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Pianist Yuja Wang creates magic with The Cleveland Orchestra (Nov. 28)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Thanksgiving weekend concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra often center around a big-ticket soloist or a popular piece.

This year’s program offers both, thanks to star pianist Yuja Wang and Maurice Ravel’s brilliant orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

On Friday November 28, the snow cleared just in time for the crowds to arrive at Severance Music Center for the evening event. Led by conductor Petr Popelka, the resulting concert equally displayed the prowess of Orchestra and soloist over the course of three fascinating works.

György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto stood out in contrast to the lush textures and easy-to-follow melodies of the works that surrounded it. Premiered in 1988, its dissonant and avant-garde music might have come from another world. But both Wang and the Orchestra rose to meet the challenge of its devilishly tricky rhythms with an assured confidence.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra brass and percussion celebrate Akron’s 200th in ambitious Tuesday Musical program (Apr. 22)

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by Stephanie Manning

There are very few American cities who can count themselves as having an official fanfare. But now, Akron is one of them.

To celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary, Tuesday Musical commissioned composer Peter Boyer to write Festive Fanfare (For Akron’s Bicentennial). More than a concert piece, a recording of the four-minute fanfare will soon be made available for open-access use at Akron civic events. On April 22, a packed house heard it live for the first time as part of a wide-ranging program by the brass and percussion players of The Cleveland Orchestra.

“Kid — candy store,” Boyer said from the stage at E.J. Thomas Hall, gesturing to himself and then the musicians to describe his excitement. [Read more…]

Recording review: Poiesis Quartet fearlessly forges something new (Bright Shiny Things)

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by Stephanie Manning

Creating something new can come with a lot of expectations. Founding an ensemble. Releasing a debut album. Recording a world premiere, or two. But whatever you might expect from the Poiesis Quartet, they want you to take them exactly as they are.

It might sound like quite the proclamation for the young string quartet, founded two years ago at Oberlin Conservatory by violinists Sarah Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor, and cellist Drew Dansby. But their debut recording, as we are — to be released on October 18 — sees the four players completely confident in themselves and the music they’re performing.

The name “Poiesis,” from the ancient Greek ποιεῖν, refers to this act of making what has never been made before. Accordingly, the two pieces on the album are each world premiere recordings (though each have had multiple live performances). Both works also have strong ties to Northeast Ohio, with one by Baldwin Wallace composer-in-residence Clint Needham and the other by Cleveland Orchestra trombonist Richard Stout. [Read more…]

Poiesis Quartet to join Mezzo-Soprano Nancy Maultsby at Baldwin Wallace

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by Mike Telin

Winning a competition can serve as a jump-start to a young musician or chamber ensemble. Case in point: the Poiesis Quartet, founded during Oberlin Conservatory’s Advanced Quartet Seminar program in Fall 2022. During their first year as an ensemble, they became the 2023 Grand Prize winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They were also awarded the Gold Medal and BIPOC Prize at the 2023 St. Paul String Quartet Competition.

And when Cleveland Orchestra trombonist and composer Richard Stout was looking for a string quartet to perform his Songs of Correspondence — which he wrote for his Baldwin Wallace faculty colleague Nancy Maultsby — on the opening concert of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society series in October, he sought out the Poiesis. Click here to read an interview with Richard Stout.

On Monday, March 25 at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium, Nancy Maultsby and the Poiesis Quartet — Sarah Ma and Max Ball (violins), Jasper de Boor (viola), and Drew Dansby (cello) — will perform Stout’s song cycle based on letters of Willa Cather. The program will also include Clint Needham’s String Quartet No. 2, “Shades Of Green.” The concert is free.

[Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society opens season with Stout premiere (Sept. 25)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In a program of Cleveland discoveries on Monday, September 25, a lively crowd at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church got to hear Richard Stout’s new work, Songs of Correspondence, based on letters of early 20th-century American author Willa Cather.

Featured performers were mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby, faculty at Baldwin Wallace, and the Poiesis Quartet (Sarah Ma and Max Ball, violins, Jasper de Boor, viola, and Drew Dansby, cello), who formed at Oberlin Conservatory and were Grand Prize winners of the 2023 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The concert kicked off the Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s season. [Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society to present new work by Richard Stout

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 by Mike Telin

When you’re looking for a source of inspiration, sometimes you find it sitting right in front of you. Such was the case with Richard Stout. “I wanted to write some songs for mezzo-soprano and string quartet and I was looking for material,” Stout said during a phone conversation. “I looked at this book — Selected Letters of Willa Cather — that I had sitting at home that my mother had co-edited, and thought, ‘There’s some beautiful material in here.’”

On Monday, September 25 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the Poiesis Quartet — Sarah Ma and Max Ball (violins), Jasper de Boor (viola), and Drew Dansby (cello) — will join mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby to perform Stout’s Songs of Correspondence during the opening concert of Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s 2023-24 season. The program will also include Brahms’ String Quartet No.1 in c. The concert is free and will be livestreamed.

Stout, who is a member of The Cleveland Orchestra’s trombone section and a faculty member at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, said that after he wrote the first few songs he realized that he should ask for permission to use the letters. [Read more…]

All-Stravinsky in Rocky River: variety and charm (May 15)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Variety and charm abounded in an all-Stravinsky program at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church Monday evening, May 15, presented by the Rocky River Chamber Music Society. How delightful to hear this repertoire — Stravinsky’s droll and cerebral inventions in small combinations — heard almost exclusively on conservatory or college programs these days. Top-flight musicianship on the part of Cleveland Orchestra members and fellow professionals helped make the case. Congratulations to trumpeter Amanda Bekeny and clarinetist Daniel McKelway for putting it all together.

The succinct duos that opened the program, Fanfare for a New Theatre for trumpets and Lied Ohne Name for bassoons, made a nice pairing for their length and affective dissimilarity. Where the trumpets skirmished, the bassoons chatted dispassionately — both in under a minute. Accurate and faithful playing of both works only left us wanting more.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Jahja Ling (July 7)

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by Daniel Hathaway

With over a hundred Blossom Music Center performances to his credit, Jahja Ling was the obvious — and ideal — choice to replace the indisposed Franz Welser-Möst for The Cleveland Orchestra’s opening concert on Saturday, July 7. Perfect weather and a revelatory performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition celebrated the beginning of Blossom’s 50th Anniversary season in a memorable way. And there were fireworks, too. [Read more…]

Factory Seconds Brass Trio gears up for concerts at BW, Bop Stop, and on the Rocky River Chamber Series

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Daniel Hathaway

Factory-SecondsThe amusingly-named Factory Seconds Brass Trio — all second-chair players in The Cleveland Orchestra — will have a busy schedule in February. Trumpeter Jack Sutte, hornist Jesse McCormick, and trombonist Richard Stout will start out the month with two different concerts on Sunday, February 12.

At 3:00 pm, the Trio will play a faculty concert in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace titled “Well-Tempered Hindemith: Modernist, Traditionalist, Pragmatist, Artist.” Pianist Christine Fuoco will join each of the players for a solo sonata by Paul Hindemith, and pianist Christina Dahl will take over the bench for Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis, “a counterpoint homage to J.S. Bach.”

At 7:00 pm on the 12th, Factory Seconds will be the featured performers at the Bop Stop as the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival presents its latest edition of Bach Haus and Brews. The music will include bluegrass, broadway, jazz, and — of course — Bach. [Read more…]

Music from the Western Reserve: Factory Seconds in Hudson (Feb. 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Factory-SecondsThe names Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms are ubiquitous on concert programs. But Marius Flothuis, Arthur Meulemans, Norman Sherman, Robert Marek, and Arthur Frackenpohl? Not so much. So it was refreshing to encounter a whole set of new compositional personalities on the concert by Factory Seconds Brass Trio on Sunday afternoon, February 21, part of the 33rd season of Music from the Western Reserve at Christ Church, Hudson. [Read more…]

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