Waejen Auditorium Archives - Cleveland Classical

Preview: Singer/Songwriters to be featured on next Contemporary Youth Orchestra concert

March 12, 2013 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Mike Telin

The Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO) under the direction of Liza Grossman, presents My Gift is My Song on Saturday, March 16, beginning at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University. The concert features the winners of CYO’s first-ever singer/songwriter contest and is presented as part of CYO’s annual “Music and its Industry” concert.

The concept for the concert was inspired by the annual CYO Hidden Talent Show Scholarship Award Night, CYO founder and music director Liza Grossman told us by phone. “Two members’ hidden talent was that they were singer/songwriters. I was so moved by the music they had written and the lyrics were so personal and happy. The songs reflected so much about who they were. So everything spawned from that.” [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Winds with Bay Village H.S. Wind Ensemble at Waetjen Auditorium, CSU (March 4)

March 12, 2013 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Daniel Hathaway

Twice each season, Cleveland Winds brings together a group of excellent and dedicated wind players — mostly, it would seem, area music teachers — to explore the rich tradition of music written for Symphonic Wind Ensemble. The group, conducted by Cleveland State University music department chair Birch Browning, has also developed a tradition of inviting wind ensembles from area high schools to share the program.

On March 4, the Bay High School Symphonic Band under director Darren Allen were the invited guests for “Lights and Legends” in CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium. Between them, the two ensembles featured some famous British military band pieces by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst which helped establish a new standard of quality for twentieth-century wind ensemble music. [Read more…]

CIM Opera: all smiles in L’Étoile (Nov. 17)

by Stephanie Manning

A black box theater might not be the first-choice location for an opera — but with a clever creative team, a smaller production can still get big results. Audiences at the Westfield Studio Theater on November 17 know this firsthand thanks to the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater’s scaled-down L’Étoile, which came wrapped in a bundle of laughs and topped with a ribbon of genuine heart.

It’s true that the Playhouse Square venue — the CIM company’s temporary home while their primary hall is under construction — wasn’t ideal. Interrupted sightlines, occasional volume disparities, and the lack of a proper curtain simply had to be par for the course. But artistic director JJ Hudson’s choice of a comedic opera, especially one that relies on spoken dialogue and physical comedy as heavily as this one by Emmanuel Chabrier, was the perfect decision. [Read on…]

Cuarteto Casals pays a thrilling revisit to Cleveland Chamber Music Society (Nov. 12)

by Daniel Hathaway

In 2022, the Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals was forced by a medical emergency to interrupt their rhythm of every-other-year performances on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series. Happily, they returned in fine fettle on November 12 at Disciples Church with a program of Mozart, Gubaidulina, and Brahms — and with a new violist.

Cristina Cordero replaced Jonathan Brown at the beginning of the current season, seamlessly joining violinists Abel Tomàs and Vera Martinez Mehner and cellist Arnau Tomàs in the ensemble that was founded at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid in 1997.

Blindfolded, you could almost convince yourself that you were hearing three different string quartets during this sensitively-played program, so masterfully did the Cuarteto adapt its tone and approach to suit the three works on the agenda. [Read on…]

Oberlin Opera stages a Cendrillon of professional quality (Nov. 10)

by Daniel Hathaway

Any regional opera company would be popping its buttons with pride to have produced such an impressive performance of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillion (Cinderella) as Oberlin Opera did in Hall Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, November 10.

Imaginative staging by Stephanie Havey, skillful pacing by conductor James Feddeck, beautiful set design and costuming by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski and Chris Flaharty, respectively, plus dramatic and — for the fairies — enchanting lighting by Jeremy K. Benjamin provided a supportive environment for splendid singing by the cast and brilliant playing by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra.

Literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella tale exist in cultures around the globe, but many of the details of Massenet’s opera date back to Charles Perrault’s 1697 Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre, which adds what have now become essential elements to the tale: a young girl mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who temporarily attracts the attention of a handsome prince at a royal ball and is eventually reunited with him to become a princess herself. [Read on…]

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