ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

James Ehnes and Orion Weiss open Cleveland Chamber Music Society season (Sept. 16)

by

by Peter Feher

If James Ehnes ever decided to launch a fan club, one of the first chapters would undoubtedly be formed in Northeast Ohio.

The esteemed Canadian violinist has made occasional concerto appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra over the years, but local audiences have come to know him best through chamber performances that offer an unparalleled experience of his artistry.

This feeling of intimate familiarity united Ehnes and an enthusiastic crowd at Disciples Christian Church on Tuesday, Sept. 16, for the opening concert of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s 2025–26 season. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven concerto cycle: a mini festival of virtuosity (Nov. 6)

by

by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — There’s never been a better time to buy a couple of extra tickets to The Cleveland Orchestra.

Not one but four stellar soloists took the stage at Severance Music Center on Wednesday, Nov. 6 — representing about half of the star-studded lineup coming to Cleveland over the next two weeks. The big event of the Orchestra’s fall season, a complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos, is set to feature a different headliner for almost every piece.

This wasn’t the original plan, but with music director Franz Welser-Möst undergoing medical treatment and unable to conduct — and the scheduled soloist for the entire cycle, Igor Levit, withdrawing as a result — the Orchestra had to adapt. The personnel changes were announced on Monday, Nov. 4, including associate conductor Daniel Reith’s stepping in to lead all the performances, which run through Nov. 17.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Vortex” (June 25)

by

by Mike Telin

If you are familiar with William Cowper’s 1785 poem The Task, then you know the famous line “Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.” On Sunday, June 25 at Harkness Chapel, ChamberFest Cleveland presented a program that was steeped in musical variety and spices for the ear.

Written in 1977, Alfred Schnittke’s Moz-Art (after the fragment K. 416d) is based on the first violin part from Mozart’s unpublished pantomime, with dollops of the opening theme of his 40th Symphony stirred into the mix. The quirky five-minute work for two violins asks the players to throw caution to the winds as they seemingly compete to see who can turn a classical line into something absurd faster than the other.

The performance by Itamar Zorman and Diana Cohen was bust-your-gut funny. Bowed notes turned into plucked ones, then scratchings, in tune became out of tune, and slow tempos became fast enough to break the sound barrier. Hilarity ensued when the players swapped out their instruments, Zorman grabbing a very tiny violin while Cohen opted for a viola. After reclaiming their rightful fiddles, the players mischievously walked away whistling.

[Read more…]

CD Review — Weiss’ Arc II,
an exploration of loss & grief

by

by Nicolette Cheauré 

There may be nothing more unifying than humanity’s response to loss. Where words fail to describe feelings as complex as those associated with death and grief, music takes over — and it’s hard to imagine anything ringing more true in that regard than pianist Orion Weiss’ latest album, Arc II, released in November of 2022.

The recording opens with Ravel’s atmospheric Le Tombeau de Couperin, and the six movements provide Weiss the opportunity to express the many facets of his musical personality. The Prelude was dreamlike and flowing, saturated with traditional Ravel color changes, while the Fugue was full of constant motion before a quiet conclusion.

[Read more…]

CIPC Concert Series culminates in Wosner-Weiss piano duo (Sept. 14)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

In the last event in its concert series before it turns its attention to the 2020 contest, the Cleveland International Piano Competition presented duo-pianists Shai Wosner and Orion Weiss in a viscerally thrilling and intellectually stimulating recital on Saturday evening, September 14 in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Hall.

[Read more…]

CIPC Concert Series:
15 minutes with Shai Wosner

by

by Daniel Hathaway

The final event in the Cleveland International Piano Competition’s 2019 Concert Series will feature the duo-piano team of Orion Weiss and Shai Wosner in music by Schubert, Brahms, and David Lang on Saturday, September 14 at 8:00 pm in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Hall.

The recital reunites two longtime friends and colleagues and introduces the Israeli-born Wosner to Cleveland (Weiss, born in Gates Mills, is well-known in these parts). I caught up with Shai Wosner by telephone earlier this month and began by asking whether he and Weiss have played this particular program before.

Shai Wosner: We performed it at the Kennedy Center earlier this year, and will play it in New Mexico next month. We’re having a great time with it.

Daniel Hathaway: You and Orion have a long history of performing together.

SW: We go back nearly twenty years. For a long time we were each doing our own thing, but a few years ago we thought it was time to play together again. We had this unusual idea for a program with two huge pieces. [Read more…]

ChamberFest at Blackstone Organ House (Apr. 11)

by

by David Kulma

The second event in Chamberfest Cleveland’s new House Concert Series on April 11 was a feast for the ears as well as the eyes, set at the astounding Blackstone Organ House on Lake Erie in Bratenahl and featuring two ChamberFest regulars, violinist Alexi Kenney and pianist Orion Weiss. Fittingly, the evening opened with Hannah Koby playing J.S. Bach’s Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552/2 on the 7400-pipe Aeolian-Skinner organ. [Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition kicks off 2019 Concert Series with Jeremy Denk

by

by Mike Telin

If you’ve ever wondered what the Cleveland International Piano Competition does during the gap years between its signature event, the answer is a lot. Last spring CIPC hosted its Young Artist Competition, and from January through May will present five free concerts at the Beachwood Community Center. And on Saturday, January 19 the Competition will kick off the 2019 Concert Series with an 8:00 pm recital by Jeremy Denk at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall.

Denk, an Oberlin alum and winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, will perform Beethoven’s Five Variations on “Rule Britannia” in D and An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98/S. 469 (transc. Liszt), Adams’ I Still Play, Bizet’s Variations chromatiques, Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses in d, Op. 54, and Schumann’s Fantasy in C, Op. 1. Tickets are available online.

“We’re very happy Jeremy is coming,” CIPC President & CEO Yaron Kohlberg said during a telephone conversation. “He’s one of the major pianists in the United States right now. He’ll be presenting a wonderful program and I look forward to a beautiful concert.”

This Saturday’s concert also marks one of Kohlberg’s first public events since he began his tenure with the Competition this past fall. Kohlberg, the second prize winner at the 2007 CIPC, is uniquely qualified for the job. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland Concert 1: “A Burst of Freedom” (June 14)

by

by Timothy Robson

Weiss RabinovichThe seventh season of Chamberfest Cleveland opened on Thursday, June 14 at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall. The festival, brainchild of Cleveland  Orchestra principal clarinet emeritus Franklin Cohen and his daughter, violinist Diana Cohen, concertmaster of the Calgary Symphony, has become an imaginative and well-attended fixture of June in Cleveland. The opening program typified the festival by combining familiar works with the more unusual. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland — Season Seven: In Search of Freedom

by

by Mike Telin

Chamberfest LogoSince ChamberFest Cleveland’s inaugural season in 2012, Festival co-artist directors Diana and Franklin Cohen have taken the concept of thematic programming to new heights. (It’s) About Time (2013) explored elements of time as related to the musical experience. Last season’s theme, Cycles: Phases! reflected on the complexity of the human experience at each stage of life.

This season ChamberFest will consider the concept of freedom — an essential ingredient to the creative process. Beginning of June 14 and continuing through June 30, In Search of Freedom will explore the range of freedom in music, with nine concerts in a variety of venues.

In addition to violinist Diana Cohen and clarinetist Franklin Cohen, this year’s roster of returning artists will include violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley, Alexi Kenney, and Amy Schwartz-Moretti, violinist/violist Yura Lee, cellists Julie Albers, Clive Greensmith, and Oliver Herbert, bassist Nathan Farrington, and pianists Zoltán Fejérvári, Roman Rabinovich, and Orion Weiss. Making their ChamberFest debuts are violinist Noah Geller, violists Matthew Lipman and Tanner Menees, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, flutist Lorna McGhee, and singer Amanda Powell.

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us