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The Cleveland Orchestra: Allison Loggins-Hull’s Grit. Grace. Glory.

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by Mike Telin

When Allison Loggins-Hull was named The Cleveland Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, she hoped that the three-year fellowship would culminate in a large work informed by the city the Orchestra calls home. And she thought the best way to do that was to get to know its people and community organizations.

“It takes time to do this kind of work in a meaningful way,” she told ClevelandClassical.com during a May 2023 interview. “During my initial visit last fall, which was the first time I was ever in Cleveland, I spent time at museums, the Fatima Family Center, Global Cleveland, Karamu House, Cleveland School for the Arts, and The Baseball Heritage Museum. All of these offered very different tastes of Cleveland in an effort to introduce myself and let people know what I was envisioning.”

On Thursday, May 8 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra will present the world premiere of Loggins-Hull’s Grit. Grace. Glory — a musical story inspired by the people and history of Cleveland. The concert also includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4. The program will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 am (no Prokofiev) and Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

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Conductor Kazuki Yamada’s stylish Cleveland Orchestra debut features Elgar, Mozart, and pianist Francesco Piemontesi (Apr. 24)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Edward Elgar’s first symphony was a long time coming. But once the British composer finally put pen to paper at age 51, audiences at the time simply couldn’t get enough. But tastes change, and that rapturous response in 1908 couldn’t guarantee eternal success. The piece has now settled into relative obscurity for many American orchestras.

Today, Britain is still the most likely place to hear Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 — so it made sense that The Cleveland Orchestra’s performance on April 24 should be led by the conductor of a British ensemble. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra music director Kazuki Yamada ascended the Severance Music Center podium, making his assured and elegant Cleveland Orchestra debut.

Elgar’s symphony is unconcerned with quaint, pastoral English scenes — instead, it’s often stormy, celebratory, and in-your-face, sometimes all at once. On Thursday, Yamada confirmed his reputation for passion and expressivity as a conductor in his interpretation of the symphony.

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Soloists shine in Cleveland Orchestra’s Bach Easter Oratorio, Magnificat and more (Apr. 17)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — On Thursday, April 17, at Severance Music Center, Canadian guest conductor Bernard Labadie led The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and four splendid soloists in two of J.S. Bach’s most exultant sacred works — the dramatic Easter Oratorio, and his Magnificat. Bach’s festive Sinfonia from his Cantata 29 completed the program.

Reworked from a secular cantata for a patron’s birthday, Bach’s Easter Oratorio is a less overtly theatrical work than the composer’s Passions. Its uncomplicated story describes the moment that Mary Magdalene (mezzo-soprano Adèle Charvet), Mary of Cleophas (soprano Joélle Harvey) and the apostles Peter (tenor Andrew Haji) and John (bass-baritone Gordon Bintner) come to the tomb of Jesus and find it empty.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: fifteen minutes with tenor Andrew Haji

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by Mike Telin

The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus will appropriately mark Easter weekend with three performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s dramatic Easter Oratorio led by guest conductor Bernard Labadie on Thursday, April 17 and Friday, April 18 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, April 19 at 8 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. Tickets are available online.

Bach re-purposed a secular cantata to create his narrative of the resurrection of Jesus in 1725. Labadie will pair the Easter Oratorio on these programs with Bach’s Magnificat, a lovely (and unique for Bach) setting of the song Mary sang after learning she would bear Jesus, as reported in the Gospel of Luke.

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Itzhak Perlman’s celebratory visit turns Severance Music Center into a ‘Fiddler’s House’ (Apr. 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — There’s a Yiddish saying that goes, “In the fiddler’s house, everyone dances.” Admittedly, in Severance Music Center on Tuesday night, April 8, it took some coaxing before a small but joyful group of people stood up, joined hands, and began snaking through the aisles.

Getting the audience on their feet is a trademark of Itzhak Perlman’s touring program “In the Fiddler’s House,” a celebration of traditional Jewish klezmer music. [Read more…]

A hero’s score: Cleveland Orchestra’s ‘Black Panther’ concert reigns at Severance (Mar. 28)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The weather gods weren’t kindly disposed to Cleveland Orchestra guest conductor Anthony Parnther last August for his Blossom debut with John Legend. As he reminded his social media followers earlier this month, “We were yanked off the stage a third of the way through the concert because of a storm! This time, we’re in the storm-proof majesty of Severance Hall.”

“This time” came on Friday, when Parnther presided over Black Panther (2018), the first-ever screening of a Marvel Studios film at Severance Music Center. He led a masterful performance of Ludwig’s Göransson’s Grammy and Oscar-winning score, enhanced by Senegalese talking drum guru Massamba Diop.

Among its many credits, Black Panther was the first Marvel Studios film to feature a Black director and a predominantly Black cast. It was nominated for seven awards at the 91st Academy Awards, winning three. It was also the first superhero film to receive a Best Picture nomination, and the first Marvel film to win an Academy Award.

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Pianist Yuja Wang, Cleveland Orchestra do Tchaikovsky justice, despite pre-concert surprise (Mar. 22)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Pianist Yuja Wang is a dazzler. She has a way of dressing, of taking the stage, and of bowing that bespeaks confidence and star quality. Add to those a suspenseful entrance (a few minutes overdue), apparent nonchalance at a last-minute conductor change — assistant conductor Daniel Reith in for music director Franz Welser-Möst — and an astonishing keyboard technique, and you get excitement.

The audience was buzzing with anticipation on Saturday evening March 22 at Severance Music Center for Wang’s appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

To be fair, the delayed entrance likely had more to do with a needed meeting between pianist and conductor before performing the work together. Reith, who received word of the change only two hours before the concert, deserves much of the glory for what followed.

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Cleveland Orchestra delivers powerful performances of Beethoven, Janáček (Mar. 13)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — This week’s Cleveland Orchestra programs were to have featured soprano Asmik Grigorian in Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. But when Grigorian withdrew last week for personal reasons, the focus changed to works by Beethoven while keeping intact the original theme of darkness into light.

On Thursday, March 13, music director Franz Welser-Möst wasted no time arriving at what would usually be a concert’s main event. The very first notes that rang out in Severance Music Center formed the iconic four-note motif known around the world — the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Yes, one of the most famous classical music pieces ever written opened the program instead of closing it. It’s an unconventional programming choice — but after all, Beethoven’s Fifth is a piece that needs little introduction. At least not today.

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Cleveland Orchestra marks Ravel’s 150th birthday with masterful performance (Mar. 6)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — When Maurice Ravel visited Northeast Ohio in 1928, not everything went according to plan. The French composer had a reputation for being far more brilliant on paper than in person. Nikolai Sokoloff, then music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, would recount afterward how Ravel came late to rehearsal, conducted his pieces clumsily, and left listeners somewhat confused.

So, it’s entirely fitting that this weekend’s concerts at Severance Music Center, which mark the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, should be entrusted to more polished hands.

Music director Franz Welser-Möst was back on the podium in Mandel Concert Hall on Thursday, March 6, presiding over a masterful performance that made a virtue of restraint. Tasteful extravagance may be more typical of Ravel’s style, but The Cleveland Orchestra has a way with refinement. And so does Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, the evening’s soloist, who gave a sensitive, at times subdued account of the composer’s Concerto in G Major.

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The Cleveland Orchestra brings the “Wild” inside (Mar. 2)

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by Kate MacKenzie

On Sunday, March 2, animal print was à la mode at Severance Music Center, as concertgoers donned masks of leopards, crocodiles, and other creatures for Dan Brown’s Wild Symphony. The program was presented as part of The Cleveland Orchestra Family Concert Series.

Conductor Daniel Reith led the ensemble, but the star of the stage was Wild Symphony’s author and composer. Although best known for his novel The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown recently made his debut in the genre of juvenile fiction. A life-long lover of classical music, Brown was inspired by works like Peter and the Wolf and The Carnival of the Animals to write his own introduction to the orchestra. A marshland walk prompted the first composition: a poem and short piece modeled after the chorus of frogs he’d heard. Over the years, the project expanded to more than twenty poems and brief orchestral works representing different animals. Wild Symphony was published as a picture book in 2020, along with an app designed to play each movement as the pages are turned.

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