Qin Ying Tan Archives - Cleveland Classical

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…]

CD Review
Harpist Parker Ramsay plays Goldbergs in King’s College Chapel

by Daniel Hathaway

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Aria with Thirty Variations, nicknamed (not by the composer) after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, the harpsichordist who was retained to play them on command for an insomniac patron, have been adapted by performers for many other instruments — most notably for the piano and most famously by Glenn Gould.

Joining a long list of arrangers, Parker Ramsay has now transcribed the Variations for the modern pedal harp, an instrument for which he holds a master’s degree from Juilliard, in addition to a degree in history from Cambridge University, plus a master’s in historical performance (organ and harpsichord) and an artist diploma (organ) from Oberlin. [Read on…]

Virtual performances from Hudson, Cleveland, and Akron launch season

by Daniel Hathaway

Music From the Western Reserve, Music and Art at Trinity Cathedral, and Arts at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church all streamed concerts online in September, all without audiences present.

As organizations gingerly take steps to open up for business, it’s refreshing to have new content to listen to and write about after a solid six months of archival footage. [Read on…]

Les Délices’ SalonEra: “Recovering Roots” (Sept. 21)

by Jarrett Hoffman

Created remotely and shared virtually, Les Délices’ SalonEra has the capability of presenting musicians and thinkers who are not only far afield from Northeast Ohio, but who bring especially unique musical interests to the table, perhaps based on where they’re from.

That was the case yesterday, September 21, in the third program of the series. Through pre-recorded performances and conversation, “Recovering Roots” explored Indigenous Métis music as well as the 17th- and 18th-century cultural exchange with white settlers in what was known as New France.

[Read on…]

CD Review:
a lad’s love, tenor Brian Giebler

by Jarrett Hoffman

Over the past few years, Brian Giebler has visited Northeast Ohio in settings both orchestral and choral, and with repertoire as diverse as Stravinsky, Bach, and the local premiere of a new work. In his impressive solo recording debut a lad’s love, released on Bridge Records, the New York City-based tenor turns his focus to British songs from the first half of the 20th century — a mix of cycles and individual works — and tops off the playlist with a touch of the modern. [Read on…]

CD Review
Sergei Babayan: Rachmaninoff

by Daniel Hathaway

To steal a phrase from the third-century Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus, the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. The same goes for Deutsche Grammophon. It’s been a dozen years since they were recorded in Hamburg in 2009, but the German company has now issued fifteen Rachmaninoff piano pieces magnificently and poetically played by Sergei Babayan. [Read on…]

Two nights at the virtual Tri-C JazzFest (Aug. 21-23)

by Jarrett Hoffman

The 41st Tri-C JazzFest set a high bar for any virtual concerts to come, with excellent performances by local artists and a slick presentation. I heard the Friday and Sunday showings of the three-night festival, which ran from August 21-23.

[Read on…]

Les Délices goes digital with Monday SalonEra Series (Aug. 24)

by Daniel Hathaway

Pianist Conrad Tao tweeted earlier this month that thanks to the exigencies of the pandemic, he would refer to two pre-recorded video performances he was preparing not as concerts, but as “shows” in the sense of television. “We’re production companies now,” he wrote.

After considering all its options, Cleveland’s period ensemble Les Délices decided to fully embrace the idea of creating pre-recorded “shows” in the place of live, in-person performances this season. [Read on…]

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