Qin Ying Tan Archives - Cleveland Classical

CityMusic Cleveland:
“Baroque Reflections” (Dec. 6)

December 14, 2020 by Jarrett Hoffman

by Jarrett Hoffman

On December 6, CityMusic Cleveland continued its season-long chamber series celebrating 100 years of the 19th amendment with “Baroque Reflections,” streamed live from the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

Here are the numbers: seven masked performers (including several period-instrumentalists and, notably for these times, a soprano) alternated through multiple configurations from duo to sextet as they explored music by eight composers of the 17th and 18th centuries.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art debuts Cenk Ergün’s Formare (May 8)

May 21, 2019 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland audiences had their first live encounters with the music of Turkish-born composer Cenk Ergün in March of 2016, when the JACK Quartet premiered his commissioned works Sonare and Celare in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ergün’s second appearance at the Museum earlier this month came in the form of a Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion project. On Wednesday evening, May 8, the composer (seated on the pavement above) unveiled his hour-long Formare, turning the Ames Family Atrium into a vast sound installation. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland — Together Again (June 11)

by Mike Telin

When faced with the uncertainty of what the restrictions governing indoor, in-person concerts might be this summer, the organizers at ChamberFest Cleveland made the bold decision to take the concerts outside and make them free.

This year the majority of the concerts are being held at a single location, the magnificent Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield. Although the venue has no permanent seating, lawn chairs and blankets are the perfect solution. Picnics are encouraged and the responsible consumption of alcohol is permitted. Think Blossom Music Center on a smaller scale and you’ll get the picture. [Read on…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: Opening Concert — “Legends” (June 6)

by Cait Winston

After the postponement of their 2020 season, ChamberFest Cleveland made a triumphant return on June 6, as they kicked off the 2021 concert series aptly named ‘Together Again.’ Originally planned to be held at The Grove Amphitheater, the venue was changed to St. Paschal Baylon church, due to rain.

The series opener, “Legends,” celebrated the return of in-person concerts with music by Antonín Dvořák, Enrique Granados, Paul Wiancko, and Franz Schubert. The musicians displayed the wide range of expression and color, enchanting communication, and technical brilliance that chamber music can provide. [Read on…]

Cleveland Orchestra In Focus 11: Intimate Mozart, Complex Berg

by Daniel Hathaway

Much had changed in the 130-some years that separate Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Vienna from that of Alban Berg. The Cleveland Orchestra titled episode 11 of its In Focus digital series “Order and Disorder,” presumably to contrast Mozart’s well-behaved, Enlightenment-inspired Clarinet Quintet from 1789 with the societal chaos reflected musically in Berg’s Lyric Suite, three of the six movements from the composer’s 1925-1926 String Quartet that he arranged for full string orchestra in 1928.

Music director Franz Welser-Möst set the stage in his introductory video remarks, describing the Berg era as “the ‘Roaring 20s’ aftershock of World War I, a blooming of musical styles never experienced before or since.” [Read on…]

No Exit & Zeitgeist: New Sound Worlds

by Mike Telin

Although great strides have been made in audio technology, latency issues (lag in time due to internet connection) still prevent musicians from seamlessly passing musical lines from multiple locations in real-time. In their most recent collaboration, “New Sound Worlds,” Cleveland-based No Exit and St. Paul-based Zeitgeist bring life to a new work by Scott Miller during which members of both ensembles perform from their homes and studios. The concert is available on-demand here.

Aside from that, the beautifully curated program primarily features captivating performances of solo works that are presented in a logical progression of sound and temperament. [Read on…]

Classical Guitar Festival: Jiji & Lippel (May 28)

by Jarrett Hoffman

The second concert of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival brought another intriguing contrast of artists, from repertoire to presentation and videography.

Situated in front of several leafy houseplants, Jiyeon Kim, also known as Jiji, began her program of five short works with her own arrangement of Renaissance composer Claudia Sessa’s Occhi lo Vissi di Voi. Her performance was full of drama and sensitively paced, with extra-special moments achieved through her light touch.

[Read on…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: Drew Henderson and Petra Poláčková

by Cait Winston

Online recitals pose the question: can a virtual format preserve the precious conversation between a musician and their audience? In a recently streamed concert, guitarists Drew Henderson and Petra Poláčková proved that such communication can still exist outside of a live setting, when the music is played with generous expressivity and technical finesse. Henderson and Poláčková’s performance, presented by the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, was pre-recorded and streamed on Friday, June 4th.

Henderson began the evening with his own arrangements of three movements from J.S. Bach’s Suite No. 4 for solo cello. The Prelude features a series of descending patterns interspersed with virtuosic passages, and while these passages effectively highlighted Henderson’s technical skills, he also demonstrated dramatic expertise by playing each descending pattern with different nuances of emotion. The Sarabande, with its poise and stately pace, was juxtaposed beautifully with a lively Bourrée, where notes flurried in quick succession, but Henderson never sacrificed precise articulation for musical momentum. [Read on…]

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