Will Morris Archives - Cleveland Classical

Renaissance band Ayreheart at the Bop Stop (April 7)

April 18, 2016 by Daniel Hathaway

by Mike Telin

On Thursday, April 7 at the Bop Stop, the Renaissance band Ayreheart presented a concert titled “Will You Walk the Woods so Wild.” The captivating program — performed by Ronn McFarlane, lute, Brian Kay, vocals and lute, Will Morris, colascione, and Mattias Rucht, percussion — explored the intersection between folk music and art music in 16th- and 17th- century England, Scotland, and Wales. It also highlighted the intersections of Renaissance folk music and classic rock. [Read more…]

Ayreheart to play two area performances this weekend

April 4, 2016 by Daniel Hathaway

by Mike Telin

On Thursday, April 7 at 8:00 pm at the Bop Stop, the band Ayreheart (Ronn McFarlane, lute, Brian Kay, vocals and lute, Will Morris, colascione, and Mattias Rucht, percussion) will present a concert titled “Will You Walk the Woods so Wild.” The concert will be repeated on Friday, April 8 at Kent Unitarian Universalist Church in Kent, also at 8:00 pm.

“We do call ourselves a band, but we’re hard-pressed to figure out what kind of band we are,” Ronn McFarlane joked during a recent telephone conversation while en route to Michigan to start Ayreheart’s ten-day, nine-concert tour. “We formed to play original music that I was writing for lute, and songs with lute and other instruments like percussion and bass. But we also love the old music, so even when we have concerts focused on the new we always play a good bit of old.” [Read more…]

Great Lakes Theater goes Into the Woods (Sept. 28)

by Peter Feher

This season, Great Lakes Theater is uniquely positioned to put on a near-perfect production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

The regional company, in residence at the Hanna Theatre, has time and again mounted some of the most appealing shows at Playhouse Square — more intimate than the Broadway tours that stop just down the street but no less lavishly performed.

You could say it was all for the best that the recent New York revival of Into the Woods — with its rotating celebrity cast paying larger-than-life tribute to Sondheim, who died in 2021 — never made it to Cleveland. [Read on…]

Recording review: Poiesis Quartet fearlessly forges something new (Bright Shiny Things)

by Stephanie Manning

Creating something new can come with a lot of expectations. Founding an ensemble. Releasing a debut album. Recording a world premiere, or two. But whatever you might expect from the Poiesis Quartet, they want you to take them exactly as they are.

It might sound like quite the proclamation for the young string quartet, founded two years ago at Oberlin Conservatory by violinists Sarah Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor, and cellist Drew Dansby. But their debut recording, as we are — to be released on October 18 — sees the four players completely confident in themselves and the music they’re performing.

The name “Poiesis,” from the ancient Greek ποιεῖν, refers to this act of making what has never been made before. Accordingly, the two pieces on the album are each world premiere recordings (though each have had multiple live performances). Both works also have strong ties to Northeast Ohio, with one by Baldwin Wallace composer-in-residence Clint Needham and the other by Cleveland Orchestra trombonist Richard Stout. [Read on…]

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