Following the publication of a July 26 online article in the Washington Post by Anne Midgette and Peggy McGlone detailing previously unreported allegations of sexual harassment by Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster William Preucil, the Orchestra has suspended him with pay while an independent investigation is underway. According to another source, Preucil has resigned from his position as professor of violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Read an updated report here.
Cleveland Orchestra with Jakub Hrůša & Sergey Khachatryan (Apr. 5)
by Daniel Hathaway
Two big works more than filled The Cleveland Orchestra’s Thursday evening program on April 5, one of them a standard concerto that crosses all international boundaries, the other a Czech symphony receiving only its third performance by the Orchestra, all three of those led by Czech conductors.
Cleveland Orchestra: “Uchida’s Mozart” (Feb. 8)
by Daniel Hathaway
Early and late Mozart piano concertos were featured on the program when pianist Mitsuko Uchida paid her annual visit to The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall last Thursday, February 8. In between, concertmaster William Preucil captained the Orchestra on a virtual musical barge trip down the Thames via festive selections from Handel’s Water Music. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra with Preucil as leader and soloist (November 9)
by Daniel Hathaway
Before dedicated conductors began standing in front of orchestras and wielding batons, ensembles used several means to coordinate their playing. The least subtle and most dangerous — as Jean-Baptiste Lully found out — was to pound on the floor with a staff. (He managed to wound himself in the foot and eventually died of gangrene.) More safely, ensembles were cued from the keyboard or by the first violinist, as Cleveland Orchestra audiences have experienced in past performances led by Mitsuko Uchida and William Preucil, who guided the proceedings while playing the piano and violin. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra opens Centennial Season with Vixen redux and stunning Rite of Spring (September 26 & 28)
by Daniel Hathaway
What a week at Severance Hall! On Tuesday, September 26, The Cleveland Orchestra’s revival of Leoš Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen received its third and final performance, and two days later, Franz Welser-Möst returned to the podium to lead the Orchestra in a spellbinding performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: Mozart & Mendelssohn with Mitsuko Uchida & William Preucil (April 6)
by Daniel Hathaway
Like a commuter ferry, The Cleveland Orchestra took on more passengers as it went along through the Thursday, April 6 concert featuring pianist Mitsuko Uchida. First, twenty-four string players and four winds came onboard for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12, then the winds disembarked and more string players appeared on deck for a Mendelssohn string symphony. Finally, nine winds joined that larger body of strings for Mozart’s 20th Piano Concerto. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: Baroque fest with Harry Bicket (April 1)
by Daniel Hathaway
When you’re programming English Baroque music by Handel and Purcell for an American orchestra, it’s helpful to have a native Englishman in charge, especially someone who has produced music in some of the same halls as those storied composers. Having served early in his career as sub-organist at Westminster Abbey, Harry Bicket knows how to recreate British pomp and ceremony on this side of the pond, as he demonstrated in a scintillating concert with The Cleveland Orchestra on Saturday evening, April 1 in Severance Hall. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: all-Stravinsky with Cleveland Orchestra Chorus & Seraphic Fire (Mar. 16)
by Daniel Hathaway
Those who say they like or don’t like the music of Igor Stravinsky risk being detained for further questioning: which of the different styles the composer took on and discarded during his long 20th-century career are you referring to? There were several to be heard on The Cleveland Orchestra’s all-Stravinsky program on Thursday evening, all masterfully performed under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst with the help of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Miami’s Seraphic Fire. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: Fridays@7 with William Preucil & Brett Mitchell (March 3)
by Daniel Hathaway
For his next-to-last appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra before taking up his new duties with the Colorado Symphony, associate conductor Brett Mitchell presided over a program of American music on Friday evening at Severance Hall. Two “Third” works were on the program: Aaron Copland’s stirring Third Symphony, and Augusta Read Thomas’s elusive Third Violin Concerto with concertmaster William Preucil as soloist. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra & Pennsylvania Ballet: George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker (Nov. 30)
by Daniel Hathaway
Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet has been around since 1892, when it premiered at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. But for more than half of its lifetime, the best-known version in this country is the one that George Balanchine choreographed for the New York City Ballet in 1954. Northeast Ohioans can enjoy that Nutcracker in a fine and colorful collaboration between the Pennsylvania Ballet and The Cleveland Orchestra. The show opened on Wednesday, November 30 at the State Theater in Playhouse Square, and runs through Sunday, December 4. [Read more…]