by Mike Telin
As the fall semester come to a close at the Cleveland Institute of Music, it’s once again time for the school’s annual Winter Chamber Music Festival. From December 1 through December 4, students, faculty, and guests will present thirteen concerts featuring over forty unique chamber music compositions.
In addition to performances by woodwind, brass, and percussion ensembles, the school-wide festival of chamber music will feature participants in the Intensive String Quartet and Intensive Duo Seminars, the Advanced Piano Trio Program, and CIM’s Preparatory Friday Night Chamber Music, as well as the Young Artist Programs. As always, the Festival will feature an all-evening Chamber Music Marathon. All performances are free unless otherwise noted.
“The Winter Chamber Music Festival is one of the true musical highlights of the year here in Cleveland,” Cavani Quartet violinist Annie Fullard said via email. [Read more…]
American violinist, conductor, and composer William Harvey has dedicated a large part of his professional career to his passion, Cultural Diplomacy. Harvey, who holds degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and Juilliard, first gained international recognition when he lead the Afghan National Youth Orchestra, a group he founded, on a historic tour of the United States in 2013.
The first faculty concert of Oberlin’s Winter Chamber Music Festival on January 9 brought a capacity-plus crowd to Kulas Recital Hall and gave students in the program the first of several opportunities to hear how things are done by the veteran chamber players who are coaching them this month. 
If you had to guess the composers of two of the pieces performed by the Wasmuth Quartet on January 6 by sound alone, you would almost certainly guess wrong. As part of Oberlin Conservatory’s Chamber Music Intensive & Festival, the young string quartet presented music by Haydn, Webern, and Ligeti in Kulas Recital Hall, but probably not the Ligeti or Webern you would easily recognize. 
Founded at the Oberlin Conservatory in 2004, 
It appears that Northeast Ohio’s classical music organizations are going to be wasting no time getting back into full swing after the holidays. A quick check of our Concert Listings page reveals that almost as soon as 2015 is upon us, audiences will have plenty of concerts to choose from. However, the prize for being first out of the blocks goes to the Oberlin Conservatory.