by Jarrett Hoffman
This weekend gives concertgoers the chance to hear one guitarist from France who will be making his Cleveland debut, and another from Bay Village who in the past several years, as he told me over the phone, has been re-solidifying his identity as a Clevelander.
Paris-based Raphaël Feuillâtre is in the midst of a victory lap following his Grand Prize at the 2018 Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artists Competition. One stop on his 7-month, 50-city tour will be Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday, October 5 at 7:30 pm, when he’ll bring works by Mangoré, Llobet, Rameau, Brouwer, Assad, Villa-Lobos, Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series.
Co-head of the guitar faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music and a frequent recitalist, Colin Davin is a name that needs little introduction around here. His recital on Sunday, October 6 at 5:00 pm at Christ Church Episcopal in Hudson as part of Music from The Western Reserve will include works by Ponce, Tower, Brouwer, and J.S. Bach.
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra entered an exciting second era with the final concert of its 9th season on Saturday, May 4 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. Last month, conductor Daniel Meyer was named the orchestra’s artistic director, so now this important Northeast Ohio institution can chart a course into its second decade.
The decision to pursue the path of a professional musician came late for 
Over the past ten years the music of Jean-Féry Rebel has become familiar to 
“To live with this piece is to imagine a genius at the absolute height of his powers, yet virtually isolated from the world,” Cuarteto Casals violist Jonathan Brown said. “Beethoven was deaf in his disorderly room in Vienna where few people wanted to be associated with him. There he was struggling with his artistic demons. He wrote, and rewrote this quartet extensively, but he was working with his own criteria — there’s no other model, there’s no other work like this.” 
Variety can be the salvation or the undoing of a concert. A century and a half ago, most Americans would have heard what we now think of as the bedrock repertoire of the classical tradition in bewildering shows that often included comedy and drama as well. In recent decades, however, even diversity of historical period and musical style — let alone type of entertainment — has become optional, rather than expected. In a recent concert led by Daniel Meyer, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra successfully embraced stylistic pluralism, mixing new music and a rarity with standard audience favorites.
Armed with both a new first violinist, Areta Zhulla, and a new piece by Lembit Beecher, the Juilliard String Quartet will head to Plymouth Church 
The Cleveland Chamber Music Society will continue its season on Tuesday, November 13 when they welcome the Ehnes Quartet — James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti, violins, Richard O’Neill, viola, and Edward Arron, cello. 
If you’ve been to an orchestra concert in the area over the last 26 years, you’ve probably heard Martin Neubert’s playing.
With some performances, you can just tell that the player has a special relationship to the piece. But do you really 