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Finnish guest conductor Dalia Stasevska draws on musical nature in Cleveland Orchestra debut (Mar. 21)

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Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical
Originally posted on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Works by two Finnish composers bracketed a major piece by a woman with close ties to Akron on Thursday evening at Severance Music Center. The concert marked the Cleveland Orchestra debut of Finnish guest conductor Dalia Stasevska (currently chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony) as well as the return to the Severance stage of Texas-born mezzo-soprano Josefina Maldonado (who first appeared here in John Adams’ El Niño  in November, 2022).

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Josefina Maldonado returns to Cleveland Orchestra for Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater

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by Mike Telin

Following Josefina Maldonado’s Cleveland Orchestra debut in November 2022 in John Adams’ El Niño, Stephanie Manning wrote for ClevelandClassical.com that the mezzo-soprano “more than held her own amid such a strong cast. Her round and resonant voice projected well in all registers, consistently controlled…”

On Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, Maldonado will return to Severance Music Center for performances of Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater. Under the direction of Dalia Stasevska, the program also includes Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, and will be repeated on Friday, March 22 at 7:30 and Saturday, March 23 at 8:00. Tickets are available online.

“The Cleveland Orchestra is world-class, and I look forward to coming back and working with Dalia Stasevska. She’s an excellent conductor,” Josefina Maldonado said during a telephone conversation.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Ilya Gidalevich shares insights into the 2024-25 Severance Season

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by Mike Telin
Kevin McLaughlin contributed to this article

During “Fanfare: A Patron Appreciation Event,” a special unveiling of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2024-25 season at Severance Music Center on Friday, March 15, music director Franz Welser-Möst was joined onstage by president and CEO André Gremillet and violinist Katherine Bormann.

The conversation was lively. Welser-Möst was particularly excited to talk about soprano Asmik Grigorian, who will perform Strauss’ Four Last Songs and the final scene from Puccini’s Suor Angelica (March 13 and 15). “Not since Netrebko has there been a singer with that kind of charisma,” he said, adding that during the Salzburg performances of Suor Angelica “there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.” [Read more…]

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson, Cleveland Orchestra team up for refined, unfussy evening of Mozart (Mar. 14)

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By Kevin McLaughlin, Cleveland Classical
Originally published in Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Though we missed hearing pianist Igor Levit, who withdrew due to illness, it was a pleasure, as always, to welcome Garrick Ohlsson to Severance Music Center on Thursday, March 14. With Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra musicians as partners, the pianist strode onstage to render as refined and unfussy a performance of a Mozart Piano Concerto as one might hope to hear.

The Concerto No. 27 in B-flat, K. 595 — Mozart’s last — was composed in 1788, though not performed until March of 1791. Many keyboard players like to ascribe to Mozart the same pathos that attached itself to Schubert in his final years of life, but Ohlsson knows better. Mozart’s music rarely reflects immediate personal crises, and this particular concerto wasn’t designed for that anyway. (Photo by Yevhen Gulenko)

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Composer Oded Zehavi talks about his new piccolo concerto

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by Mike Telin

When Oded Zehavi heard Cleveland Orchestra principal piccolo Mary Kay Fink play during a program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he knew he wanted to write a concerto for her. “I was so happy that she was open to it,” the Israeli composer said during a Zoom call.

Once Fink and Zehavi decided that a new concerto was something they wanted to pursue — and with The Cleveland Orchestra onboard for commissioning the piece — the creative process began. Everything went as planned, and the world premiere was set for April of 2020 — only to have it canceled due to COVID.

After a four-year wait, Zehavi will hear his concerto brought to life when Mary Kay Fink gives the world premiere of Aurora with The Cleveland Orchestra on Thursday, March 7 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Mary Kay Fink to premiere new piccolo concerto

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by Mike Telin

When Oded Zehavi first heard Cleveland Orchestra principal piccolo Mary Kay Fink play during a program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Israeli composer knew he wanted to write a concerto for her. “The Violins of Hope were in residence and we were encouraged to put together programs featuring composers who perished during the Holocaust,” Fink, who serves on the CIM faculty, recalled during a telephone conversation. “I played in a trio by Erwin Schulhoff that has a fair amount of piccolo in it. And after the concert he found me and said, ‘I want to write you a piccolo concerto.’ That’s how it all started.”

Once Fink and Zehavi decided that a new concerto was something they wanted to pursue — and with The Cleveland Orchestra onboard for commissioning the piece — the creative process began. Everything went as planned, and the world premiere was set for April of 2020 — only to have it canceled due to COVID.

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Susanna Mälkki leads Cleveland Orchestra in brilliant performances of Bach, Hindemith & more

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Originally posted on Cleveland.com

Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki returned to Severance Music Center Thursday evening to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in brilliant performances of works by two masters of counterpoint — but not in their original formats— and joined guest pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason in a charming piano concerto by a young piano phenomenon who wasn’t yet known as a Schumann when she wrote it.

The evening began with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Six-voice Ricercare, a grand fugue that the Prussian King Frederick the Great challenged him to improvise on the spot when Bach paid a visit to his son C.P.E. at Potsdam in 1747. Papa Bach begged for more time to craft such a monumental fugue, and so it ended up in his Musical Offering, a collection of contrapuntal puzzle pieces based on Frederick’s Royal Theme that the Cantor of Leipzig gift-wrapped and sent to Frederick after returning home.

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Cleveland Orchestra Delivers wonderful, Majestic spin on tradition in ‘Beethoven’s Pastoral program (Feb. 22)

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Originally posted on Cleveland.com

Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The four Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Severance Music Center this weekend are as traditional in form as orchestral programs can be. Although they follow the long-established formula of Overture – Concerto – Symphony and feature standard works by Beethoven, Haydn, and Beethoven again, the interpretation of those pieces on Thursday evening was anything but business as usual.

Making their Cleveland Orchestra debuts in this “Beethoven’s Pastoral” program on Thursday, guest conductor Philippe Herreweghe and cello soloist Jean-Guihen Queyras brought historical sensibility and a deep knowledge of the scores to their tasks. Performing to a large crowd, Herreweghe, Queyras, and the orchestra made sure that every note and phrase leapt off the page and into the ear with freshness and immediacy.

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George Benjamin and Cleveland Orchestra transform Severance into a realm of vivid imagery (Feb. 15)

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by Kevin McLaughlin | Cleveland Classical

Originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Ballet scores may be the most evocative music. Play Ravel’s Mother Goose on a concert stage without dancers or scenery, and you will still imagine the dancing in your mind. On its own, as conducted by George Benjamin and played by The Cleveland Orchestra on Thursday, February 15, it was as full of vivid imagery as if we had spent a night in the theater.

Benjamin, who has described himself as “a composer who conducts,” showed to a nearly full house at Severance Music Center that he can do both equally well. In a challenging program including his own Dream of the Song, and scores by Dieter Ammann, Oliver Knussen, and Maurice Ravel, he also showed the ability to realize each composer’s imagination.

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Cleveland Orchestra, guest conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste earn three curtain calls for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: Review (Feb. 9)

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by Kevin McLaughlin | Cleveland Classical

Originally posted on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — That crackle you may have heard around 9 o’clock on Friday evening may not have been an atmospheric event or even static coming from the dryer. More likely it was The Cleveland Orchestra playing the jubilant fourth movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

The program, in addition to Beethoven’s Fifth and the infrequently performed Schubert Sixth, was intended to be led by Herbert Blomstedt, the eminent 96-year-old Swedish maestro. But Blomstedt took a fall last December, and while he recovers, his engagements in Cleveland and other American cities have been canceled. Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor and artistic director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, came heroically to the rescue, making his first appearance in Cleveland since October of 1995.

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