Ourconcerts.live Archives - Cleveland Classical

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: “Honor, Hope, and Gratitude”

June 2, 2021 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

In lieu of moving something resembling a normal season of concerts online, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra offered its patrons a beautifully produced video filmed at the Maltz Performing Arts Center at CWRU that debuted on May 27.

Subtitled “Tender reflections on a challenging year,” the program, curated by artistic director Daniel Meyer and released on the OurConcerts.live platform, offered nine soothing miniatures or excerpts from larger works, all for strings alone. As Meyer told us in an interview, “Everything on this program is cut from the same cloth, and meant to be gentle, placid, and consoling.” [Read more…]

Miró Quartet to perform Beethoven Cycle for Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival

July 14, 2020 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

In case anyone has forgotten, 2020 is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. And while COVID-19 has interrupted most of the performances that were planned to honor the composer, at least one celebration will go on. But not without some redesigns.

Beginning on Thursday, July 16 and continuing through August 8, the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival will present Beethoven’s complete string quartet cycle as performed by the Miró Quartet. The concerts will be streamed live in real time from a private venue in the Quartet’s base in Austin, Texas. For a complete schedule and to purchase tickets, click here.

Like most musicians and ensembles, the Miró — Daniel Ching and William Fedkenheuer (violins), John Largess (viola), and Joshua Gindele (cello) — began their unplanned hiatus in mid-March. Soon after, the Quartet began thinking about what the future held.

[Read more…]

Great Lakes Theater goes Into the Woods (Sept. 28)

by Peter Feher

This season, Great Lakes Theater is uniquely positioned to put on a near-perfect production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

The regional company, in residence at the Hanna Theatre, has time and again mounted some of the most appealing shows at Playhouse Square — more intimate than the Broadway tours that stop just down the street but no less lavishly performed.

You could say it was all for the best that the recent New York revival of Into the Woods — with its rotating celebrity cast paying larger-than-life tribute to Sondheim, who died in 2021 — never made it to Cleveland. [Read on…]

Recording review: Poiesis Quartet fearlessly forges something new (Bright Shiny Things)

by Stephanie Manning

Creating something new can come with a lot of expectations. Founding an ensemble. Releasing a debut album. Recording a world premiere, or two. But whatever you might expect from the Poiesis Quartet, they want you to take them exactly as they are.

It might sound like quite the proclamation for the young string quartet, founded two years ago at Oberlin Conservatory by violinists Sarah Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor, and cellist Drew Dansby. But their debut recording, as we are — to be released on October 18 — sees the four players completely confident in themselves and the music they’re performing.

The name “Poiesis,” from the ancient Greek ποιεῖν, refers to this act of making what has never been made before. Accordingly, the two pieces on the album are each world premiere recordings (though each have had multiple live performances). Both works also have strong ties to Northeast Ohio, with one by Baldwin Wallace composer-in-residence Clint Needham and the other by Cleveland Orchestra trombonist Richard Stout. [Read on…]

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