Rolf Martinsson Archives - Cleveland Classical

Review: Cleveland Orchestra with Manfred Honeck & Lars Vogt at Severance Hall (May 23)

May 29, 2013 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Mike Telin

This past weekend The Cleveland Orchestra concluded its 2012-13 Severance Hall season with a series of concerts that featured the music of Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Martinsson under the direction of Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck, who was making his highly anticipated Cleveland Orchestra debut. Honeck, who serves as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony and principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, has earned a reputation for his ability to bring new life to the standard repertoire. In an interview with this publication Honeck, said that “…having the audience feel like they are hearing a world premiere of a piece is very important to me.” On Thursday, May 23, Manfred Honeck achieved his goal in every way as he and the outstanding Cleveland Orchestra gave an emotionally gripping performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.

From the beginning you were aware that this was not going to be another run-of-the-mill performance of an old warhorse as the opening lines in the clarinets seemingly grew out of the stage floor. [Read more…]

Preview: Manfred Honeck conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in its four-concert season finale this weekend

May 21, 2013 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Mike Telin

This weekend The Cleveland Orchestra concludes its 2012-13 Severance Hall season with four concerts beginning on Thursday, May 23 and running through Sunday afternoon, May 26. The performances, under the direction of Manfred Honeck in his Cleveland Orchestra debut, include Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 featuring the German-born, London-based pianist, Lars Vogt, and the Cleveland premiere of Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson’s Open Mind. This series also includes a popular KeyBank Friday@7 series concert with a pre-concert performance by saxophonist Bobby Selvaggio and a post-concert party featuring the Brooklyn, N.Y. based funk band MOKAAD.

Austrian-born conductor Manfred Honeck attended the Academy of Music in Vienna studying violin and viola, and spent more then ten years as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. Following his decision to pursue a conducting path, Honeck has held positions at the Zurich Opera House, MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, Norwegian National Opera, Staatsoper Stuttgart and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Honeck also served as principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 2008 to 2011, a position he will resume from 2013 to 2016. In North America, Manfred Honeck is most well known as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, a post he was appointed to in 2007. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera stages a Cendrillon of professional quality (Nov. 10)

by Daniel Hathaway

Any regional opera company would be popping its buttons with pride to have produced such an impressive performance of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillion (Cinderella) as Oberlin Opera did in Hall Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, November 10.

Imaginative staging by Stephanie Havey, skillful pacing by conductor James Feddeck, beautiful set design and costuming by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski and Chris Flaharty, respectively, plus dramatic and — for the fairies — enchanting lighting by Jeremy K. Benjamin provided a supportive environment for splendid singing by the cast and brilliant playing by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra.

Literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella tale exist in cultures around the globe, but many of the details of Massenet’s opera date back to Charles Perrault’s 1697 Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre, which adds what have now become essential elements to the tale: a young girl mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who temporarily attracts the attention of a handsome prince at a royal ball and is eventually reunited with him to become a princess herself. [Read on…]

Seraph Brass dances through musical travels in Rocky River (Nov. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

Before Seraph Brass arrived in Ohio on November 11, the group’s fall touring season had taken them on the road to Missouri, Florida, New York, and even Peru. And at the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, they gave the audience a taste of the traveling life right from the first piece.

The “Prelude” from Edvard Greig’s Holberg Suite whisked listeners away to Norway, with a melody surely familiar to many. It was extra familiar to the brass quintet themselves, who launched into their opening number without sheet music. Playing memorized is part of the group’s trademark, and they smoothly alternated using music and no music throughout the evening. Either way, the wide-ranging program had those at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church spellbound.

Trumpet players Mary Elizabeth Bowden and Raquel Samayoa, horn player Layan Atieh, trombonist Lauren Casey-Clyde, and tuba player Robyn Black sounded equally comfortable in Romantic and contemporary repertoire, flipping between both with practiced ease. [Read on…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Concerto Cycle performance featured pairing of rising star and mentor (Nov. 15)

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Daniel Hathaway

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the third program in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle, the pairing of 20-year-old Korean pianist Yunchan Lim with his mentor Minsoo Sohn was an astute programming decision.

Well-established names on the concert circuit — Orion Weiss, Sir Stephen Hough, and Garrick Ohlsson — had already filled the empty solo spots for the composer’s Triple Concerto and solo concertos 2, 3, and 4. But the choice of the youngest pianist ever to win the Van Cliburn Competition to close out the Cleveland series packed Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center on Friday evening, November 15, with a near-capacity audience teeming with enthusiastic young people.

[Read on…]

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