by Kevin McLaughlin
Margaret Brouwer’s music has become a fixture in Northeast Ohio — distinctive, unmistakable, and not easily pinned down. She goes her own way, with stylistic diplomacy: borrowing freely, but never pledging allegiance to any one camp.
On Sunday, April 19, Steven Smith led the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in three works by Brouwer as part of NEOSonicFest, its annual spring exposition of new sounds, at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights.
First up was Donald Erb’s Harold’s Trip to the Sky (1974). Scored for viola, piano, and percussion, Erb treats the ensemble less as a traditional trio than as three independent voices. The title makes a nod to Lord Byron’s Harold but Erb’s piece doesn’t tell a story. It unfolds in episodes: the viola climbing and exploring, the piano holding its ground, the percussion commenting, like Puck, with wry asides. [Read more…]
The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra is taking an intriguing approach to the 100th anniversary of 
This weekend with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra is a case study in the breadth of sounds contained under the umbrella of “pops.”
A golden age in American popular music began about a century ago. Lasting four decades and pervading musical theater, sound recordings, film, radio, and jazz stylings, it left a body of music that has never gone out of circulation and is regularly trumpeted as one of America’s best collective creations. We now call it “The Great American Songbook.”
