Tyler Quinn Archives - Cleveland Classical

Ohio Light Opera: Perchance to Dream (July 24)

July 29, 2019 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

It’s not often that one encounters a musical theater piece with book, lyrics and score all written by the same person. The Welsh genius Ivor Novello (nom de plume for David Ivor Davies) is one example of such a super-talented creator. Just the concept of such a thing is almost overwhelming, until you see his Perchance to Dream brought to life as the final production of Ohio Light Opera’s 2019 season. It sparkles and glitters and will not easily be banished from your memory bank. Yet another oddity about this production: the story line is very close to a time-travel romance. However, Londoners do know good theater when they see it. This one ran for 1,020 performances, roughly 2½ years after opening on April 21, 1945. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Pirates of Penzance enchants (July 3)

July 10, 2019 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

Quick — name the only Gilbert & Sullivan operetta to have been written in the United States. Why, it’s The Pirates of Penzance, a delightful tribute to the absent-minded composer Arthur Sullivan. In the late 1870s, Sullivan and Gilbert and other artists, presumably, came to America to premiere their new musical here, after one performance in England, to protect their copyright. Except that, in rushing around to get on the boat, Sullivan forgot to bring the music. So he simply wrote it all over again. Once that little hangup was out of the way, the show was a triumph all around, and the copyrights (U.K. and U.S.) were indeed protected. [Read more…]

Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s season opener contemplates circles of life (Nov. 2)

by Stephanie Manning

“This moment is full of wonders.” Composer Anna Clyne meditated on those words — written by Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh — as she wrote her orchestral work This Moment. That theme, of learning to cherish life more by reflecting on death, underscored most of the music chosen for the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s program on November 2.

The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Christian Church hosted the season-opening concert, titled “Reflection and Revelations.” The venue’s dry acoustic helped the textures remain clear in Clyne’s piece, a somber and meditative seven minutes. [Read on…]

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson, conductor Daniel Reith lead Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven concert (Nov. 9)

by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A relaxed understanding born of a long career helped pianist Garrick Ohlsson bring easy grace and Proto-Romantic sensibility to Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra.

The program on Saturday at Severance Music Center featured early and middle works, the second set of concerts in the Orchestra’s cycle of Beethoven piano concertos.

Despite its number, the Second Concerto is actually the composer’s first, begun in 1790. Ohlsson treated this early Beethoven work expressively, with sinuous rubato, keeping his rhythms precise, his touch light, and his rhetoric clear. Nothing, not even Beethoven’s many technical snares, seemed to faze him.

[Read on…]

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