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The Cleveland Orchestra & Blossom Festival Chorus (July 1)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Undeterred by clouds in the sky, The Cleveland Orchestra let joy prevail on opening night of the 2023 Blossom Music Festival on Saturday, July 1. Somehow the weather held, families gathered, blankets came out, and Beethoven’s jubilant message issued forth.

Susanna Mälkki was a persuasive presence on the podium, leading the orchestra, the Blossom Festival Chorus, and soloists in music by William Grant Still, Samuel Barber, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Still’s “Mother and Child,” a slow movement from his 1943 Suite for Violin and Piano here arranged by the composer for string orchestra, is a soft and sincere work alluding to folk song. Under Mälkki’s direction, the strings gave a beautifully timbred, reverential reading.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Gilbert & Yancich: Oliverio, Haydn & Nielsen pack a program (Jan. 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Rebounding with vigor on January 5 from its loaded holiday schedule while other ensembles were still in recovery mode, The Cleveland Orchestra gave a thoroughly enjoyable concert of completely unrelated works, including a new concerto by James Oliverio featuring principal timpani Paul Yancich, and not-so-often performed symphonies by Joseph Haydn and Carl Nielsen.

Presiding over this interesting stew like an adventurous chef, guest conductor Alan Gilbert threw in a surprising ingredient or two that the smallish audience of 800 lapped up as if hungry for something both piquant and nourishing after a diet of Noëls.

The Mandel Hall stage was full of drums — the normal number at the back of the orchestra, plus seven more set in a tight circle where the first violins usually hold forth — for the opening work, Oliverio’s Legacy Ascendant, Concerto for Timpani and Strings, commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]

And then there were three: James Oliverio discusses his new Timpani Concerto

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by Mike Telin

Timpani concertos are few and far between. Even the most knowledgeable would be hard pressed to name the composers of one or two. How remarkable is it that Cleveland Orchestra principal Paul Yancich has two that were written for him with a third on the way, all by the same composer, James Oliverio.

“My relationship with Paul goes back to when we were students at the Cleveland Institute of Music in the’70s and he asked me to write a piece for his senior recital,” Oliverio said said during a telephone conversation from his home in Florida where he serves as Executive Director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida. “That was my first major work for the instrument. And since that time we’ve stayed in touch.”

On Thursday, January 5 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Yancich will give the World Premiere of Oliverio’s Legacy Ascendant with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Alan Gilbert. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Prometheus Project I: Eight Beethoven symphonies in four concerts

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by David Kulma

tco-fwm-092416Severance Hall was filled to the brim with Beethoven lovers for the first four installments of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 100th-season-capping festival.  Framed as an exploration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s nine symphonies through ancient Greek myth, The Prometheus Project began with dazzling performances of the first eight symphonies and four overtures led by music director Franz Welser-Möst from Thursday, May 10 through Sunday, May 13. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: Two Concerts and a toast (June 29 & July 1)

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by Mike Telin

CFCJune29Mixon-1Last weekend ChamberFest Cleveland presented the final three concerts of its 2017 edition. I attended two of the performances which exemplified why the Festival has become a crown jewel in the area’s rich classical music scene. The inventive programming ranged from the almost never heard, to the seldom heard, to music by giants of the repertoire. Above all, the performances of the five works were beyond reproach. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Jane Glover, Joshua Smith & Yolanda Kondonassis (April 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

KONDONASSIS-SMITHWhile half of The Cleveland Orchestra was busy downtown providing incidental music for The Good Peaches at the Cleveland Play House on Thursday evening, April 14, the rest of the ensemble played a scintillating concert of music by Haydn and Mozart uptown at Severance Hall under guest conductor Jane Glover, featuring principal flute Joshua Smith and harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra with Ton Koopman and Paul Yancich at Severance Hall (May 4)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Yancich-PaulThe first weekend of the third year of Dutch conductor Ton Koopman’s productive residency with The Cleveland Orchestra gave Severance Hall audiences a new perspective on three Viennese classical works by Mozart and Haydn, introduced a French baroque descriptive piece by a composer the orchestra has never tackled before, and brought a true novelty to light: a late eighteenth century showpiece starring timpanist Paul Yancich.

To be precise, only half of The Cleveland Orchestra was playing on the East side of East Boulevard on Saturday evening, May 4 — the rest of the musicians had been involved all week with the two-concert series “California Masterworks” at the Cleveland Museum of Art. For Mozart’s Symphony No. 1 in E-flat, the Severance stage was set up for a period-sized ensemble of fifteen violins, six violas, four cellos and four basses, and pairs of oboes and horns. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra with Ton Koopman — a chat with timpanist Paul Yancich

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by Mike Telin

Yancich-Coaching-MiamiMusically speaking, this is a diverse week for The Cleveland Orchestra. Lovers of contemporary music can hear half of the orchestra’s players performing two concerts as part of the California Masterworks series at the Cleveland Museum of Art, but lovers of music from the baroque and classical periods can also have their listening appetites fulfilled.

On Friday, May 3 at 11:00 am, Saturday May 4 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, May 5 at 3:00 pm in Severance Hall, Ton Koopman will lead concerts featuring Mozart’s Symphonies No. 1 and 17, Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 (Farewell) and Rebel’s Overture to The Elements. (Mozart’s Symphony 17 and the Rebel Overture are on Saturday’s and Sunday’s programs only) All three concerts feature German composer Johann Carl Christian Fischer’s unique Symphony with Eight Obbligato Timpani.

We spoke to Cleveland Orchestra principal timpanist Paul Yancich (above, coaching Pedro Fernandez at the University of Miami) about that fascinating and challenging work, but began by asking him why he wanted to perform the piece.

[Read more…]

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