Ryan Zhu Archives - Cleveland Classical

Six play Cooper Piano Competition Recital Round at Oberlin (July 18)

July 20, 2018 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

Although they didn’t have to pass through trials by silence, water, and fire like Papageno, the six young pianists remaining in the draw on Wednesday evening, July 18 at the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition reached the recital round by surviving earlier sessions that had trimmed the original 31 performers down to 16, then to 10. With no questions remaining about their technical aptitude, it was up to these six to prove their musical and interpretive mettle and their ability to communicate their ideas to the jury in 30-minute solo programs. All of the pianists were impressive, but some were standouts. [Read more…]

Three finalists named in Cooper Piano Competition

July 19, 2018 by Daniel Hathaway

Following the recital round in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall on Wednesday, the jury for the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition announced the three finalists who will play concertos with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall on Friday evening at 7:30 pm, and named the 4th, 5th, and 6th-place winners and the recipients of the Audience Prize.

The final three are Tony Yun, (left, 17) of Toronto, Canada, Yunchan Lim (center, 14) of Siheung-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, and Kai-Min Chang (right, age 17) of Changhua County, Taiwan.Yun will play Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto. Lim will be featured in Chopin’s Second Concerto. Chang will solo in Chopin’s First Concerto. [Read more…]

Concerto Round at the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition, Tuesday, July 17

July 18, 2018 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

The 2018 Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition got underway on Saturday morning, July 14, when thirty-one young pianists played the first of two Semifinal Rounds in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory. On Sunday evening the field was narrowed to fifteen. On Tuesday, July 17, the remaining ten competitors played full concertos, and without a doubt, this was the strongest field of young pianists the Competition has put forward to date. Each of the gentlemen brought solid technique and musical flair to their performances. [Read more…]

CIM Opera: all smiles in L’Étoile (Nov. 17)

by Stephanie Manning

A black box theater might not be the first-choice location for an opera — but with a clever creative team, a smaller production can still get big results. Audiences at the Westfield Studio Theater on November 17 know this firsthand thanks to the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater’s scaled-down L’Étoile, which came wrapped in a bundle of laughs and topped with a ribbon of genuine heart.

It’s true that the Playhouse Square venue — the CIM company’s temporary home while their primary hall is under construction — wasn’t ideal. Interrupted sightlines, occasional volume disparities, and the lack of a proper curtain simply had to be par for the course. But artistic director JJ Hudson’s choice of a comedic opera, especially one that relies on spoken dialogue and physical comedy as heavily as this one by Emmanuel Chabrier, was the perfect decision. [Read on…]

Cuarteto Casals pays a thrilling revisit to Cleveland Chamber Music Society (Nov. 12)

by Daniel Hathaway

In 2022, the Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals was forced by a medical emergency to interrupt their rhythm of every-other-year performances on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series. Happily, they returned in fine fettle on November 12 at Disciples Church with a program of Mozart, Gubaidulina, and Brahms — and with a new violist.

Cristina Cordero replaced Jonathan Brown at the beginning of the current season, seamlessly joining violinists Abel Tomàs and Vera Martinez Mehner and cellist Arnau Tomàs in the ensemble that was founded at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid in 1997.

Blindfolded, you could almost convince yourself that you were hearing three different string quartets during this sensitively-played program, so masterfully did the Cuarteto adapt its tone and approach to suit the three works on the agenda. [Read on…]

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…]

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