by Jarrett Hoffman
Violinist Jinjoo Cho was born in Seoul and lives in Montreal, but you could easily say she’s from Northeast Ohio. She moved here as a teenager and enrolled in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s young artist program, and she didn’t leave the area until last year, when she joined the faculty of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University.
Her time living in Cleveland saw her career take off. Cho won a major competition (International Violin Competition of Indianapolis), made an important solo debut (Carnegie Hall), took on teaching positions (CIM and Oberlin Conservatory), and founded and continues to run a summer festival (ENCORE Chamber Music in Gates Mills).
Cho has been featured by many of the area’s prominent ensembles and presenting organizations — and she’s still adding to that list. She will play Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto this weekend in her first appearances with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, led by Daniel Meyer.
If you had to have musicians living above you, judging from their performance at Pilgrim Church on Sunday, October 13, cellist Darrett Adkins and pianist Cicilia Yudha are two you would want to have. Their concert, which opened Arts Renaissance Tremont’s 29th season, featured intriguing works that proved a cello recital doesn’t always need to include music by the three B’s to hold you in rapt attention.
If you’ve been to an orchestra concert in the area over the last 26 years, you’ve probably heard Martin Neubert’s playing.
Variety, virtuosity, and vitality: by inviting the Laredo-Robinson Duo to play the penultimate concert of its 27th season, Arts Renaissance Tremont virtually guaranteed that listeners would experience all of the above. In a concert in Pilgrim Church on Sunday, April 15, the distinguished spouses Jaime Laredo, violin, and Sharon Robinson, cello, championed 20th-century and new pieces alongside familiar favorites.
Friends of fifteen years will come together as duo partners in the next concert on the Arts Renaissance Tremont series. On Sunday, January 21 at 3:00 pm at Pilgrim Congregational Church, clarinetist Franklin Cohen and pianist Zsolt Bognár will play a program that includes art songs by Beethoven and Fauré, two famous sonatas by Poulenc and Brahms, and a rarely-heard sonata by Mieczysław Weinberg. A freewill offering is requested.
“When I put together a program, I look for interesting threads that connect the pieces, but I also look at how the pieces resonate with me,” Daniel Meyer, music director of the Asheville Symphony and Erie Philharmonic, said in a recent conversation. “I’m going to be interpreting them, putting my stamp on them, and standing in front of incredibly trained musicians who will want to know my opinion, so it’s important that I have a personal connection to the works.”
Over the past eight years, Les Délices has presented well-researched, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining concerts that explore music and topics of the French Baroque.