September 18 at 7:00 pm. The program, “Music by Three B’s,” will include Nadia Boulanger’s Three Improvisations, played by organist Nicole Keller, and Brahms’ Violin Sonata in A, performed by Andrew Sords with pianist Elizabeth DeMio. The event is free, but donations are welcome toward a COVID-19 musicians relief fund.
Britten wrote his five Canticles between 1947 and 1974. Though the titles suggest liturgical works, they’re more like little cantatas for various combinations of voices and instruments. Three of them were crafted as memorials, and all five reflect the composer’s knack for setting fine examples of English literature to highly expressive music. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Would it matter if the best-ever performance of Bach’s Suites for solo cello took place in a cinder block closet with no one listening? The question, which one could safely and simply answer “no,” may seem like a dull retread of the classic “if a tree falls…” formula. However, it raises a question of its own: how much can the venue and framing of a performance do to elevate a musical experience?
Can we attribute some of the special glow of a concert to the room, spoken introductions, and circumstances without giving excellent musicianship short shrift? In the case of a live-streamed concert by cellist Mark Kosower this past weekend, this writer’s answer is yes — or ja, in Bach’s German.
by Daniel Hathaway
Cleveland Orchestra Principal Cello Mark Kosower, who already had an extensive following, added impressively to his fan club in the first of two online performances of J.S. Bach’s solo cello suites streamed from Trinity Cathedral on June 5. He returns for the second performance this Friday, July 31 at 7:00 pm.
“It certainly was a very powerful and meaningful experience for me, and we were able to reach a lot of people,” the cellist said in a recent telephone conversation. “By the time the video had gone around and lived on Facebook for a number of weeks, we got 13,300 views.”
That performance was presented free of charge, but allowed viewers to contribute online to a relief fund for musicians affected by the pandemic. “It was an important activity for the causes I was playing for,” Kosower said. “Looking forward, I feel that we’re still very much in the pandemic. My approach to the second concert won’t be so different, but what will be different, of course, is Bach’s other three suites. Each of them has its own individual story to tell, heading toward the pinnacle of the sixth suite.”
Kosower’s first performance included Nos. 1, 3, and 5. On Friday, he’ll play the even-numbered suites, but in a special order. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower will play the first pair in a summer series of three live-streamed concerts from Trinity Cathedral on Friday, June 5 at 7:00 pm. His programs will cover all six of Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo cello suites, probably written at Cöthen between 1717 and 1723, before the composer took up his 27-year position in Leipzig.
The performances will truly be live, but with no audience present in Trinity’s spacious nave. “The whole idea was inspired by Andrea Bocelli’s Easter Sunday performance in the Duomo in Milan early in the COVID-19 pandemic,” Kosower said in a recent telephone conversation, noting that Trinity’s music director Todd Wilson was responsible for the idea.
“It really was a very dramatic thing — Bocelli sending music soaring out into that empty space, connecting with people who are isolated and alone because of the circumstances we find ourselves in, and also just communicating the power of music. Instead of a solo tenor, we’ll have a solo cello.
“There are always silver linings in these uncertain and turbulent times, and one of them is the opportunity for innovation and creativity,” Kosower said. “We find ourselves at home, which is of course a place of comfort, but at the same time we have to find new ways to reach out, to connect to people, and be very active and alive as musicians, because you’re really only communicating when you’re connecting with people.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When soprano Kristine Caswelch and mezzo-soprano Kira McGirr were given carte blanche to create a concert for Trinity Cathedral’s Brownbag series, it took a little time for them to figure out what direction their program would take. Then over the summer the two got together over coffee and came to the realization that, like many women, they’re not happy about much of what’s going on in the world right now — and a lot of great music has been written about being angry.
On Wednesday, October 23 at 12:00 pm at Trinity Cathedral, Caswelch and McGirr, assisted by pianist Todd Wilson, will perform a concert of works that explore a range of human emotions from anger and fear to humor and sisterhood. The concert is free, but a freewill offering will be received. Audiences are invited to bring lunches or purchase one for $7.
During a sitdown interview, Caswelch and McGirr said they wanted to include some early music on the program. “The mad songs from Henry Purcell’s era are so cool,” McGirr said. “They’re about women who are upset over some aspect of love. But at the same time a lot of these women are not just angry, they’re really mad — as in crazy. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
“We’ve heard this story before,” tenor Matt Jones said during a recent telephone conversation. We had been talking about the cartoon caricature of tennis star Serena Williams that was published in the Herald Sun of Australia last fall, and was widely seen as racist. “I’m glad that we’re still talking about these things and why they happen.”
Jones will join soprano Kristine Caswelch and pianist Nicole Keller at Trinity Cathedral next Wednesday, February 27 at 12:00 pm for a BrownBag Concert conceived in response to Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. That 2014 finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry has been described as “an anatomy of American racism in the new millennium” (Parul Sehgal, Bookforum). A second performance takes place on Sunday, March 24 at 2:00 pm at the Main Branch of Lakewood Public Library.
Some quick background on the program: it’s the result of a web of partnerships among two local organizations, Music and Art at Trinity and the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning (CAL), one regional, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). CAL was selected to host one of this year’s NEA Big Read programs, in which a series of events are planned around a book, with the purpose of broadening people’s understanding of the world, their community, and themselves.
by Mike Telin
Since January of 1978 the free Brownbag Concert series at Trinity Cathedral has provided a mid-week respite from everyday life for music lovers of all ages. On Wednesday, October 7 at 12:10 pm, Music and Art at Trinity will kick off their new season with a return visit of saxophonists Jake Swanson and Sarah Marchitelli, more popularly known as “Jake and Sarah.”
The duo will perform three works with the Trinity Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Todd Wilson. The program will include Johann Joachim Quantz’s Trio in c minor (arr. Sigurd Raschèr), Erland von Koch’s Concerto Piccolo (1962), and the world premiere of Dan Knorr’s Double Concerto (2015). As always, listeners can bring their lunch or purchase one on-site for $5. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Each year coinciding with the first full day of spring, the music world gathers to celebrate the birthday of the great Johann Sebastian Bach.
2014 marks the master’s 329th birthday and on Friday, March 21 beginning at 7:00 pm at Pilgrim Church, Arts Renaissance Tremont in partnership with Music & Art at Trinity will honor the occasion with a Birthday Bash.
Trinity Chamber Choir and strings will be led by organist and conductor Elizabeth Lenti. Soloists include Tamer Edlebi, oboe, and Jinjoo Cho, violin, and vocalists Judith Overcash, Erin Smith & Malina Rauschenfels. [Read more…]