by Stephanie Manning
In darkened theaters around the world last year, just one small sign of life remained — the ghost light, a single bulb traditionally placed onstage overnight while the space is unoccupied. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, these ghost lights became small symbols of hope, keeping the lights on until the performers and the audience could return again.
It’s particularly fitting, then, to make Ghost Light the title of an album that explores the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. In the Akropolis Reed Quintet’s latest release, oboist Tim Gocklin, clarinetist Kari Landry, saxophonist Matt Landry, bassoonist Ryan Reynolds, and bass clarinetist Andrew Koeppe present five captivating pieces that embrace the ghosts of the past while looking towards the future.
Bokyung Byun is the kind of performer who exudes a cool and collected sense of control and comfort with her instrument. During her Cleveland Classical Guitar Society debut on October 17 — a pre-recorded recital from her home in Los Angeles — she showed off a thorough expressivity and impressive technical agility, seemingly without breaking a sweat.
Remote, pre-recorded performances have become an important part of the concert world during the coronavirus pandemic, but we’re all still figuring out how to talk about them.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, performers and presenters have grappled with cancellations by giving virtual performances and releasing videos from the past.
Over the past ten years the music of Jean-Féry Rebel has become familiar to 
Born in Romania, displaced by the Nazis, educated in Hungary, and finally settling first in Vienna then in Germany after the 1956 Hungarian revolution, György Ligeti spent a lot of his life on the move. Musically nomadic as well, he chased after a number of different compositional styles. Two of Ligeti’s pieces composed thirty years apart formed the backbone of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble’s arresting program in Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday afternoon, April 11.