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The Cleveland Orchestra brings the jazzy & symphonic to Blossom (July 16) 

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by Peter Feher

The crowd at Blossom Music Center on July 16 received two concerts for the price of one. The Cleveland Orchestra went in a jazzy direction with the program’s first half, before turning to the dazzling symphonic repertoire that this ensemble does best.

And those pieces after intermission made for quite the finale. The Orchestra tackled the two most popular pieces from Ottorino Respighi’s Roman trilogy — Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome — scores that were practically written to end in fireworks.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: an MLK Celebration in June

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by Jarrett Hoffman

A surge of coronavirus in January forced The Cleveland Orchestra to postpone its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert. Traditionally held around the time of MLK Day, this year the concert will take place not long from Juneteenth.

The Orchestra will honor Dr. King on Saturday, June 4 at 7:00 pm at Mandel Concert Hall with a program of music by several Black composers — Dolores White, Mary D. Watkins, Carlos Simon, Brian Raphael Nabors, William Grant Still, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and John Rosamond Johnson — as well as music in the African American spiritual tradition. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Honoring Black Composers

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by Jarrett Hoffman

It was disappointing in January when The Cleveland Orchestra’s Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert had to be postponed due to a surge in COVID. But there’s good news, and it’s two-fold.

First, time has passed, and the rescheduled date is not far away: early next month. Second, the concert’s companion program, “Honoring Black Composers,” has found a new setting of its own, or rather three new settings. A very good thing, because the first date, an hour-long program on May 24 at Karamu House, has already sold out.

That still leaves you with two options. On Friday, May 27 at 6:30 pm and Saturday, May 28 at 7:00 pm, the program will move to Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance, albeit in a slightly different form: a half-hour concert of music by Brian R. Nabors, Dolores White, George Walker, Melika Fitzhugh, H. Leslie Adams, and William Grant Still.

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The Cleveland Orchestra performs Schubert: light and dark collide (May 12)

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by Stephanie Manning

Many musicians will remember exactly what they were rehearsing in March of 2020, when the music suddenly stopped. For The Cleveland Orchestra, that unlucky piece was Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, which at the time was only heard by a private audience of staff members. More than two years later, the Orchestra finally gave the work the live performance it deserved on May 12 — and the seats at Severance Music Center were plenty full.

Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra was in their element for the popular symphony, also known as “The Great” — a nickname born not out of a value designation, but to differentiate it from a shorter work of Schubert’s also in C Major. Clocking in at just under an hour in total, the four demanding movements are a test of endurance, which prompted the woodwind section to enlist some assistant players.

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Theater + Music: The Cleveland Orchestra explores “The Chevalier”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Concluding this season’s Family Concert Series, The Cleveland Orchestra will use both theater and music to shine a spotlight on the singular figure of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges — composer, violinist, conductor, fencer, colonel, and abolitionist.

On Saturday, May 7 at 11:00 am at Mandel Hall, conductor Vinay Parameswaran and the Orchestra will be joined by guest violinist Brendon Elliott and four actors in a play-turned-concert-production titled “The Chevalier.” Written and directed by Bill Barclay, the show examines Bologne’s friendships with Mozart, Marie Antoinette, and Alexander Dumas, as well as his little-known contributions to the anti-slavery movement in France. Tickets are available here.

“Joseph Bologne is a tremendously important figure,” Parameswaran said during a recent telephone conversation, while also noting that the composer’s music is not particularly well known. “When people say that he was brilliant, that certainly comes through in these pieces that we’re playing.”

[Read more…]

Mäkelä & Szeps-Znaider lead The Cleveland Orchestra through emotional peaks & valleys (Apr. 22)

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by Stephanie Manning

No matter how many times certain symphonic staples are performed, the music always invites the opportunity to dig deeper  — and on Friday, April 22 at Severance Music Center, The Cleveland Orchestra did just that. Under the baton of rising star Klaus Mäkelä, the ensemble took two masterworks in the classical canon to a new level with a performance that plumbed the emotional depths of both Sibelius and Shostakovich.

The young Finnish conductor seemed to relish his third appearance on the Severance podium, and both he and soloist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider approached Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with passion. Though the compositional process of Sibelius’s only concerto was hampered by uncertainty, there was nothing uncertain about Szeps-Znaider’s interpretation. His full, warm sound blended effortlessly with the Orchestra, whose lush, Romantic playing never obscured the soloist.

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Violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider to play Sibelius with The Cleveland Orchestra

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by Mike Telin

Tonight, Thursday April 21 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider will join The Cleveland Orchestra and guest conductor Klaus Mäkelä in Sibelius’ Violin Concerto. The evening also includes Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10. The program will be repeated on Friday at 7:30 pm and Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with the violinist by telephone yesterday just after the rehearsal had ended.

Mike Telin: I hope the rehearsal went well. But this is a concerto you know quite well.

Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider: It did and it is. I’ve played it an awful lot — a wonderful awful lot. It’s one of the earliest pieces that I learned when I started playing.

It’s also one of those pieces that I don’t recall saying “I need a few years rest from it.” I’m always happy when it’s on the program. [Read more…]

Pianist Imogen Cooper
returns to Severance  

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by Mike Telin

It’s difficult to believe that it was in April of 2014 that the inimitable British pianist Imogen Cooper last appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra. Interestingly, it was Dame Jane Glover who was on the podium for that engagement. 

On Thursday, March 24 at 7:30 pm, Cooper and Glover will reunite with the Orchestra on the Severance Music Center stage. The program will include music by Britten, Mozart, Tallis, and Vaughan Williams. Performances continue through Sunday and tickets are available online.

From the beginning of our recent telephone conversation, it was clear that Cooper is excited to be back in Cleveland. “It’s lovely to be here. The sun is shining and I can’t wait to renew my relationship with the orchestra. It’s going to be a real joy,” the pianist said from her hotel room. “And that gorgeous hall that I love so much. I don’t think there’s a more beautiful hall in the world.” 

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra plays Sibelius, Walton & Adès (Mar. 10)

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by Peter Feher 

The Cleveland Orchestra kept the music-making all in the family last week. Franz Welser-Möst conducted, a favorite composer stopped by, and first associate concertmaster Peter Otto played soloist, taking on a piece with its own history at Severance.

William Walton’s Violin Concerto might belong first and foremost to its original star, Jascha Heifetz, but Cleveland can also claim it. The Orchestra accompanied the famed violinist for the world premiere in December 1939, and if those are big shoes to fill in 2022, Otto and his fellow musicians were more than up for the task.

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Padmore and Uchida bring the emotional essence of Lieder to Reinberger Hall (Mar. 6)

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by Stephanie Manning

For Mark Padmore and Mitsuko Uchida, the idea to perform a recital together came about naturally — starting with making music together simply for the pleasure of it. That natural transition from practice to performance was evident on March 6, when The Cleveland Orchestra presented the tenor and pianist in an afternoon of earnest music making.

Divided evenly into two halves, the first part of the program was dedicated to Beethoven — who composed quite the collection of Lieder in addition to his symphonic works. In the opening “An die Hoffnung,” the up-close acoustic of Reinberger Chamber Hall allowed for every nuance to shine through, with Padmore’s precise diction imbuing each stanza with a different feeling. And even without words of her own, Uchida remained fully engrossed in the emotions and phrasing of the music, often mouthing along with the German lyrics in the expressive “Resignation” and the stirring “Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel.”

[Read more…]

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