Nathan Lee Archives - Cleveland Classical

Cooper International Piano Competition: final round with Jahja Ling & The Cleveland Orchestra (July 22)

July 25, 2016 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

In a savvy move, The Cleveland Orchestra wrapped the final round of Oberlin’s Thomas & Evon Cooper International Piano Competition into its Summers@Severance series this year. As a result, a large audience turned out on Friday evening, July 22 to hear Nathan Lee, Evren Ozel, and Ryota Yamazaki play concertos by Rachmaninoff and Beethoven with Jahja Ling and the orchestra. Though the evening was sultry, the party setup on the front terrace gave the proceedings a celebratory air. [Read more…]

Cooper International Piano Competition: six play recital rounds at Oberlin (July 20)

July 22, 2016 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

A large audience gathered in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on Wednesday evening, July 20, to hear sixty busy fingers — attached to six talented young musicians — play half-hour recitals. Wednesday’s round would determine which three contestants in the Thomas & Evon Cooper International Piano Competition would advance to the stage of Severance Hall to play full concertos with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra on Friday, July 22. [Read more…]

Cooper International Piano Competition: Concerto Rounds at Oberlin (July 19)

July 20, 2016 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Daniel Hathaway & Neil McCalmont

Ten young pianists, ages 13-17, advanced to the Concerto Round of the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition at Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall on Tuesday, July 19. In afternoon and evening sessions, the jury and audience heard performances of concertos by Sergei Prokofiev (No. 3, three times), Edvard Grieg (twice), Sergei Rachmaninoff (No. 2, twice), Ludwig van Beethoven (Nos. 1 and 4) and Frédéric Chopin (No. 1). [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera stages a Cendrillon of professional quality (Nov. 10)

by Daniel Hathaway

Any regional opera company would be popping its buttons with pride to have produced such an impressive performance of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillion (Cinderella) as Oberlin Opera did in Hall Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, November 10.

Imaginative staging by Stephanie Havey, skillful pacing by conductor James Feddeck, beautiful set design and costuming by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski and Chris Flaharty, respectively, plus dramatic and — for the fairies — enchanting lighting by Jeremy K. Benjamin provided a supportive environment for splendid singing by the cast and brilliant playing by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra.

Literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella tale exist in cultures around the globe, but many of the details of Massenet’s opera date back to Charles Perrault’s 1697 Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre, which adds what have now become essential elements to the tale: a young girl mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who temporarily attracts the attention of a handsome prince at a royal ball and is eventually reunited with him to become a princess herself. [Read on…]

Seraph Brass dances through musical travels in Rocky River (Nov. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

Before Seraph Brass arrived in Ohio on November 11, the group’s fall touring season had taken them on the road to Missouri, Florida, New York, and even Peru. And at the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, they gave the audience a taste of the traveling life right from the first piece.

The “Prelude” from Edvard Greig’s Holberg Suite whisked listeners away to Norway, with a melody surely familiar to many. It was extra familiar to the brass quintet themselves, who launched into their opening number without sheet music. Playing memorized is part of the group’s trademark, and they smoothly alternated using music and no music throughout the evening. Either way, the wide-ranging program had those at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church spellbound.

Trumpet players Mary Elizabeth Bowden and Raquel Samayoa, horn player Layan Atieh, trombonist Lauren Casey-Clyde, and tuba player Robyn Black sounded equally comfortable in Romantic and contemporary repertoire, flipping between both with practiced ease. [Read on…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Concerto Cycle performance featured pairing of rising star and mentor (Nov. 15)

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Daniel Hathaway

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the third program in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle, the pairing of 20-year-old Korean pianist Yunchan Lim with his mentor Minsoo Sohn was an astute programming decision.

Well-established names on the concert circuit — Orion Weiss, Sir Stephen Hough, and Garrick Ohlsson — had already filled the empty solo spots for the composer’s Triple Concerto and solo concertos 2, 3, and 4. But the choice of the youngest pianist ever to win the Van Cliburn Competition to close out the Cleveland series packed Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center on Friday evening, November 15, with a near-capacity audience teeming with enthusiastic young people.

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