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NEOSonicFest continues with four new music concerts this week

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by Mike Telin

ccs-yec-040614NEOSonicFest 2017 continues this week with  four concerts that celebrate the breadth of Cleveland’s new music scene.

On Wednesday, March 22 at 7:00 pm in Baldwin Wallace Conservatory’s Gamble Auditorium, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, under the direction of Steven Smith, will present its annual Young and Emerging Composers concert.

Coordinated by composer and BW faculty member Clint Needham, the Young and Emerging program has been part of CCS’s mission since its founding in 1980. In an interview with this publication, Smith told Jeremy Reynolds, “It’s rare for young composers to have the opportunity for a professional orchestra to perform their works. The seven pieces are all very different in their ideas about sound — some are more traditional, while others are more experimental.” [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest 2017 to include half a dozen new music concerts

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by Jeremy Reynolds

CCS-032814-Bill-NairnanFor the past three years, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony has sponsored NEOSonicFest, a new music festival that spotlights musicians and groups in Northeast Ohio. The festival begins on Friday, March 17 and runs through Sunday, March 26 (see below for concert dates and times).

“There’s always been an incredibly active new music scene in Cleveland,” said Steven Smith, music director of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony. “Cleveland is unique in terms of the high level of its artistic institutions for a city of its size, and it’s been that way for a very long time.” New to the 2017 roster are the ensembles No Exit, the percussion and saxophone duo Patchwork, and harpist Stephan Haluska. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: FiveOne Experimental Orchestra at Rising Star Coffee Roastery (March 5)

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by Mike Telin

RoasteryGroup-1Since 2008, the Cleveland-based music collective FiveOne Experimental Orchestra (51XO) has built a sizeable audience base because they have never steered away from their mission to experiment. Part of the ensemble’s draw is their passion for presenting of concerts in non-traditional venues. “We feel more at home in a post-industrial setting,” 51XO’s executive director Jeremy Allen told ClevelandClassical.com during a recent interview. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: Contemporary Youth Orchestra plays music from video games at CSU (Mar. 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CYO-031216Probably nothing divides human beings quite so neatly into two groups than whether or not they play video games. The members of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra obviously fall on the “I do” side of that divide. On Saturday evening, March 12 in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, Liza Grossman led CYO in their annual “Music and Its Industry” concert, this year featuring symphonic arrangements of video game music. Presented under the umbrella of NEOSonicFest, the evening was as fun as it was loud. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: flutist Carlton Vickers at Heights Arts (March 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

VIckers-Heights-ArtsThe second of two performances by contemporary flute guru Carlton Vickers sponsored by No Exit under the aegis of NEOSonicFest took over most of the available space in the Heights Arts gallery on Saturday evening, March 5. The audience, tucked in among a variety of exhibits of culinary-themed art, heard an intense hour’s worth of recent music written for one of the most ancient of musical instruments. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: a conversation with Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s Stephen Smith

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by Daniel Hathaway

SMITH-Steven NewNEOSonicFest, now in its third season, is the invention of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, who will anchor the festival’s 2016 programs with concerts on March 9 and 16. Other performances under the NSF umbrella have already featured two concerts by flutist Carlton Vickers sponsored by No Exit, and a performance by FiveOne Experimental Orchestra. The festival will continue with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in “Music and Its Industry: music from video games” on Saturday, March 12, and a program of works by members of the Cleveland Composers Guild on Sunday, March 13.

“NEOSonicFest is a bit more spread out this year,” Smith said in a telephone conversation from Virginia, where he conducts the Richmond Symphony. “That’s partly so we could capture two weekends, as we like to do, but we also ended up extending it to connect with the Baldwin Wallace Focus Festival. Our final concert on March 16 will also be their opening concert, which is an exciting development.” [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: Contemporary Youth Orchestra to team up with Neoglyphic Entertainment

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by Mike Telin

CYO-Recording-Sunborn-RisingOn Saturday, March 12 at 7:00 pm in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, Liza Grossman’s Contemporary Youth Orchestra will team up with Neoglyphic Entertainment to present “POWER UP, music from video games. The program will includes tunes from Super Mario Brothers, Angry Birds, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Zelda, Pokemon, and Halo, and music from the upcoming video game Sunborn Rising. The concert, presented as part of NEOSonicFest, is the tenth edition of CYO’s annual Music and its Industry series.

In the past, the series has focused on Broadway music, movie scoring, and songwriting. This year, the program will feature past and future video game music. “Video games are filled with fantasy and require logic, memory, and quick reaction from both mind and body to fulfill goals,” CYO founder and artistic director Liza Grossman said during an interview. “The music gives the experience more depth and really creates the atmosphere of each game. It can be light and fun, like Mario Brothers, or deep and foreboding, like Final Fantasy.” [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: flutist Carlton Vickers to play two concerts on March 4 & 5

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by Mike Telin

VICKERS-CarltonThe avant-garde flutist Carlton Vickers last played in here in March of 2013. “I’m looking forward to being back in Cleveland — I’ll be stepping things up a bit this time,” he said during a telephone conversation. Vickers, who specializes in the most demanding works of the contemporary and electro-acoustic repertoire, will give two concerts as part of NEOSonicFest. Vickers’ appearances, once again presented by the Cleveland-based new music ensemble No Exit, are scheduled for March 4 at SPACES Gallery and March 5 at Heights Arts. His program for both performances will include music by Jason Eckardt, Marc Yeats, James Erber, and Brian Ferneyhough. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: FiveOne Experimental Orchestra to perform at Rising Star Coffee Roastery March 5

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by Mike Telin

51XO-Group“We feel more at home in a post-industrial setting, and we’re happy to have found Rising Star Coffee Roastery,” Five One Experimental Orchestra executive director Jeremy Allen said during an interview. “We always try to create a unique concert experience in collaboration with a non-traditional venue that benefits all parties — there are Rising Star patrons that are yet unfamiliar with what 51XO is all about, and I’m sure some of our fans will be newly introduced to this fabulous coffee roastery that’s right here in our great city of Cleveland.”

On Saturday March 5 at 8:00 pm, 51XO will perform works by Nico Muhly, Greg Pattillo, John HC Thompson, Jeremy Allen, Buck McDaniel, and Sarah Kirkland Snider, plus a new “experiment” conceived of and led by 51XO’s Tracy Mortimore at Rising Star Coffee Roastery, 3617 Walton Avenue, Cleveland. The concert is presented as part of the 2016 NEOSonicFest. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest concert by Ars Futura at BOP STOP (March 23)

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by Mike Telin

ArsFutura2015Since performing its inaugural concert in 2013, the Cleveland-based new music ensemble Ars Futura has quickly established itself as a dynamic force in the area’s burgeoning contemporary classical music scene. Judging from their engaging BOP STOP performance on Monday, March 23rd as part of NEOSonicFest, the ensemble is not only a collective of six accomplished players, but flutist Madeline Lucas Tolliver, clarinetist Drew Sullivan, violinist Tara Lynn Ramsey, cellist Daniel Pereira, pianist Shuai Wang and percussionist Luke Rinderknecht also know how to present the music in a way that leaves you wanting more. [Read more…]

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