by Mike Telin
A year and a half ago, saxophonist Noa Even and cellist Sophie Benn got together to discuss ways to promote new music in Cleveland. They soon brought drummer Stephen Klunk and Bop Stop manager Gabe Pollack into the conversation, and the idea of starting a new music festival in the city was born. Beginning on June 7 and running through June 10, the inaugural Re:Sound Festival of new music will feature twenty-seven musical acts across seven concerts at five venues.
“An aspect of the festival we like to emphasize is just how new the music is,” Noa Even said during a telephone conversation. “All of it is from 2000 or later, so it’s truly a showcase of what people are creating today, improvised and composed. ‘New music’ encompasses so many styles and influences, and hopefully the Festival will capture that diversity.”
The performers were chosen from a pool of over 100 applicants who responded to the organizing committee’s call for proposals. Those included soloists and existing chamber music ensembles ranging from duos to sextets, as well as composer/performers and experimental artists.
“Attending an experimental music concert is almost like a spectacle,” composer and instrumentalist 
The temperature outside was a balmy 60 degrees when CityMusic Cleveland presented its December program. I attended the last of five concerts, on Sunday, December 13 in Lakewood; others were scattered around the area from Elyria to Willoughby Hills. While it was a pleasure not to have to negotiate a Polar Vortex in getting to the concert, once inside, I was happy to experience winter in the milder form of Antonio Vivaldi’s brilliant program music from The Four Seasons. 
If you’re not quite ready to immerse yourself in concerts totally dedicated to music of the holiday season, you’re in luck. Beginning on Wednesday, December 9 at 7:30 pm at St. Noel Church in Willoughby Hills, guest conductor Stefan Willich will lead CityMusic Cleveland in the first of five concerts that will feature Cleveland Orchestra first violinist Miho Hashizume as soloist in both Piazzolla’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and Vivaldi’s “Winter” from The Four Seasons. Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, K. 551 (“Jupiter”) will round out the performances. Check our
The newest addition to Cleveland’s classical music scene, Earth and Air: String Orchestra, made its debut on Thursday, October 8 in Tucker Hall at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. Founder and director David Ellis chose a challenging program entitled “Prague Serenades” that featured Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings, Op. 22, and the Serenade, Op. 6 by Dvořák’s student (and son-in-law), Josef Suk. 
Many times in life an event sparks the beginnings of an idea. For Groupmuse founder Sam Bodkin, that event was his first hearing of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, Opus 133 in December of 2008. “I had never seriously listened to classical music before, and the piece shattered all of my preconceptions about what the genre was. It opened up an entirely new universe that had existed beside my own for so long but that I had never accessed, despite the fact that both my parents have always been classical music lovers.”
“People have come to know: every third Tuesday of the month, free classical music. And hotdogs! You can always find it,” Ariel Clayton Karas, Director of Classical Revolution Cleveland, said in a recent conversation. Classical Revolution Cleveland (CRC), self-defined as a “loosely bound group of classically-trained musicians who love sharing music with Cleveland in unusual and non-traditional formats,” has deservedly earned the recognition and enthusiasm of the Cleveland community.