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Summers@Severance: Osmo Vänskä and The Cleveland Orchestra

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by Jarrett Hoffman

August is when the end of summer comes into sight, a blues for which Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony might be the antidote. The composer himself called it “the jolliest work I have so far written” — and the first movement really is bottled joy.

That symphony, known as the “Italian,” will sit side by side with Samuel Barber’s lesser-known Symphony in One Movement this Friday, August 16 at 7:00 pm, when guest conductor Osmo Vänskä pays a visit to Severance Hall to close out The Cleveland Orchestra’s Summers@Severance series.

“I have to say that I am so happy about the Barber,” Vänskä said during a telephone interview. “Even three years ago, let’s say, I didn’t know anything about this first symphony of his. Now I have done it twice during the last season. I really love the piece, and I think that it might be a good surprise for many people to hear it.”

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Boreyko & Piemontesi at Blossom (Aug. 3)

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by Timothy Robson

The crowd was out in force at Blossom Music Center on Saturday evening, August 3, likely due to more moderate temperatures than in recent weeks, lower humidity, and a cloudless sky. The Cleveland Orchestra’s attractive program was added incentive, with Andrey Boreyko as guest conductor, and Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi as soloist in Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5 in E-flat. After that, Boreyko, music director of the Warsaw Philharmonic, led a beautifully judged performance of Alexander Zemlinsky’s unduly neglected Die Seejungfrau (“The Mermaid”). Both works fit into the category of “big music for a big space,” and they filled the Blossom pavilion with richly varied musical textures.

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Barber’s Violin Concerto: a conversation with Jung-Min Amy Lee

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by Rory O’Donoghue

Whether performing with the Omni Quartet or soloing with The Cleveland Orchestra, violinist Jung-Min Amy Lee takes the same approach. “The orchestra is just a bigger setting for chamber music,” the associate concertmaster said in an interview last weekend. “It’s the same ideas, transfigured.”

Lee will get to flex those elevated chamber music chops this Saturday, August 10 at 8:00 pm at Blossom Music Center, where she will perform Barber’s enigmatic Violin Concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra. I got the chance to catch up with the busy violinist and discuss her upcoming performance. 

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Blossom: Rhapsody in Red, White, and Blue with The Cleveland Orchestra (July 6)

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by Rory O’Donoghue

As the lights dimmed and conductor Roderick Cox readied his baton, the boisterous crowd at Blossom hushed in anticipation of pianist Aaron Diehl’s take on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on Saturday, July 6. Everyone knows the opening clarinet lick — the low velvet trill, the raucous rise — but this time, a surprise! A bird rose from somewhere behind the percussion section and dive-bombed the first violins. A few players scattered amidst the kerfuffle, shouting, before a valiant audience member somehow snatched the bird out of the air and marched it out of the pavilion to great applause. Cox restored order and clarinetist Afendi Yusuf’s solo bloomed from the back of the orchestra. [Read more…]

Simon Keenlyside two ways at Severance Hall (May 19 & 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

British baritone Simon Keenlyside made the most of his recent visit to Severance Hall, offering an impassioned odyssey through Schubert’s Winterreise with pianist Natalia Katyukova on May 19 in Reinberger Chamber Hall, and bringing revelatory performances of eight Sibelius songs to his guest appearance with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra on Thursday evening, May 23.

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Violinist Vadim Gluzman returns to Severance Hall

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by Mike Telin

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto has been part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s repertoire since its founding in 1918. Mishel Piastro soloed in the first Cleveland Orchestra performance of the work on February 13, 1921 under the direction of Nikolai Sokoloff at the Hippodrome in New York City. Mischa Elman gave the first performance at a Subscription Concert on October 23, 1924 at Masonic Auditorium under Sokoloff — who also conducted the first Severance Hall performance on October 20, 1932 with Jascha Heifetz as soloist. Artur Rodzinski first conducted the work on March 29, 1934 with Nathan Milstein as soloist, and Erich Leinsdorf first led the concerto on January 6, 1944 with Efrem Zimbalist.

What did these soloists have in common? They were all students of the great violin pedagogue Leopold Auer, to whom Tchaikovsky originally dedicated the concerto.

Vadim Gluzman will continue the Auer legacy when he performs the work on Thursday, May 2 at 7:30 pm in Severance Hall on the legendary Auer Stradivarius from 1690, the instrument for which Tchaikovsky wrote his famous concerto. The concert, under the direction of Michail Jurowski, also includes Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 (“The Year 1905”). The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: a conversation with guest conductor Stéphane Denève

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by Mike Telin

Ecstasy:
1) An overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement.
2) An emotional or religious frenzy or trance-like state, originally one involving an experience of mystic self-transcendence.

This week at Severance Hall, guest conductor Stéphane Denève will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a musical exploration of the realm of ecstasy. The program includes Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral, James MacMillan’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (“The Mysteries of Light”) featuring Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and Scriabin’s The Poem of Ecstasy. Performances take place on Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 pm, Friday at 11:00 am (no MacMillan), and Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

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Looking for a Valentine’s Day concert? Perhaps we can help you

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by Daniel Hathaway

It’s Valentine’s Day all week this week, and aside from the obvious gifts — flowers, chocolates, and shiny bling — there are a number of ways to take to heart the new advice of gifting your love interest experiences rather than things.

Our Concert Listings have been providing such a service since the website was launched in 2008. Consider this message from one of our readers way back in 2009:

I’m grateful for ClevelandClassical.com for so many reasons. In fact, I learned about Nathan Gunn’s performance at Oberlin through you, which has now become the central feature of my surprise Valentine’s Day date with my fiancée! I owe you big time now.

Here are some suggestions for your own Valentine.

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A mime speaks: getting to know Magic Circle Mime Co. before they perform with Cleveland Orchestra

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by Jarrett Hoffman

In the music business, we’ve all heard and rolled our eyes at music jokes. Mime jokes might be the breath of fresh air we need.

“I can tell you my favorite one,” Douglas MacIntyre, co-founder of Magic Circle Mime Co., said over the phone. “It was a cartoon in The New Yorker — a drawing of a very high-end suite in a high-rise looking out over Central Park. Right in the center of it is a mime sitting in an imaginary chair. And it just says, ‘Executive Mime.’”

Maybe that kind of thing is common mime banter that makes them roll their eyes (very theatrically, of course). But here’s something that should be fresh for all the mimes, musicians, and fans on either side: mime + orchestra.

That’s what Magic Circle and The Cleveland Orchestra have in store this Friday, February 8 at 7:30 pm at Severance Hall. Vinay Parameswaran will lead the Orchestra in a Family Concert titled “The Mozart Experience,” which brings together the visual theater of Magic Circle with excerpts from Eine kleine Nachtmusik, The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, the “Jupiter” Symphony, and other famous works by Mozart.

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Cleveland Orchestra with Otto & McGegan (Nov. 23)

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by David Kulma

On Friday, November 23, the audience in a packed Severance Hall heard violinist Peter Otto in beautiful performances of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with The Cleveland Orchestra, led from the harpsichord by the jovial Nicholas McGegan. With McGegan on the podium, the second half featured some delightful ballet music by Mozart and a beloved Haydn symphony.

[Read more…]

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