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Rocky River Chamber Music Society: five winds & a pianist

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Lately, wind players have only been sighted here and there on the calendar, and have mostly performed all on their lonesome. That makes the finale to the Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s 62nd season an extra special occasion for anyone with a fondness for music of the lungs.

Five members of The Cleveland Orchestra’s wind section — flutist Mary Kay Fink, oboist Frank Rosenwein, clarinetist Robert Woolfrey, hornist Richard King, and bassoonist Barrick Stees — will come together on the stage of West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church on Monday, May 17 at 7:30 pm for a live-streamed concert that can be viewed on Facebook or YouTube.

On opposite ends of the program are woodwind quintets by Anton Reicha and Valerie Coleman, two composers who also come from opposite ends of the genre’s history. In between, pianist Christina Dahl will replace Fink to showcase a different but related species of quintet, represented here by Beethoven.

[Read more…]

Saxophonist Steven Banks in Rocky River (Feb. 15)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Live music brings risk, and when it comes to live-streamed concerts, that risk extends to technology. A recital on February 15 from the Rocky River Chamber Music Society hit a few snags in that area early on, but that didn’t steal the spotlight from the dazzling performances we heard from Steven Banks and Xak Bjerken in a compelling program of music for saxophone and piano.

Banks carried four different saxophones with him to the audience-less West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, along with two classic pieces he had transcribed and three powerful new works — one of them his own. He explained at the start that the new pieces would be receiving “workshop performances” as he prepares them for his Young Concert Artists (YCA) debut recital at New York’s Merkin Hall on March 10, when he will again be joined by Bjerken. [Read more…]

RRCMS:
“Nothing But Mozart” (Dec. 7)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Four string players and a clarinetist, all from The Cleveland Orchestra, came together on December 7 for a quartet and a quintet in “Nothing But Mozart,” streamed live from West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church as part of the 62nd season of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society.

[Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society: Diamond Brass streamed (Oct. 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Diamond Brass Quintet opened Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s new season on Monday, October 12 with nobody in the pews at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. Like most performances these days, the concert was only attendable online. The players were widely-spaced on the stage, plexiglass shields were in place to cut down on aerosol transmissions, and the quintet took two intervals to go outdoors and let the air in the sanctuary refresh itself. (Rehearsals had been held outside as well.) [Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society opens season with Diamond Brass Quintet

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by Jarrett Hoffman

After COVID struck, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society was one of the area’s first organizations to set up a live-streamed concert, the Society’s season finale in May.

One of the performers that night was trumpeter and board member Amanda Bekeny, who now brings her Diamond Brass Quintet colleagues to West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church to open the series’ 62nd season on Monday, October 12 at 7:30 pm.

Joining Bekeny will be trumpeter Nina Bell, hornist Greg Hills, trombonist David Mitchell, and tubist J.c. Sherman. Their program, live-streamed only, will include works by J.S. Bach, Victor Ewald, Stravinsky, Eric Ewazen, and Anthony DiLorenzo, and can be accessed on Facebook or YouTube.

Phenomenal player, great teacher, superstar freelancer: those are the words that RRCMS music director Dan McKelway used to describe Bekeny back in May.

I’ll add to that a few adjectives of my own. First, humble — the trumpeter gave a hearty laugh after I shared McKelway’s “superstar” compliment. And second, down-to-earth — after a very short delay at the start of our Zoom call, she explained that she hadn’t had the right TV show on for her 3-year-old. (Apparently, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood wasn’t good enough.)

[Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society: “Chamber Music in the Pandemic”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

When live music as we know it came to a halt at the start of the pandemic, clarinetist and Rocky River Chamber Music Society board member Daniel McKelway knew he wanted to do something for concertgoers who live in retirement communities in the area.

“I immediately had a sense that these people are not going to have the connections that are so important to their lives and their happiness in their later years,” McKelway said during a recent telephone call. “These are people who have not been able to have contact with their children and their grandchildren, and who are at greater risk than younger people if they do get the virus.”

His idea was to put on a live concert of chamber music, with generous measures of social distancing to be followed by the performers, and without a live audience in attendance, to be viewed for free over the web. That’s exactly what the Rocky River Chamber Music Society will present on Monday, May 18 at 7:15 pm.

[Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society: Mario Diaz-Moresco & Spencer Myer (Mar. 9)

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by Nicholas Stevens

That old saw about absence making the heart grow fonder: how true it feels now! With concerts canceled to prevent the kinds of confined massing that facilitates the spread of COVID-19, musicians are suffering. Critics have already filed reports on the grim uncanniness of clear schedules and empty halls. Just before this writer’s exile from the scene, however, a spark of life shot skyward, and now stands as a last memory of live performance before social distancing. [Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society:
pianist Spencer Myer &
baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco

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by Jarrett Hoffman

On Monday, March 9 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society will present pianist Spencer Myer and baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco in a free program of art song and solo piano works by Beethoven, Debussy, Barber, and Bolcom.

The recital begins with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, a work that deserves a special asterisk in the repertoire of this duo and couple: they read through it on their first date. (As Diaz-Moresco said by telephone, they also sang Schumann’s Dichterliebe. He laughed, adding that things have happily turned out better than they do in those poems by Heinrich Heine.)

Asked about that first time reading music together, Myer said in a separate phone call that he remembers an instant connection. “And that’s kind of how our relationship has been the entire six years. Everything has just been easy and natural, and I think that comes through when we perform together as well.” [Read more…]

Phaeton Trio on Rocky River Chamber Society Series (Feb. 10)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Every so often, the first seconds of a concert bring neither anxiety over how the rest will go nor twitchy overstimulation, neither boredom nor ecstasy, but a satisfying assurance. Some performances click right away, the musicians’ technique unimpeachable, their artistry and expression powerful, their manner warm but professional. Such concerts hold attention in a special way — the chances of a misstep negligible enough that listening never involves comparison to an abstract standard. In the Phaeton Trio’s recent tour de force in Rocky River, the initial gestures of the performance set a high standard that held throughout. [Read more…]

Phaeton Piano Trio from Germany up next on Rocky River Series Feb. 10

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by Daniel Hathaway

Only nine years younger than its East Side counterpart, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society will continue its 61st season with a concert by Germany’s Phaeton Piano Trio on Monday, February 10 at 7:30 pm. The performance at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church is free, but donations are welcome.

While violinist Friedemann Eichorn, cellist Peter Hörr, and pianist Florian Uhlig have been performing together and with colleagues in various combinations for 20 years, the Phaeton Trio is a relatively recent development. [Read more…]

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