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Russian Duo plays ragtime at Nighttown

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by Mike Telin

“I wrote my Free Spirit Rag around 1985,” composer and pianist Brian Dykstra said during a telephone conversation. “I guess Terry Boyarsky heard a recording of it on WCLV, and got the idea of arranging it for balalaika and piano. You can imagine my surprise when I heard this back in the fall of 2017.”

On Thursday, March 28 at 7:30 pm at Nighttown, Russian Duo (Oleg Kruglyakov, balalaika and vocals, and Terry Boyarsky, piano) will present a program that includes the Duo’s arrangement of Dykstra’s Free Spirit Rag, as well as variations on Russian folk melodies, classical music, and Soviet compositions. Prior to the performance there will be a screening of director Chris Bohan’s and cinematographer Steve Hacker’s short film You Go First, which features music performed by Russian Duo. Tickets are available online.

Dykstra did send the music to Boyarsky and Kruglyakov, and gave them permission to make the arrangement. “Some months later Terry invited me to her house for dinner,” Dykstra said. “

[Read more…]

Looking for a Valentine’s Day concert? Perhaps we can help you

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by Daniel Hathaway

It’s Valentine’s Day all week this week, and aside from the obvious gifts — flowers, chocolates, and shiny bling — there are a number of ways to take to heart the new advice of gifting your love interest experiences rather than things.

Our Concert Listings have been providing such a service since the website was launched in 2008. Consider this message from one of our readers way back in 2009:

I’m grateful for ClevelandClassical.com for so many reasons. In fact, I learned about Nathan Gunn’s performance at Oberlin through you, which has now become the central feature of my surprise Valentine’s Day date with my fiancée! I owe you big time now.

Here are some suggestions for your own Valentine.

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Sultans of String to return to Nighttown: a three-way call with the violinist and guitarist

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by Jarrett Hoffman

sultans of stringSomeday, somewhere, a genre will be coined that sums up the sound of the Sultans of String. The Toronto-based group frequently blends Spanish Flamenco, Arabic folk music, Cuban rhythms, and jazz. In the meantime, as bandleader and violinist Chris McKhool told us in a 2013 interview, “We just make the music we like to make.”

Three-time Juno Award nominees, the Sultans’ lineup ranges from two to five members, sometimes topped off with guest artists. But at their core is the pairing of violin and guitar — McKhool and Kevin Laliberté, founders of the ensemble. They’ll bring the duo form of Sultans of String to Nighttown on Wednesday, May 30 at 7:00 pm. The concert celebrates the group’s tenth anniversary, and will raise funds for displaced families in Syria and Lebanon through the Outreach Foundation.

McKhool picked up the phone in Burlington, Ontario for our recent conversation, then worked some modern magic — a three-way call — to bring in Laliberté from his kitchen in Toronto. They began by looking back on the beginning of their collaboration.

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Les Délices begins ninth season with a celebration

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by Mike Telin

LesDelices5Over the past eight years, Les Délices has presented well-researched, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining concerts that explore music and topics of the French Baroque.

During recent seasons the ensemble’s founder and artistic director, Debra Nagy, has created imaginative programs such as A Woman Scorned, which explored universal themes of desire, jealousy, shame, and revenge by giving voice to the spurned lovers of antiquity.

She introduced audiences to the famous pair of viola da gamba players of the 18th century, Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray, during The Angel and the Devil. Nagy’s programs have often highlighted social issues of the time that remain relevant today. We’ve learned that finding ways to circumvent rules has always been a popular pastime. And the ensemble also presented the only area concert in living memory that featured the hurdy-gurdy.

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Apollo’s Fire caps off its 25th season with “Revolutionary Beethoven”

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by Daniel Hathaway

afjsconductingHistorical performance groups have revitalized Baroque music by performing 17th- and 18th-century works on the instruments for which they were written. More recently, a number of those ensembles have made forays into the classical world of Haydn and Mozart and the early Romantic era of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, expanding their musical rhetoric and stretching the capabilities of their instruments.

Now add Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire to that list. Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra will conclude their 25th-anniversary season with “Beethoven and Schubert Rediscovered,” a festival that includes four Beethoven concerts, a “Schubertiade,” a dance workshop, and lectures and panel discussions.

The Beethoven programs, which run from April 26-29, will feature Berlin Philharmonic first concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley performing the Violin Concerto. The program includes the Egmont Overture and the Fifth Symphony.

[Read more…]

In2ative to perform on
Nighttown Series April 6

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by Mike Telin

In2ativePortions of this article are reprinted from an interview in November of 2015 before In2ative performed on the LCCC Signature Series.

The story of how flutist Kimberly Zaleski and cellist Trevor Kazarian came to form the duo In2ative is fit for the big screen. After graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Music, they both worked in restaurants until one day they both found themselves out of jobs. It was at that moment that they decided to take a risk.

“We went to CoolCleveland and searched for all of the festivals in the area,” Kazarian recalled during a conference call with his musical partner. “We would go to each event, put out a hat, and play. We were paying our rent from tip money, but at the same time we were meeting people and making connections. I feel that a lot of what we have today goes back to that moment of taking the risk, and really going for what we believed in. We’re lucky to be in the situation that we are now.” [Read more…]

Steuart & Michelle Pincombe bring their “Music in Familiar Spaces” tour to Nighttown

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by Mike Telin

SteuartMichelleLiving in a camper for a year while traveling around the United States giving concerts in breweries, cafés, churches, and private homes — you can imagine musicians of many genres doing that, though we don’t often associate that lifestyle with classical musicians. But that’s exactly what cellist Steuart Pincombe and his vocalist wife Michelle have been doing for the past six months.

On Thursday, March 24 beginning at 7:00 pm, the yearlong Music in Familiar Spaces tour will make a stop at Nighttown for a concert titled “The Art of the Fugue.” The program, one of ten being offered on the tour, will feature Steuart Pincombe and Netherlands-based pianist Shuann Chai performing works by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. (Note: because of a family emergency, Ms. Chai will not appear on this program. Pincombe will play a concert of solo cello music.)

“Shuann and I will be playing some staples of the repertoire,” Pincombe said during a telephone interview from the camper. “The idea for the program literally came to me in the car. I was thinking about Brahms’s Cello Sonata No. 1 in e. It’s a piece I’ve played as long as I can remember, and it’s one of the first sonatas most cellists learn because it’s approachable. But what I had never really thought about is that the Sonata’s outer movements, the first and third, are directly related to Contrapuncti No. 4 and No. 13 from Bach’s Art of Fugue. It’s an obvious connection when you hear it.”   [Read more…]

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