by Mike Telin
Founded in 2012 by Diana and Franklin Cohen, ChamberFest Cleveland has become a highly anticipated event each June for people seeking an immersive chamber music experience.
If the absence of live Festival performances this summer is leaving a void in your soul, take note: ChamberFest is collaborating with WCLV 104.9 Ideastream to broadcast nine programs drawing on material from all eight festival seasons on the station’s Wednesday evening “Ovations” Series and six, one-hour Sunday evening broadcasts. WCLV co-founder Robert Conrad will host and produce the series. Click here to view the schedule.
It’s no secret that since the pandemic caused the cancellation of all live performances, there has been a seemingly never-ending “stream” of performances by musicians and arts organizations over the Internet. Coupled with the reality that our lives are now spent in front of a glowing computer screen, this has caused our eyes and minds to grow weary.
The stakes were high on Wednesday evening in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall as the Recital Round of the Cooper International Violin Competition began. Of the ten participants in the Concerto Round, six would move on to the next phase — the Recital Round — which would determine the three who will be heading to Severance Hall on Friday, June 21 to perform with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra. The concert, emceed by Robert Conrad, was broadcast live on WCLV 104.9 and wclv.org. 
When Hedy Milgrom’s mother and relatives emerged from a cattle car at the Auschwitz concentration camp, the first thing they saw and heard was an orchestra playing on the train platform. “My mom turned to her sister and said, ‘See, there’s an orchestra here. There’s music. They’re playing violin. How bad could it be?’ Very bad, as they found out within minutes.”
Anyone who’s a fan of the long-running television sitcom Cheers will undoubtedly remember the show’s catchy theme song which includes the “philosophical” line, ‘sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.’ Since the
Carlton Woods and BlueWater Chamber Orchestra had a fine time celebrating the Halloween weekend in their concert at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday evening. The featured work on the program was Jon Deak’s The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, an action-packed concerto for string quartet and orchestra, with narration read by WCLV president Robert Contrad. 
It’s that time of year when jack-o-lanterns are seen illuminating front porches, and scary tales of ghosts and goblins are told. One of those tales is “The Headless Horseman,” which has been popularized in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” On Saturday, November 1 at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, Carlton R. Woods will lead the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in Jon Deak’s Concerto for String Quartet, Narrator and Orchestra, The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, featuring violinists Kenneth Johnston and Charles Morey, violist Kirsten Docter, cellist Bryan Dumm and narrator Robert Conrad. 