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She Scores: a dazzling display from composers & performers (June 2)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

You might have gone to the Sunday, June 2 She Scores concert to hear exemplary works by female and nonbinary composers, or simply to enjoy some fresh new sounds. But once there, you would have stayed for the dazzling expertise on display, from both composers and performers alike.

Credit the Local 4 Music Fund and executive director Amber Rogers for organizing the fourth annual iteration of this splendid concert series, which ran from May 30-June 2 in CIM’s lovely Mixon Hall. Genre or gender aside, this was an afternoon of superb music.

Margi Griebling-Haigh’s Triskaidekaphilia (“love of the number thirteen”) for three violins made for an arresting and mathematical start. Violinists Ken Johnston, Leah Goor-Burtnett, and Emily Cornelius drew out the composer’s introspective and playful sides in this well-crafted three-movement work. [Read more…]

Cleveland Composers Guild partners with Factory Seconds Brass Trio & others (Apr. 21)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Composers Guild found an ideal partner in the Factory Seconds Brass Trio (Jack Sutte, trumpet, Richard King, horn, and Rick Stout, trombone), who, along with other performers, assembled a recital program of the first order at Rocky River’s West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday, April 21.

Before the trio took the stage, a handful of instrumental and vocal performers drew welcome attention to non-brass works by Nicholas Puin, Matthew C. Saunders, Margaret Brouwer, and Andy Junttonen.

[Read more…]

A Romantic German Valentine

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by Mike Telin

What is it about the central German city of Weimar that has inspired so many important artists, musicians, poets and philosophers?

In 2019 composer Margi Griebling-Haigh had the good fortune to visit the picturesque city twice — she too was inspired. “The apartment I was staying in was on the top floor of an old building on the Herderplatz. My window overlooked the bell tower of the church in which Bach wrote most of his organ concertos,” she recalled during a recent conversation. “It snowed most of the week I was there — it was beautiful. But looking out at the bell tower and hearing them ring, I realized that this is what Bach would have heard. I actually recorded them on my phone, and I knew that somehow I would use them in a piece.”

On Tuesday, February 14 at 7:30 pm at Fairmount Presbyterian Church Chapel, Griebling-Haigh’s Weimarer Winterszenen and Lufthaltenlieder will receive their world premieres during a program titled “A Romantic German Valentine.” The program will also include Schubert’s Auf dem Strom, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen and Schumann’s Drei Romanzen & Drei Fantasiestücke  performed by Gabrielle Haigh (soprano), Robert Woolfrey (clarinet), Jesse McCormick (horn), Margi Griebling-Haigh (English horn), and Randall Fusco (piano). Suggested freewill donation: $20 at the door. [Read more…]

Gabrielle Haigh visits Respighi’s circle in debut CD with pianist Randall Fusco

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by Daniel Hathaway

There are myriad paths to follow — both musical and literary — when curating an art song recital. For her impressive debut solo CD, soprano Gabriella Haigh chose to visit repertoire reflecting musical relationships that swirled around the 19th-century Italian composer Ottorino Respighi.

That idea was born when Haigh discovered that Respighi’s wife, Elsa (née Olivieri-Sangiacomo), who outlived him by some 60 years — she died at 102 — was both his pupil and a composer herself.

“This revelation led to the idea of performing a recital featuring art songs composed by Respighi’s most influential teachers, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Giuseppe Martucci, by his students Vittorio Rieti and Elsa Respighi, and of course several of his own,” Haigh wrote in her album notes. [Read more…]

Margi Griebling-Haigh’s The White Trout: a chamber opera in one act on YouTube

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by Daniel Hathaway

Commissioned by Peter Gallagher in 2012, premiered in 2013 at the convention of the International Society of Bassists, and revised in 2019, Margi Griebling-Haigh’s 25-minute chamber opera, The White Trout, was released in mid-November on YouTube.

The piece embellishes an Irish folk tale from County Mayo as told by Samuel Lover and collected by William Butler Yeats. Predictably fantastical, the story centers around a beautiful woman whose fiancé, a king’s son, is murdered and thrown into a lake. The grieving bride eventually disappears (the work of fairies?) about the time villagers notice a strange white trout in the water. [Read more…]

Cleveland Composers Guild at Drinko Hall, CSU (Oct. 13)

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by David Kulma

It was another fascinating afternoon of recent music by members of the Cleveland Composers Guild at CSU’s Drinko Recital Hall on Sunday, October 13. Opening the Guild’s 60th anniversary season, the concert featured chamber music by eight local composers in the usual explorative potluck format.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Composers Guild kicks off 60th anniversary on Sunday

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by Mike Telin

If you’ve ever been asked to define new music, you’ve probably found yourself over-thinking the question. As the Minneapolis-based ensemble Zeitgeist explains it on their website, “In the end, new music is simply that: newly created music written by living composers.”

On Sunday, October 13 at 3:00 pm in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, the Cleveland Composers Guild will kick off its 60th anniversary season with a program that celebrates the membership’s diversity of musical styles. The free concert will feature works by Sebastian Birch, Margaret Brouwer, Margi Griebling-Haigh, Scott Michal, Ryan Charles Ramer, Robert Rollin, Matthew C. Saunders, and James Wilding.

“I always say that our concerts are for adventurous listeners who like a smorgasbord of the unexpected,” Composers Guild vice-chair Margi Griebling-Haigh said during a telephone interview. [Read more…]

Kent Blossom celebrates 51st season

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by Rory O’Donoghue

The Kent Blossom Music Festival returns this weekend, marking the 51st season of Kent State University’s collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra. From June 30 to August 4, the Festival boasts a five-concert Faculty Series and a ten-concert Young Artist Series, including its annual side-by-side performance between students and The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Bramwell Tovey. 

“Our faculty concert series will feature fantastic artists from The Cleveland Orchestra, Kent State’s revered faculty, the Miami String Quartet, pianist Spencer Myer and other guest artists,” Festival director Ricardo Sepúlveda said in his letter introducing this year’s season. For these musicians, their tenure at Kent Blossom is more than just performance based — they’ll be working closely with the 43 visiting students accepted this year.  [Read more…]

Chagrin Arts: Barrick Stees fuses art and music (Apr. 26)

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by David Kulma

Cleveland Orchestra assistant principal bassoon Barrick Stees has had a longtime love of visual art that he finally turned into a musical event — “A Fusion of Art and Music with Barry Stees & Friends” at Chagrin Falls United Methodist Church on Friday, April 26. As part of the Chagrin Arts Performing Arts Series, Stees paired delightful chamber music with the fascinating art that inspired it, projected for all to see.

[Read more…]

Chagrin Arts: fusing art and music with bassoonist Barry Stees

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Inside every artist’s brain is a region where the words of their mentors float around like balloons, even years or decades later. During a recent phone call, bassoonist Barry Stees looked back on one such piece of advice from the late K. David Van Hoesen, his former teacher at the Eastman School of Music.

“He was always encouraging us to read literature, view art, and take in other forms of culture to fill in the context behind the music we were learning,” said Stees, who serves as assistant principal bassoon in The Cleveland Orchestra.

That stuck with him. And now, he’s developed a concert program themed around music and the visual art and artists that inspired it. He’ll bring that to life with pianist Randall Fusco, oboist Cynthia Watson Sperl, and the Callisto Quartet at Chagrin Falls United Methodist Church this Friday, April 26 at 7:30 pm as part of the Chagrin Arts series. Visual art will be displayed on the walls, and shown on projections.

[Read more…]

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