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The Crossing: Stacy Garrop’s In a House Besieged (Mar. 25)

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by Peter Feher

The Cleveland Museum of Art showed off a new piece last week, though one that didn’t hang on a wall. The musical work in question — Stacy Garrop’s In a House Besieged — had its world premiere at Gartner Auditorium on Friday, March 25.

From conception to instrumentation, the score was crafted with CMA in mind. The performance (brought together by the museum’s director of performing arts, Tom Welsh) honored the late Robert G. Schneider, combining the two musical passions of that Cleveland choir director and organist. In fact, Friday’s entire program, which featured the Philadelphia-based chamber choir The Crossing, made the most of Gartner Auditorium’s organ. [Read more…]

The Crossing at CMA: choir & organ, commission & dedication

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Three members of Philadelphia-based chamber choir The Crossing visited the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2017 to perform David Lang’s Lifespan, a piece that could be crudely described as people blowing and whistling at a rock.

“It sounds like the dumbest thing ever, but it’s a really great piece,” Donald Nally, who heads up The Crossing, said during a recent telephone conversation. Lifespan had caught the eye of CMA director of performing arts Tom Welsh, who then wanted to continue the relationship by bringing the entire choir to Cleveland.

It was a tragic event the following year — the passing of a beloved figure in the local music community, Robert G. Schneider, from complications following a car accident — that gave rise to an idea about what the museum and the ensemble could do together, in Schneider’s memory, around his two great passions of choir and organ.

On Friday, March 25 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium, The Crossing and organist Scott Dettra will give the premiere of Stacy Garrop’s In a House Besieged, commissioned by Welsh and CMA. The program also includes Lansing McLoskey’s The Memory of Rain and Arvo Pärt’s Salve Regina. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

CMA’s Performing Arts: Behind the Beat video series

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by Mike Telin

When the performing arts world came to a sudden halt back in March, Tom Welsh, director of performing arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art, began to think about how to respond.

“After the shutdown there was a dash to develop online content,” Welsh said during a recent telephone conversation. “That sparked the Museum staff to create the curatorial video series On My Mind. So I stepped back and thought, instead of just inviting musicians to play on-screen, why not talk to them and hear what they have to say about how they’re confronting the situation and feeling in this weird moment.”

Hosted by Welsh, Behind the Beat features artists who have direct connections to CMA, and highlights the Museum’s rich legacy of music.

In Episode 1, Welsh speaks with composer Aleksandra Vrebalov and David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet. “Aleksandra’s new work Antennae was to have been premiered at CMA at the end of March, so that piece was the first big casualty of COVID-19,” Welsh said. After returning to Serbia, Vrebalov phoned Welsh, telling him that she had gotten in touch with Harrington, and had re-written a short excerpt from Antennae for string quartet. “That was Kronos’ first online-only production.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art to present world premiere of Ergün’s Formare

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by Mike Telin

Since its inception in 2008, the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion program has brought more than 80 international artists to Cleveland for residencies. For the program’s latest edition, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is partnering with the Foundation in the commissioning of six new works by composers from across the globe under the auspices of the Museum’s Performing Arts Series.

On Wednesday, May 8 at 7:30 pm in the Museum’s Ames Family Atrium, composer Cenk Ergün will present Formare, the second premiere of the series. The work is scored for female choir, children’s choir, harpsichords, and trombones. The hour-long concert is free.

Responding to questions by email, Ergün said that the work’s title, Formare, means “to form” in Latin, and refers both to the formation of sound, and to the positioning of the performers within the space. Ergün will use both the ground level and second-floor allées of the atrium.

“The four trombones are divided into pairs and placed on the west and east allées,” Ergün said. “Four of the twelve singers are spread across the north allée, and the other eight, along with three harpsichords and a children’s choir, are positioned evenly across the ground floor. [Read more…]

Jim Jarmusch & Carter Logan of SQÜRL play their scores to
Man Ray silent films at CMA

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by Jarrett Hoffman

02172015+SQURL+8825Jim Jarmusch is best-known as an independent filmmaker whose stories unfold in his own slow, strange, beautiful way. He’s also a native of Cuyahoga Falls and one of two members of the post-rock band SQÜRL, who take on film from another angle at the Cleveland Museum of Art next week.

On Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30 pm at CMA’s Gartner Auditorium, Jim Jarmusch (electric guitar and keyboard) and Carter Logan (drum kit) of SQÜRL will play their own ambient, drone-heavy, semi-improvised scores to four avant-garde silent films from the 1920s by Man Ray: L’étoile de mer, Emak bakia, Le retour à la raison, and Les mystères du château du dé (see the links to watch them on YouTube). Reto Thüring, curator of contemporary art at the museum, will host a conversation with the musicians following the performance.

SQÜRL describe themselves as an enthusiastically marginal rock band from New York City who like big drums and distorted guitars, cassette recorders, loops, feedback, sad country songs, molten stoner core, chopped and screwed hip-hop, and imaginary movie scores. Their work includes four EP’s, a live album, and the scores to three Jarmusch films: The Limits of Control, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Paterson. [Read more…]

Lou Harrison Centennial at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Oct. 20)

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by Timothy Robson

Harrison-MITAmerican composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003) studied with Arnold Schoenberg and Henry Cowell, but followed his own creative path, strongly influenced by Asian music, especially the gamelan music of Java (now a part of Indonesia). In celebration of Harrison’s 100th anniversary, the Cleveland Museum of Art presented a concert of his music on Friday, October 20 in Gartner Auditorium. The evening featured radiant performances by the MIT-based Gamelan Galak Tika, founded and directed by composer Evan Ziporyn. [Read more…]

CMA celebrates Philip Glass’s 80th with screenings of the Qatsi Trilogy

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by Mike Telin

Trilogy“Philip Glass is turning 80 on the 31st of this month, and I thought that was certainly cause for tipping the cap to one of the most famous composers of our time,” said Tom Welsh, Cleveland Museum of Art’s Director of Performing Arts, during a recent telephone conversation. “As a composer, Glass had a real impact on the whole world — not just in classical music, but everything — and I thought that was worth recognizing.”

Beginning on Friday, January 27 and continuing through Sunday, CMA and the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque will celebrate Glass’s 80th birthday with a presentation of The Qatsi Trilogy: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi by filmmaker Godfrey Reggio with landmark musical scores by Glass. [Read more…]

CMA Performing Arts Series
brings home prestigious award

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by Mike Telin

WELSH-TomEach year, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series engages Northeast Ohio audiences with a roster of innovative performers and ensembles representing a myriad of musical genres. Last season, the Museum’s director of performing arts, Tom Welsh (left), presented a diverse lineup that included performances by the Calder Quartet, Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, Ragamala Dance and Rudresh Mahanthappa, Mivos Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, and pipa virtuoso Wu Man.

On Sunday, January 10, at the Westin New York in Times Square during Chamber Music America’s National Conference, The Cleveland Museum of Art will be honored with the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming in the category of Large Presenter, Mixed Repertory. The award, which includes $500 plus a commemorative plaque, will be presented by Cia Toscanini, vice president of concert music, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Welsh will be receiving the award on behalf of the Museum. [Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art lines up wide-ranging series for Gartner Auditorium and Transformer Station

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by Daniel Hathaway

WELSH-Tom50-foot-long string instruments; traditional music from the Republic of Kyrgyz, Ireland’s “Wild West,” and the Balkans; dialogues between deep flamenco song and Iranian classical music; Egyptian classical music of the golden age; an a cappella sound track to a silent film about Joan of Arc; two prominent string quartets, an organ recital, and a multifaceted violinist — that list gives just a quick rundown on the variety of concerts the Cleveland Museum of Art has planned for its 2015-2016 Performing Arts Series, both in Gartner Auditorium at the museum and at its near-West Side gallery, Transformer Station.

In a conversation with ClevelandClassical.com, Tom Welsh, director of CMA’s Performing Arts series, described the season’s offerings as “broad” and representing “a full expanse of human activity,” adding that the audiences for the series can look forward to experiencing types of music “that might not yet have made their ways into your life.” [Read more…]

Preview: “California Masterworks” at Cleveland Museum of Art — a conversation with James Feddeck, Tom Welch and the Calder Quartet’s Andrew Bulbrook

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by Mike Telin

TCO-at-CMA-MastroianniOn Wednesday, May 1st and Friday, May 3rd in Gartner Auditorium, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art will come together for their second collaboration, California Masterworks.

How did the two organizations come to the idea? “That’s a good question,” says Cleveland Orchestra Assistant Conductor James Feddeck. “After the enormous success of our first ever collaboration in 2011 we all began to talk about what the next collaboration would look like so I think the question is why California? That is what we are hoping to uncover during the week.”

So why California? Following a number of discussions, the two organizations determined that they should do something that embraced American music and the American spirit, but it wasn’t until Feddeck and Tom Welsh, the museum’s Director of City Stages, began to think about the composers they wanted to highlight that they discovered a common thread between them. “We found this interesting connection in that they were all influenced by their West Coast inspiration. I’m not sure that we are presenting a conclusion with these two concerts but what we are doing is presenting the music, the story and this common thread.” [Read more…]

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