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Music From The Western Reserve: Silberschlag & Friends (Oct. 11)

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by Nicholas Stevens

For this reviewer, concerts these days seem always to have a single moment of emotional breakthrough. Chalk it up to pandemic-era life’s tendency to congeal into numbing routine, but even familiar material can take on new significance when heard live-streamed through earbuds during an otherwise undifferentiated mass of homebound time. All this to say that when Music From The Western Reserve returned with a stream by Cleveland Orchestra principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag and his friends and family last month, the most soul-stirring moment arrived suddenly and decisively. [Read more…]

Three reunions — family, Maryland, and horn — with Nathaniel Silberschlag and MFTWR

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by Jarrett Hoffman

You don’t need a deerstalker hat and a pipe to make some interesting observations about Sunday’s program from Music From The Western Reserve, which airs online at 5:00 pm.

First, there are a number of Silberschlags. Second, there are several people from the state of Maryland. Third, there are a lot of horns.

As for those first two points, Cleveland Orchestra principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag has put together a roster that makes good use of both his family and his hometown. He’s joined by his brother Zachary (principal trumpet in the Hawaii Symphony), their father Jeffrey (a trumpeter who chairs the music department at St. Mary’s College of Maryland), and other musicians from St. Mary’s County, as well as Baltimore.

Then, Silberschlag went a step further and rounded up a gang of fellow horn players from the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, National Symphony, San Francisco Opera, and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as a way to highlight their particular brand of horns, and to provide a potentially mesmerizing send-off.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra to introduce weekly podcast, “On a Personal Note”

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A new weekly podcast series from Severance Hall will feature personal perspectives and illuminating views about Cleveland Orchestra recordings. Available beginning on Thursday, April 16, the first season of “On a Personal Note” will comprise ten episodes.

In the first program, “The Sound of Crisis,” Music Director Franz Welser-Möst recalls the conflicting emotions he experienced leading the last performance before Severance Hall was shuttered due to the pandemic. On Friday morning, March 13, under the first phase of restrictions ordered by the governor, he conducted Schubert’s “Great” Symphony in C for an audience of a few staff members who heard what was originally supposed to be a public concert. Further limitations on the number of people allowed to gather mandated the cancellation of the rest of the Orchestra’s season.

Welser-Möst described that morning as a surreal experience. “We played in that moment, very aware of the music’s meaning and with the beginning of our understanding about what was happening around us. The ability to share this story in the ‘On a Personal Note’ podcast is a moving opportunity, and a rare time to verbalize the emotions we feel as artists every time we perform.” [Read more…]

Jakub Hrůša guest conducts two November Cleveland Orchestra concerts (Nov. 9 & 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

You can usually count on Jakub Hrůša to offer up some Czech music during his guest conducting appearances at Severance Hall. Not this time, but in his recent two weekends of concerts, works by Russian, American, and Austrian composers revealed the conductor’s ability to communicate in multiple musical languages. His readings of Shostakovich and John Adams were as probing and masterful as his takes on Beethoven and Mahler were fresh and surprising, and he brought his colleagues along with him all the way. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra returns to Severance Hall (Sept. 19 & 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

A compact Schubert symphony, the first half of a Prokofiev ballet score, and both neoclassical and full-out-Romantic works by Richard Strauss were on the docket as Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra returned to Severance Hall last weekend to begin the ensemble’s 102nd season. Thursday evening’s subscription concert on September 19 began with a stylish reading of Schubert’s Third Symphony, a spirited work festooned with amiable melodic fragments you probably couldn’t go away whistling, but that gave the 18-year-old composer an abundance of cheerful material to play with.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Jung-Min Amy Lee (Aug. 10)

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by David Kulma

The Cleveland Orchestra is joined by dozens of international soloists each year, but it’s always a wonderful experience to hear a member of the Orchestra step forward into the spotlight. On Saturday, August 10 at Blossom Music Center with guest conductor Asher Fisch, associate concertmaster Jung-Min Amy Lee showed off her amazing skill and musicality in Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto in a program that also included works by Liszt and Brahms. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Parameswaran & Cano (Aug. 17)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Literal and metaphorical miles from the cool luxury of the concert hall, outdoor concerts can imply a looseness that extends beyond attire, seating options, and environmental sound. With crickets singing and picnic blankets unrolling, it seems only natural that musicians might relax as well, either in repertoire or level of performance. Not so for The Cleveland Orchestra, who were spot-on as ever in a recent Blossom program that avoided fizz and fanfare in favor of sober, engrossing American classics. [Read more…]

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