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Review: Ten days later: Susan Graham charms Akron with songs about “the ladies”

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by Timothy Robson

GRAHAM-SusanThe American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham was scheduled to close the 2013/14 season of Akron’s Tuesday Musical on April 10th, but a bad case of laryngitis caused her to cancel her Akron program (as well as a concert scheduled in Oberlin). Fortunately the Akron recital was rescheduled and took place on Monday, April 21, in E.J. Thomas Hall. Graham’s excellent piano accompanist was Bradley Moore.

Graham created an imaginative and varied program all based on, in the singer’s own words, “the ladies,” including the good girls (the Blessed Virgin, Ophelia and Mignon) in the first half of the concert, followed by “the bad girls” in the second (Lady Macbeth, and several other unnamed racy women.) Likewise, Susan Graham appeared for the second half of the program in an off-the-shoulder, glittering black gown with a slit up the side, replacing the first half’s more virginal flowing all-white dress.

Susan Graham opened with Henry Purcell’s Tell me, some pitying angel, often known as “The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation,” in which the Virgin Mary laments the necessity to escape to desert exile to protect her son from potential death at King Herod’s hand. [Read more…]

Review: Mezzo-Soprano Susan Graham to sing both on Oberlin Artist and Tuesday Musical Series on April 6 and 10

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by Mike Telin

GRAHAM-Susan[Note: on Friday, April 4, Ms. Graham’s management announced the cancellation of her Oberlin concert and masterclass due to illness. The performance will not be rescheduled.]

Susan Graham, the vocalist Gramophone called “America’s favorite mezzo,” and pianist Bradley Moore will present recitals on Sunday, April 6 at 4:00 pm in Finney Chapel as part of Oberlin’s Artist Recital Series and on Thursday, April 10 at 7:30 pm in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall as part of the Tuesday Musical Series.

Internationally acclaimed as an operatic singer and known for embracing a challenge, Susan Graham’s repertoire spans works from the 17th through the 21st centuries. She has earned critical accolades as well as a Grammy Award for her recording of Ives songs. Recognizing her commitment to French music, the French government awarded her the prestigious Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur.

The Oberlin and Akron performances will feature music that celebrates great women throughout history and literature, and spans from the Baroque period with Purcell’s Tell me, some pitying angel (The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation) through the 20th century with Poulenc’s song cycle, Fiançailles pour rire, and Joseph Horovitz’s Lady Macbeth. [Read more…]

Preview: Tuesday Musical to present A Far Cry with Matt Haimovitz on March 11

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by Mike Telin

HAIMOVITZ-MattCellist Matt Haimovitz will be the featured soloist with the Boston-based chamber orchestra, A Far Cry, on the Tuesday Musical Series at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron on March 11 at 7:30 pm.

Haimovitz, who made his debut at the age of 13 with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, and his first recording four years later with James Levine and the Chicago Symphony, first appeared on the Tuesday Musical series in 1991. A Far Cry, a self-conducted ensemble, was founded in 2007 by “The Criers,” a collective of 17 young professional musicians who intended to develop an innovative, rotating leadership both on and off stage.

The Akron concert will include two works by Luigi Boccherini, his Quintet in C, subtitled “Night Music on the Streets of Madrid,” and his Cello Concerto in C. Haimovitz will also be featured in the first performance of Luna Pearl Woolf’s arrangement of Bloch’s Prayer from Jewish Life, and the orchestra will complete the program with Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro and Janáček’s Idyll. [Read more…]

Preview: Tuesday Musical — a conversation with pianist Jeremy Denk

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by Daniel Hautzinger

DENK-JeremyJeremy Denk disproves the theory that all men are created equal. He is a classical pianist who was named Musical America’s 2014 Instrumentalist of the Year, received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2013, writes an engaging blog as well as having been published in The New Yorker and The New York Times Review of Books, wrote a libretto for a new opera, has a contract to pen a memoir for Random House, and received two degrees upon graduating from Oberlin (young, no less), in chemistry and music. Is there anything he can’t do? “I’m not good at washing the dishes,” he said in a phone conversation. “Or many other real life things.”

That self-deprecating humor underlies much of his work, and how he thinks about music. “It really is an important part of my worldview,” he said. Take for example the program he will perform on Feb. 4 at EJ Thomas Hall in Akron, as part of the Tuesday Musical Concert Series. “In this program there is a strong obsession with humor.” It features Mozart’s Piano Sonata K. 533/494, three Ligeti etudes, and Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze and Carnaval. “These are dances but also satires of dances, with an incredible sense of wit and mockery of the Philistines,” he said of Carnaval. [Read more…]

Preview: Tuesday Musical: Béla Fleck & Brooklyn Rider

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by Mike Telin

FLECK-BelaPrior to the performance of Imposter, Concerto for Banjo and Symphony Orchestra with The Cleveland Orchestra in December of last year, the 15-time Grammy Award-winning banjoist Béla Fleck told us about one of his recent classical compositions. “I’ve already finished my second commission, a 25-minute piece for banjo and string quartet,” Fleck said via e-mail. “The quartet is Brooklyn Rider and they are fantastic!

On Tuesday, November 12 beginning at 7:30 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, Tuesday Musical presents Béla Fleck & Brooklyn Rider in a concert featuring Fleck’s Night Flight over Water, Quintet for Banjo and String Quartet.The Tuesday Musical performance is the second stop on a 19-city North American tour.

Fans of Béla Fleck already know that from the beginning of his musical career Fleck was experimenting with ways to incorporate the banjo into all styles of music such as bebop and jazz. As a member of Sam Bush’s progressive bluegrass band, New Grass Revival, his blending of rock and country music with bluegrass caught the attention of audiences and critics. [Read more…]

Review: Cantus opens 2013-2014 Tuesday Musical Series at E.J. Thomas Hall (September 24)

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by Timothy Robson

CantusAkron’s Tuesday Musical opened its 126th season on September 24 at E.J. Thomas Hall in fine fashion with the Twin Cities-based, nine-voice men’s vocal ensemble Cantus. Cantus has distinguished itself from other male vocal ensembles – especially the San Francisco-based Chanticleer – by using the traditional configuration of tenors, baritones and basses, rather than also including male altos and sopranos. Throughout this concert, Cantus was a model of beautiful vocal sound, unanimity of ensemble and thoughtful, intriguing programming.

The title of Cantus’s program was “A Place for Us,” taken from a phrase in Stephen Sondheim & Leonard Bernstein’s song “Somewhere” in West Side Story. Spoken narrative linked the individual numbers together with poetry and excerpts from prose works expressing the experience of home, and how we know that a place is home to us.

An abbreviated version of “Somewhere” opened the concert, which was followed by the traditional Protestant hymn “This is my song” sung to the main theme from Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia. Cantus member Chris Foss’s complex arrangement of a traditional fiddle song followed, using jazz scat syllables to depict a country fiddler going at it. [Read more…]

Preview: Cantus to open Tuesday Musical’s season on September 24 with “A Place For Us”

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by Daniel Hathaway

CantusCantus, the nine-member male a cappella vocal ensemble from Minnesota’s Twin Cities, will open Tuesday Musical’s new season on September 24 at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron with a program entitled “A Place for Us.”

Cantus was born at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN when four singers — three of them cellists — found something missing in their musical lives. “In midwestern universities, you usually join a gender choir during your first year then have the opportunity to try out for a school’s flagship ensemble,” Cantus tenor Aaron Humble told us in a telephone conversation. “The guys that originally got together were missing that gender experience during their second year, so they formed a male voice ensemble that also reflected their interest in chamber music.”

Cantus became a professional ensemble in 2000, eventually shedding its original founders, who moved on to other things. “It took a lot of optimism — and maybe even some naiveté to keep the ensemble going — and singers were cutting pie at Bakers Square before the group could pay a full-time salary.” Unlike some other male-voice ensembles, Cantus remained true to its original tenor, baritone and bass configuration. “I often miss the sound of treble voices more than I knew I could,” Humble said, “but there’s something truly remarkable about the TTBB sound and the way low voices can generate overtones.” [Read more…]

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