ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

No Exit presents trombone virtuoso John Faieta

by

by Mike Telin

After taking up the trombone as a nine-year-old, John Faieta went on to carve out a diverse, career as a teacher — he has served on the faculties of Boston University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Berklee College of Music — as well as performing with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, the the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra.

He has also worked with jazz and commercial ensembles including The Rebirth Brass Band, John Allmark Big Band, the Hot Tamale Brass Band, Manuel Kaufman’s Jazz Orchestra and the Skatch Andersson Orchestra.

On Friday, February 14 at 7:00 pm in Kent State’s Ludwig Recital Hall, Faieta will present a recital of solo works including Leonard Bernstein’s Elegy for Mippy II (1959), Bernard Rands’ Memo 2 (1973), Enrique Crespo’s Improvisation No. 1 (1983), David Felder’s Boxman (1986), and the World Premiere of Marti Epstein’s Abluvion (2022).

As part of the No Exit Presents series, the program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on Friday, February 21 at Heights Arts, and on Friday, February 28 at 7:00 pm at Trinity Cathedral. All performances are free.

[Read more…]

Meridian Arts Ensemble cast a wide net at the Bop Stop (Nov. 8)

by

by Stephanie Manning

The Meridian Arts Ensemble specialize in the avant garde, but they’re dextrous enough to flip between all kinds of genres. So, what was Joseph Haydn’s Feldpartie — written in 1780 — doing on the program next to George Lewis’ uber-contemporary Tightrope? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Presented by No Exit, the brass quintet’s November 8 concert at the Bop Stop had something to satisfy fans of modern and traditional music alike. The cheery Feldpartie, appearing just after intermission, balanced out some of the evening’s more thorny works.

Originally written for an outdoor band, this arrangement by trumpet player and group founder Jon Nelson allowed the five players to anchor themselves in a satisfying blend. Nelson, fellow trumpet player Matthew Onstad, horn player Daniel Grabois, trombonist Faustino Díaz Mendez, and tuba player Tom Curry treated the charming mini symphony with love and care. [Read more…]

No Exit welcomes Meridian Arts Ensemble back to Cleveland for three concerts

by

by Mike Telin

For over three decades the Meridian Arts Ensemble has been enthralling audiences with their virtuosic performances of envelope pushing repertoire. This week the Meridian — Jon Nelson and Matthew Onstad (trumpets), Daniel Grabois (horn), Faustino Díaz Mendez (trombone), and Tom Curry (tuba) — will return to Cleveland courtesy of No Exit.

Performances are on Thursday, November 7 at Trinity Cathedral, Friday, November 8 at The Bop Stop, and Saturday, November 9 at Baldwin Wallace University’s Kulas Music Hall. The program will include Daniel Grabois’ Drift (2021), Moshe Shulman’s Subito (2009), George Lewis’s Tightrope (2023), Franz Joseph Haydn’s Feldpartie (1780), and David Sanford’s Credo (2021). All performances begin at 7:00 pm and are free.

[Read more…]

No Exit begins year sixteen with New Season, New Sounds

by

by Mike Telin

After celebrating its sixteenth season with a deep dive into the world of Surreality, No Exit begins their 16th concert season on Thursday, October 17 at 7:00 pm at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Recital Hall with  “New Season, New Sounds.”

The evening will feature works by No Exit’s percussionist/composer Katy La Favre as well as Josef Marek, Hannah Kendall, Arthur Hernandez, James Praznik, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on Friday at Waterloo Arts, and Saturday at SPACES Gallery. All performances are free.

“After last season’s Surreality programs, we were so energized because the reception was so great. We want to continue to entertain, maybe enlighten, and even make some people angry,” the group’s artistic director Timothy Beyer said during a recent telephone conversation. He added that this program, which includes three world premieres, is anything but boring.

[Read more…]

No Exit concludes Year of Surreality with “Breaking the World”

by

by Mike Telin

For the past eight months No Exit has been celebrating their 15th anniversary with their most ambitious project to date: Surreality. “We hope people will enjoy exploring the irrational, illogical, inexplicable, strange, and utterly fantastical world that is Surrealism,” artistic director Timothy Beyer told us in October.

On Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 pm at Heights Arts, No Exit will conclude their Year of Surreality with “Breaking the World.” The free program will feature new works by Jerome Begin, Lauren Pearl, Stephen Haluska, and James Praznik, as well as Marcel Duchamp’s Erratum Musical, and a simultaneous poem recited by Gunnar-Owen Hirthe, James Praznik, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on both Friday (at Praxis Fiber Arts) and Saturday (at SPACES Gallery).

In a recent telephone conversation Beyer said that this week’s program is a culmination of the ensemble’s season-long exploration of Surrealist techniques and topics, including games and thought exercises, state of consciousness, and dada, which is not technically Surrealism, but is related.

[Read more…]

No Exit: wonderfully head-scratching “Piano Dada”
at Heights Arts (Mar. 16)

by

by Mike Telin

For the recent set of concerts in their season-long celebration of the surreal, No Exit turned to two pivotal events in the history of dadaism for inspiration — the 1920 Festival Dada and the 1923 Soirée du Coeur à Barbe. This program, “Piano Dada,” included works of poetry, theater, and music that were performed at those historic Paris festivals. I attended the performance on March 16 at Heights Arts.

As the title suggests, the program featured a healthy dose of music for the piano. And Shuai Wang proved to be a worthy interpreter with her impressive and committed performances throughout the evening.

[Read more…]

No Exit’s surrealist journey continues: “Piano Dada with Shuai Wang”

by

by Max Newman

“One of the things about surrealism: it’s not a style, it’s a set of ideas. You have ideas and concepts that have never gone out of style,” No Exit artistic director Tim Beyer said during a recent telephone conversation.

This week the ensemble continues their season-long, multifaceted exploration and celebration of surrealism. “Piano Dada with Shuai Wang” features music originally presented at the Festival Dada in 1920 and Soirée du Coeur à Barbe in 1923, including Marcel Duchamp’s Erratum Musical, Francis Picabia’s La Nourrice Americaine (fast and slow versions), and Elt Mesens’ Drie Composities Voor Klavier as well as an ensemble rendition of Erratum Musical and a new piece by Luke Rinderknecht. [Read more…]

No Exit to host Aether Eos

by

by Mike Telin

This weekend No Exit will take a short break from performing and put on their presenter hat when they host Aether Eos — the duo of violinist/composer/visual artist Leah Asher and pianist/composer Christopher Goddard — on Sunday, March 3 at 3:00 pm at Heights Arts and Monday the 4th at 7:30 pm at Kent State University’s Ludwig Recital Hall. Both performances are free.

Their varied program will explore a kaleidoscope of expressive states in Tonia Ko’s plush earth in four pieces, Carrie Frey’s Seagrass/Reed, Giacinto Scelsi’s Chemin du Coeur, Linda Caitlin Smith’s Unbroken, and Michael Hersch’s the wreckage of flowers.

[Read more…]

No Exit: Piano Dada at Cleveland Museum of Art

by

by Mike Telin 

This week No Exit will continue their season-long multifaceted exploration and celebration of Surrealism on February 9 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium with “Piano Dada.” The free concert takes an entertaining dive into the realm of dreams, the irrational, the unconscious and the inexplicable.

“We’re very excited about this concert because it is our Cleveland Museum of Art debut,” No Exit’s artistic director Timothy Beyer said during a telephone conversation.

The program will include five works for solo piano performed by Shuai Wang — Francis Picabia’s La Nourrice Américaine (fast) and La Nourrice Américaine (slow), Darius Milhaud’s Caramel Mou, Georges Auric’s Adieu, New York!, and E.L.T. Mesens’ Drie Composities Voor Klavier — as well as a video of Tristan Tzara’s Dadaist Anthem.

Beyer noted that with the exception of Milhaud, Picabia, Auric, Mesens and Tzara were not composers per se. “They were artists. But these are great pieces that represent the beginning of avant-garde conceptualized music, which is prevalent today — John Cage took his cues from the Dadist’s playbook.” [Read more…]

No Exit with Zeitgeist: Surreality — the Unconscious at SPACES (Dec. 2)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

It’s got to be a daunting task to create something even more surreal than what we wake up to every morning in our 21st-century world, but Timothy Beyer and his No Exit new music ensemble are pulling that trick off with élan in their Surreality project during this, their 15th season.

The second chapter — a collaboration with No Exit’s St. Paul, Minnesota counterparts, Zeitgeist, which I caught at SPACES on December 2 — began with a trilogy of movies by Beyer, James Praznik, and Luke Haaksma, and progressed to Zeitgeist & Philip Blackburn’s Between Here and There. That virtuosic concerto for unlikely “instruments” was performed in front of Revelations of the Unconscious Mind (A Surrealist Dreamscape), a center-of-the-gallery, beach-like installation devised by Leila Khoury and Kristen Newell, and studded with objects that shouldn’t be there.

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us