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Apollo’s Fire: “Classical Sparks” at St. Raphael, Bay Village (Feb. 28)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Three composers whose lives intertwined and whose music inspired one another — Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, Joseph Bologne, and Joseph Haydn — were the subject of Apollo’s Fire’s latest series of concerts, “Classical Sparks.” I attended the performance on Friday, February 28 at St. Raphael Catholic Church in Bay Village, for which artistic director Jeannette Sorrell had assembled a full classical orchestra of period instruments.

Mozart was represented with a delightful overture from his three-act opera La Finta semplice (“The Fake Innocent”), plus an aria from Don Giovanni, and the supreme Violin Concerto no. 3 in G, K.216. [Read more…]

Earth and Air with Andrew Sords (Nov. 2)

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by David Kulma

Earth and Air: String Orchestra opened their fourth season this past Friday evening at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights with a charming continuation of their Mendelssohn String Symphonies project. Music Director David Ellis curated this Part Two in the pleasant spirit of a potpourri concert: the movements of the featured symphony were divided up, with other works by the composer played in between.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire makes Carnegie Hall debut in “An Evening at Bach’s Coffeehouse” (Mar. 22)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

AF BB Carnegie 032218New York, March 27.

Apollo’s Fire brought the house down and the heart rates up at their Carnegie Hall debut last Thursday, March 22 at the venue’s cozy Zankel Hall in New York City. The highlight of this “Evening at Bach’s Coffeehouse” was the closer: a thrilling, caffeinating performance of Vivaldi’s “La Follia” Sonata for Two Violins and Continuo, arranged by artistic director, conductor, and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell for this Cleveland-based Baroque orchestra.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire caps off its 25th season with “Revolutionary Beethoven”

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by Daniel Hathaway

afjsconductingHistorical performance groups have revitalized Baroque music by performing 17th- and 18th-century works on the instruments for which they were written. More recently, a number of those ensembles have made forays into the classical world of Haydn and Mozart and the early Romantic era of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, expanding their musical rhetoric and stretching the capabilities of their instruments.

Now add Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire to that list. Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra will conclude their 25th-anniversary season with “Beethoven and Schubert Rediscovered,” a festival that includes four Beethoven concerts, a “Schubertiade,” a dance workshop, and lectures and panel discussions.

The Beethoven programs, which run from April 26-29, will feature Berlin Philharmonic first concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley performing the Violin Concerto. The program includes the Egmont Overture and the Fifth Symphony.

[Read more…]

Messiah from the bottom up: a chat with Apollo’s Fire bassist Sue Yelanjian

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by Daniel Hathaway

yelanjian-sueWhen audiences hear performances of Handel’s Messiah, the composer’s engaging melodic lines probably attract the most attention: who hasn’t found themselves humming the tunes to “Every valley shall be exalted,” “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd,” or “I know that my Redeemer liveth” on the way home?

But underpinning all of Handel’s glorious arias and stirring choruses are the composer’s equally fetching bass lines, played by the indefatigable continuo department — cello, bass, and sometimes bassoon, with a keyboard player or two filling in harmonies on harpsichord or organ.

I spoke with Apollo’s Fire principal double bass Sue Yelanjian by telephone, explaining that I wanted to write a preview of Apollo’s Fire’s forthcoming Messiah performances “from the bottom up.” [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Resplendent Purcell” at First Baptist Church (October 8)

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by Nicholas Jones

purcell-henryThe short-lived English composer Henry Purcell wrote works that rank among the masterpieces of the Baroque. But, like many artists of the 17th century, he also had to produce a lot on demand. In his position as organist at both the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey, he needed to work up music for a number of royal occasions. Necessarily, while some of his music is deeply personal, other works — like his odes for the queen’s birthday — were clearly more routinely produced. [Read more…]

Bach at Oberlin BPI: the B-minor Mass in Warner Concert Hall (July 1)

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by Nicholas Jones

BPI-Mass-Concert-1Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor is, to say the least, a daunting work. It’s full of challenging vocal and instrumental parts that seem to venture into every key in the theory book. It’s composed of one complicated counterpoint after another. And like any sung mass, its musical integrity can seem at odds with the liturgical functions of the texts. And it’s long (over two hours). In its recent embodiment at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute (BPI), all of these challenges seemed to disappear. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Bach’s St. John Passion at First Baptist Church (March 4)

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by Nicholas Jones

StJohnTrinityMar2016Like all great drama, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions — his settings of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion — present conflicting points of view. We see the Passion through so many characters in the story — the disciple Peter, who denies knowing Jesus; the conflicted Roman governor Pilate, who finds no guilt in Jesus and yet sends him to the cross; the angry crowd, which demands his crucifixion; and Jesus himself, suffering and yet transcending his suffering. At every point, Bach demands our involvement with the conflicting ways in which each of these actors interpret the crucial event of the Christian story. [Read more…]

Review: Apollo’s Fire: “Tangos and Fandangos” at Fairmount Church (November 15)

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by Timothy Robson

Schiffer-&-BrinkmannOne of the best things about Apollo’s Fire’s programs is that director Jeannette Sorrell and her musicians plan programs that are entertaining. They are scholarly, but not pedantic; instructive, but not condescending; and the expert musicians give every appearance of enjoying the act of performance, with awareness of their fellow musicians.

Such was the case again on Friday night, November 15, at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights, for the first of four performances of “Tangos and Fandangos,” an exploration of the Mediterranean musical styles from 18th century Spain that crossed the Atlantic and evolved into those sexy South American dances, the fandango and the tango. The full house responded enthusiastically to this unfamiliar music by Santiago de Murcia, Luigi Boccherini, Carl Friedrich Abel, and Apollo’s Fire regular René Schiffer (writing under the nom de plume René Duchiffre).

Baroque guitarists Simon Martyn-Ellis and William Simms opened the concert with 18th century Spanish composer and guitarist Santiago de Murcia’s Fandango (c.1730). The performers entered from opposite sides of the stage, bowed to each other and commenced a musical “duel,” trading phrases in increasing virtuosic variations above the descending bass line that is the hallmark of the fandango. The tension increased until the music dramatically stopped without warning. [Read more…]

Review: Michael Lynn and Friends in “Baroque Conversations” benefit at Cleveland Museum of Art (May 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Lynn-Benefit

Only six months after receiving a liver transplant at Cleveland Clinic, Michael Lynn gathered a group of friends to present a benefit concert for the program that gave him a new life and restored his career as a performer on the recorder and baroque flute. “A Baroque Musical Conversation” drew a good-sized audience to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday evening, May 11 for masterful performances of concerted music by Telemann and Handel as well as cameo solo performances of works by Louis Couperin, Handel and Marais.

Lynn, who is professor of baroque flute and recorder and curator of musical instruments at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, was forced to give up performing four years ago due to his illness. His near-miraculous recovery was immediately evident in the opening selection, the Vivace from Telemann’s Concerto in D for two flutes, violin and cello, where he was joined by flutist Kathie Stewart, violinist Julie Andrijeski and cellist René Schiffer, with Jeannette Sorrell at the harpsichord and a backup orchestra of Miho Hashizumi and Rachel Iba, violins, Cynthia Black, viola, and Sue Yelanjian, contrabass. All the performers, who donated their services, have been longtime colleagues in professional period instrument ensembles in the region. [Read more…]

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