Ronald Copes Archives - Cleveland Classical

Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Juilliard String Quartet (Nov. 27)

December 10, 2018 by David Kulma

by David Kulma

The standard chamber music concert format is so unremarkable to a regular concertgoer that it becomes like water to a fish. Three works in a row, one intermission; masterpieces, and every now and again a new piece. After a while, it’s easy to forget that other formats are possible. But sometimes a well-executed, no-frills concert with the usual shape comes along, and the reason all of that became the norm makes sense again. The Juilliard String Quartet’s performance at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Tuesday, November 27 was such an evening. [Read more…]

New violinist, new piece: Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents the Juilliard String Quartet

November 21, 2018 by Jarrett Hoffman

by Jarrett Hoffman

Armed with both a new first violinist, Areta Zhulla, and a new piece by Lembit Beecher, the Juilliard String Quartet will head to Plymouth Church on Tuesday, November 27 for a 7:30 pm concert presented by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society.

Zhulla joined her new colleagues — violinist Ronald Copes, cellist Astrid Schween, and violist Roger Tapping — in September. That same month, the Quartet premiered Beecher’s One Hundred Years Grows Shorter Over Time, commissioned for them to honor the centennial of the South Mountain Concerts series in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Born in Greece, Zhulla went on to study at the Juilliard School and join CMS Two of Lincoln Center, making her name as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician performing across multiple continents. She’s been named “Young Artist of the Year” by the National Critics Association in Greece, and is a recipient of the Triandi Career Grant and the Tassos Prassopoulos Foundation Award.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Mozart Requiem, A Tapestry, at Severance Music Center (Nov. 8)

by Daniel Hathaway

There’s a long history in Western sacred music of extending and enriching liturgical forms and texts by adding new material. That’s how we got mass movements titled Kyrie cunctipotens genitor: medieval monks added words to decorate long chains of untexted notes called melismas. J.S. Bach tucked five extra pieces in between movements of his first version of the Magnificat to more clearly place them in the context of Christmas celebrations in Leipzig.

More recently, in 1962 Benjamin Britten added devastating verse by World I “war poet” Wilfrid Owen to the traditional funeral rite of the western Christian Church in his War Requiem, written for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, built next door to the bombed-out shell of the previous church.

Jeannette Sorrell has now added to that tradition with her Mozart Requiem: A Tapestry, which cleverly expands and comments on the composer’s work, left unfinished at his death in 1791, with works by Black composers. I heard the premiere of her Tapestry in an often brilliant performance by Apollo’s Fire at Severance Music Center on November 8. [Read on…]

CIM Opera’s engaging Puccini double bill prompts both laughs and tears (Nov. 7)

by Stephanie Manning

The three one-act operas that make up Giacomo Puccini’s Il trittico (The Triptych) are typically connected by theme, rather than location. Although the trio of works take place in 13th-century Paris, 17th-century Siena, and 20th-century Florence respectively, they all deal with keeping someone’s death a secret — whether tragically or comedically.

CIM Opera Theater’s recent production of two-thirds of the triptych brought the action into one particular place and time, as director Dean Southern moved both Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi into 1918’s New York City. What stood out more, however, were the impressive performances from across the large cast, which I heard on November 7 in Kulas Hall.

[Read on…]

Oberlin Orchestra with the Poiesis Quartet in Finney (Oct. 31)

by Daniel Hathaway

Fresh from winning the grand prize at the prestigious Banff Competition on the last day of August, the Poiesis Quartet (Sarah Ying Ma & Max Ball, violins, Jasper de Boor, viola, and Drew Dansby, cello) took a late October victory lap at the Oberlin Conservatory, returning to their place of birth as an ensemble to give master classes and solo with the Oberlin Orchestra.

Judging from the turnout in Finney Chapel on Friday, it might not have been a prizewinning idea to schedule a major orchestra concert on a college campus on Halloween, but there was nothing slim about the sound that the stage full of musicians produced. Brilliantly scored works by Carlos Simon, John Adams, Angélica Negrón, and Zhou Tian, were conducted with precision by Rafael Jiménez.

[Read on…]

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