by Rory O’Donoghue
Cleveland’s preeminent new and avant-garde music ensemble, No Exit, returned to Appletree Books in Cleveland Heights for another intimate evening of chamber music on Friday, June 21. Flutist Sean Gabriel performed three solo works and was joined by percussionist Andrew Pongracz for two pieces for flute and marimba.
by Mike Telin
It’s hard to believe that it was only a year and a half ago that area audiences were introduced to the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP). With all of the high-quality programs they have produced since that time, the organization already feels like a trusted friend. Founded by saxophonist Noa Even and cellist Sophie Benn, CUSP’s engaging programming brings together the new music enthusiast and the new music curious. One way that is accomplished is through the annual Re:Sound Festival of New and Experimental Music, which ran from June 6 through June 9 and included six concerts featuring fourteen soloists and ensembles from across the United States at venues around the city. I attended the opening and closing events. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
It’s one thing to push yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s quite another to deliberately put yourself in risky situations over and over again — part of the artistic strategy of electroacoustic composer and improviser Joo Won Park. “I like to solve a puzzle in front of the audience,” he said during a telephone conversation from Detroit.
That might include choosing an electronic instrument or gadget that he doesn’t totally understand, and bringing that onstage without knowing what will happen. “That’s the exciting moment,” he said. Likewise performing with another improviser. “I go onto the stage expecting that my partner will do something unexpected. That’s the approach that I love.”
Park and fellow composer/improviser Molly Jones will bring their Detroit-based duo ParkJones to the Bop Stop on Sunday, June 9 during a 4:00 pm concert as part of the Re:Sound Festival. The program opens with the new music ensemble No Exit presenting works by Yoon-Ji Lee and premieres by area high school students Emma Eddy and Mya Vandegrift as part of the CoLab project. Following ParkJones, pianist Ju-Ping Song will perform works by Amy Beth Kirsten and Nicole Lizée based on trauma and fallibility. Tickets are available here.
by Mike Telin
In summing up last year’s inaugural Re:Sound Festival of New and Experimental Music, ClevelandClassical.com critic David Kulma wrote that “[the] Festival was an ear-opening experience for the musically adventurous …this intense weekend of staggering, high-quality performances showed the virtues of a performer- oriented festival where each act is fully invested in its own chosen music.”
Judging from the stellar lineup of musicians the organizers have assembled, the sophomore edition of Re:Sound — which runs from June 6 through June 9 — promises to once again deliver a musically adventurous experience.
The 2019 edition will include six concerts featuring fourteen soloists and ensembles from across the United States. And once again the concerts will take place in venues that will allow players and audiences to relax and spend time together. In addition to purchasing single tickets, Festival passes are also available.
Here’s a run-down of this year’s offerings.
by Jarrett Hoffman
How should we remember someone after they pass away?
Czech-American composer Ladislav Kubik died in 2017, and many of the obituaries written for him described an impressive career — from his Guggenheim fellowship to first prizes in several major competitions and a 26-year teaching post at Florida State University.
One short article included below went in a different direction. You got the sense from reading it that this writer really knew Kubik, and that his loss was personal.
The writer was Tim Beyer, director of No Exit. And that new music ensemble will give the premiere of Kubik’s 2017 Nocturnes in three free concerts next week devoted to the composer’s works. Nocturnes, a No Exit commission, turned out to be Kubik’s last completed piece.
by Jarrett Hoffman
When a festival runs for long enough, it becomes interesting to look back and remember that it wasn’t always a staple of the local culture. At one time, it was entirely new.
“Last weekend,” Daniel Hathaway wrote in April of 2014, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony “burst suddenly into bloom like a crocus after a long winter with the first of two concerts anchoring its promising new enterprise, NEOSonicFest…”
Back then, music director Steven Smith had been thinking for years about how to keep the name and activities of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony alive, as Mike Telin reported in our very first preview of NEOSonicFest. The retirement of the orchestra’s founder, Edwin London, and the end of its residency at Cleveland State University had slowed the group’s momentum.
by Nicholas Stevens
In a Northeast Ohio music world recently energized amid multiple anniversary seasons, ensembles have faced the challenge of honoring their histories while plunging headlong into the future. Leave it to No Exit new music ensemble, ten years young this season, to prove itself among the most forward-thinking of all. In a concert of world premieres on Saturday, February 16, the chamber collective played a program defined more by promise than by pomp.
by Jarrett Hoffman
If you ask a bunch of composers how they dreamed up their latest pieces, they’ll all have something completely different to say.
That’s what I learned this past week, when I spent time on the phone with five of them to ask about their new chamber works being premiered by No Exit this weekend.
That new music ensemble, directed by Tim Beyer, will give free performances of these pieces at Heights Arts (Friday, February 15 at 7:00 pm), SPACES gallery (Saturday, February 16 at 8:00 pm), and WOLFS gallery (Friday, March 1 at 7:00 pm) in this second installment of the group’s Cleveland Composers Series.
by Nicholas Stevens
Music fans tend to look back fondly on the moments when love took root. Rarer, and less often commented on, are the occasions when a concert or first listen sticks in the mind because it rekindles, rather than sparks, a passion for a particular style, genre, or format. For lovers of fresh, provocative, enchanting new chamber music, No Exit new music ensemble’s December 14 performance with Patchwork at SPACES offered a reintroduction to the fundamental appeal of the art and its scene. Listeners heard eleven expert performers render five world premieres, all within the bright intimacy of four art-lined gallery walls. [Read more…]
by Tian Yoon Teh
This poem served as inspiration for Hong-Da Chin’s …the arc of a tear…, which depicts a tear flowing down one’s face very slowly.
You can hear Chin’s vivid work when No Exit continues their Cleveland Composers Series on Saturday, December 8 at 3:00 pm at the Bop Stop. Joining the ensemble will be special guest Patchwork Duo — Noa Even, saxophone, and Stephen Klunk, drum set. The evening will include works by James Praznik, Colin Holter, Ty Emerson, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated on Friday, December 14 at 8:00 pm at SPACES. As always, the concerts are free.
What is striking about the Chinese influence in composition is the poetry of images depicted in sound. Chin uses such imagery in his recent works. When asked about …the arc of a tear… during a telephone conversation, Chin laughed. “The title is exactly what the piece is. In fact, I now like to compose with a title first!” [Read more…]
