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The Cleveland Orchestra
MLK Celebration: a chat 
with emcee Peter Lawson Jones

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by Mike Telin 

“When I was ten or eleven, my father was going to an MLK march. He asked me if I wanted to go and I didn’t. And that has been a regret of mine for a very long time,” Peter Lawson Jones recalled during a recent telephone conversation. “But this night will celebrate all that Dr. King did and I look forward to being part of it.”

On Sunday, January 15 at 7:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Jones will act as narrator and emcee when The Cleveland Orchestra presents its free, annual concert in honor of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. under the direction of Daniel Reith. Jones will be joined by bass and narrator Soloman Howard and the all-volunteer Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Chorus, directed by William Henry Caldwell. Although the concert is sold out, it will be broadcast live on WCLV 90.3 and WKSU 89.7, with simultaneous streaming available at ideastream.org.

A Cleveland native, Jones is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. From 2002 through 2010, he was a member of the Board of Cuyahoga County Commissioners, and its president for three of those years. He previously served two and a half terms in the Ohio House of Representatives, where he was the ranking member of the House Finance and Appropriations Committee and second vice president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. He has also been the Vice Mayor and a Councilman in the City of Shaker Heights.

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Celebrate being Home for the Holidays with The Cleveland Orchestra

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by Emmy Hensley

“Not only is it nice to be back with one of the world’s greatest orchestras, but it also happens to be family because I’ve worked with them for so long,” said conductor Brett Mitchell, who will be leading The Cleveland Orchestra in their upcoming holiday concerts. “You get the best of both worlds — the best possible artistic outcomes featuring these amazing musicians, but also friends and family.”

Holiday Concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chorus will run from December 8 through 18 at Severance Music Center. Program highlights include selections from The Nutcracker, pieces featuring the Chorus and soprano Mikaela Bennett, audience sing-alongs, and the world premiere of “White Christmas,” arranged by Matthew Jackfert. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Stravinsky and Britten (Nov. 25)

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by Peter Feher

The Cleveland Orchestra started settling into their holiday routine over the weekend. Blockbuster pieces are always on the schedule at Severance Music Center after Thanksgiving, and the crowd-pleasing program on Friday, November 25 was no exception.

What was different — and all the more intriguing — was the package the music came in. The highlight of the evening was the complete score for Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird, a work with plenty of familiar moments but not often performed in full.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: power and passion at El Niño (Nov. 18)

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by Stephanie Manning

In the 22 years since it was written, John Adams’ El Niño has been programmed in all kinds of creative ways. The premiere of the oratorio was accompanied by a silent film, and the 2014 Spoleto Festival brought in a crew of puppeteers. But on November 18, The Cleveland Orchestra decided to keep it simple. The straightforward concert-style presentation, conducted by Adams, let the music speak for itself — and it had plenty to say.

El Niño, a modern retelling of the birth of Jesus, isn’t an easy work to explain. Commissioned at the turn of the millennium, the oratorio tells the Biblical story from new perspectives, primarily by centering women’s voices in the narrative. It combines traditional texts with the Wakefield Mystery Plays, Haggai, and ancient and contemporary Latin American poetry. Essentially, Adams set out to write his own Messiah — but while Handel’s work is unquestionably a celebration, Adams takes a more nuanced approach, tackling big questions about the nature of miracles, pregnancy, and motherhood. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Dvořák, Schumann, Benjamin (Oct. 27)

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by Peter Feher

From his first moments on the podium, Edward Gardner seemed entirely at home in Severance Music Center. The English conductor made his debut with The Cleveland Orchestra the other Thursday, but you wouldn’t have known it from his ease with the ensemble and the general calm of the program.

Not that the performance on October 27 lacked drama. In fact, the evening’s repertoire had plenty of fervor, from the turbulence of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, to the passion of Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, to a contemporary work literally inspired by a storm.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Strauss and Widmann (Oct. 20)

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by Peter Feher

It was a good thing that preparations for last weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts started seasons ago. The ambitious and challenging program wouldn’t have been possible without some serious planning, and that meant thinking well ahead of the first performance on October 20. A huge ensemble of more than 100 players, including a couple of unusual instruments, came together at Severance Music Center on Thursday — and this was an expert group.

The musicians’ skill and experience went beyond a simple mastery of the evening’s two works, Jörg Widmann’s Viola Concerto and Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony. Pulling off both pieces — each a production in itself — required an instinctive grasp of the composers’ overall styles, and the players had that knowledge in spades.

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The Cleveland Orchestra:
Beethoven, Bloch & Al-Zand (Oct. 13)

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by Peter Feher 

The Cleveland Orchestra took on a timeless subject, but added a modern touch, last weekend at Severance Music Center. War was the theme of this mostly somber program that started with the disillusionment of a 21st-century composer and ended with the conflict and triumph of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”).

In a different ensemble’s interpretation, that trajectory could sound aggressive and even dispiriting. But with guest conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, the Orchestra committed to finding the beauty in every phrase, redeeming the rough edges of an otherwise excellent performance on Thursday, October 13.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Mark Kosower talks Schelomo

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by Mike Telin

Since joining The Cleveland Orchestra as principal cello in 2010, Mark Kosower has thrilled audiences with his performances of concertos by Ginastera, Haydn, Dvořák, Barber, and Tchaikovsky.

On Thursday, October 13 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Kosower will once again move to the front of the stage. The work: Bloch’s Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody. Under the direction of Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, the concert also includes Al-Zand’s  Lamentation On The Disasters of War and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”). The program will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 am, Saturday at 8:00 pm, and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with the Wisconsin native by phone and began our conversation by asking him when he first encountered the Rhapsody.

Mark Kosower: I’ve known about it since I was a boy. My father’s a cellist, although I don’t think he performed it very much. My first time performing it was in 2007 when I had the chance to play it with the Spokane Symphony in Washington with Gunther Schuller conducting. It was a wonderful and interesting experience.

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The Cleveland Orchestra embraces “Resurrection” in stirring season opener (Sep. 29)

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by Stephanie Manning

It’s a sure sign that Severance Hall is going to be packed when the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East Boulevard is clogged six ways to Sunday — or rather, Thursday.

It wasn’t just the traffic. Everything at The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert on September 29 was busier than usual — more people in the audience, more musicians on stage, and one of the longest standing ovations in a while.

Franz Welser-Möst led the Orchestra in the first performance of its 105th season, a stirring account of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. At one hour and 20 minutes, the work is long enough to fill a whole program — and the Orchestra smartly did just that, forgoing any preludes or overtures in favor of presenting the one work without intermission.

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Kenney stands in for Khachatryan with Reinhardt and The Cleveland Orchestra (July 30)

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by Jacob Strauss

On July 30, guest conductor Ruth Reinhardt made her Cleveland Orchestra debut with Grażyna Bacewicz’s Overture, Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 5 at Blossom Music Center. Violinist Alexi Kenney replaced Sergey Khachatryan, who had to withdraw from the performance due to visa complications.

In an interview with ClevelandClassical.com, Reinhardt described Bacewicz as a fantastic, yet underrated composer. “As you listen to her works more, you do hear that she has her own voice.”

[Read more…]

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