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Duo Amal kicks off
PianoDays @CLE (July 24)

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by Jacob Strauss 

On Sunday, July 24 the piano team of Yaron Kohlberg and Bishara Haroni — Duo Amal — kicked off Piano Cleveland’s PianoDays @CLE in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Kohlberg and Haroni, who first performed together at a peace conference in Oslo in 2011, began their concert with a pillar of the piano four-hand repertoire, Schubert’s Fantasie in f. With Haroni playing the lower part and Kohlberg the upper, they negotiated the keyboard with nimble choreography, highlighting their adroit musicianship and amicable collaborative spirit.

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PianoDays @CLE: the chemistry of Duo Amal

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by Mike Telin

One can never predict where life will take you, but wherever it does, friendships, artistic and personal, endure. If in doubt, just ask pianists Yaron Kohlberg and Bishara Haroni.

Kohlberg, the second prize winner at the 2007 Cleveland International Piano Competition, and Bishara Haroni first came together for a peace concert at the Oslo Opera House in 2011. After that, the two pianists chose to redirect their professional energies away from solo careers in favor of pursuing their career paths as a duo piano team — and Duo Amal was born.

On Sunday, July 24 at 2:00 pm, Duo Amal will kick off Piano Cleveland’s inaugural PianoDays @CLE in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art with a program featuring music by Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Milhaud, Elgar, Rachmaninoff, and Schubert. Read a Festival preview here and purchase tickets here.

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Piano Cleveland launches PianoDays @CLE

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by Mike Telin 

What is PianoDays @CLE? “It’s a festival that celebrates the piano in all of its forms,” Piano Cleveland president Yaron Kohlberg said during a recent Zoom conversation. “We want piano lovers from around the city and the region to be able to enjoy not only traditional classical performances but also performances that offer something for everybody.”

While Piano Cleveland’s signature event is the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Kohlberg said that it is important for them to engage with their audience while attracting new people to that event and to classical music. “It’s our role to tackle these things and to influence people — we are responsible for the future.”

To get people in the piano mood, there will be two Forte Friday events — the first on July 15 at 6:30 pm at Crocker Park and the second on July 22 at 5:30 at the Van Aken District. “Last year we saw that the pop-up events like these were a great way to attract new audiences and to generate excitement for our big performances,” Kohlberg said, adding that like last year, these will also feature music of many genres and styles.

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Piano Cleveland presents: Prelude to Piano Days 2022 Listening Series

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by Mike Telin

Piano Cleveland has a lot in store for Northeast Ohio this summer. But before PianoDays@CLE kicks off on July 24, why not take a deep dive into how to listen to piano music by enrolling in the Prelude to Piano Days 2022 Listening Series? During the three sessions you’ll discover how two pianists work together, what it means to immerse yourself in the work of a single composer, and what exactly is involved in improvisation. Click here for more information.

“We call this ‘education for adults,’” Piano Cleveland president Yaron Kohlberg said during a Zoom conversation. “It’s all part of our mission to make piano music as accessible as possible. And to help everybody, regardless of their knowledge of piano music, find something to connect with.”

Following the success of last year’s listening series which touched on the basics, Kohlberg said that this year the series will go one step further. “Everything that is being presented during the listening series will be heard during the summer performances. So there is a direct connection.” [Read more…]

Piano Cleveland to debut video contest PianoFlicks

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by Mike Telin

If you ask a musician what new skill they learned during the past eighteen months, more often than not, the answer is video editing. And, in a relatively short amount of time, many became quite good at it.   

“Everyone we knew learned how to video-edit,” Marissa Glynias Moore, executive director at Piano Cleveland, said via Zoom. “So we thought, what would be a cool way for us to tap into that creativity?”

On Wednesday, October 27 at 7:00 pm, Piano Cleveland will debut PianoFlicks, a new video contest showcasing pianists as they creatively re-imagine how classical music is presented and enjoyed by audiences. Throughout the broadcast — which will air on the Piano Cleveland website — viewers will have the opportunity to cast their vote for the Audience Prize. They can also cast their votes over the course of the next week — details below. All participants will receive prize money for their participation in the contest.  

“Everything we do is about making classical music more accessible, not only for the audience, but for young pianists as well — making yourself and what you do accessible is an important part of being an artist in today’s world,” Moore said.

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The Cleveland International Piano Competition:
Week Two and beyond

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by Mike Telin

After a three-day break, Competition first-round performances will continue on Thursday, July 15 at 7:00 pm. Audiences can also experience that evening’s session by attending the Watch Party at the Beachwood Community Center. Pack a picnic and bring your chairs to watch performances under the stars and on the big screen. Click here to register for the free event.

New at this year’s competition is the Trivia Night/Watch Party on Thursday, July 22 at 7:00 pm at the The Music Box Supper Club. Hosts Yaron Kohlberg and Zsolt Bognár (pictured) have created questions that are designed to engage every level of piano and classical music enthusiast. Teams can be up to six people, so bring your friends (or make new ones) and enjoy great music and a chance to win a Cleveland musical prize package.

The ticketed event will include the buffet-style menu on the Music Box’s website. The first drink is on CIPC, but after that, for the rest of the evening you can purchase your favorite beverage at the cash bar. Click here to purchase tickets online or call 216.242.1250. [Read more…]

Music From The Western Reserve: Pianist Yaron Kohlberg at Steinway Gallery

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by Daniel Hathaway

Many pianists win prizes in international piano competitions but few return to the scenes of their triumphs to run them.

Make an exception for Yaron Kohlberg, the Israeli keyboardist who came in second in the 2007 Cleveland International Piano Competition at the age of 24, and became President of Piano Cleveland in 2018, just in time to have to cancel the 2020 competition due to the pandemic. (As a placeholder, he invented Virtu(al)oso, an online competition that increased the organization’s global audience.)

On Sunday, June 6, Cleveland piano fans got an opportunity to hear Kohlberg himself in a short solo recital that formed the coda to Music From The Western Reserve’s online concert series. [Read more…]

Piano Cleveland announces plans for 2021 International Piano Competition

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by Mike Telin

Piano Cleveland has announced that after a year-long postponement due to the challenges presented by the pandemic, the organization’s signature event — the Cleveland International Piano Competition (CIPC) — will take place from July 8 through August 11, 2021. (Above: Nikita Mndoyants, 2016 first place winner, with Bramwell Tovey.)

The competition has been reimagined as a hybrid event with pre-recorded First and Second Rounds — Semi-Final and Final Rounds will take place in Cleveland. Twenty-eight contestants who were chosen for the 2020 competition will compete for an opportunity to perform with The Cleveland Orchestra and to win the Mixon First Prize of $75,000, a New York performance debut, management services, and a recording on the Steinway & Sons label. Click here for a full competition schedule and here for ticket information.

Creating the plan — a logistical jigsaw puzzle 

Piano Cleveland president Yaron Kohlberg said in a Zoom conversation that all the decisions during the planning process were made with the best interests of the contestants in mind. [Read more…]

Piano Cleveland announces summer Virtu(al)oso Competition

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by Daniel Hathaway

Having postponed its Cleveland International Piano Competition until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Piano Cleveland has come up with a clever placeholder for the summer of 2020 that will allow 30 pianists, ages 18-30, to compete in a worldwide virtual contest while providing participants with across-the-board financial support.

In a recent telephone conversation, Piano Cleveland CEO Yaron Kohlberg said the idea for Virtu(al)oso grew out of the success of their Quarantine Concerts, a quickly-organized series of eight Thursday evening performances that came together only a few days after Governor DeWine’s stay-at-home order went into effect. Streamed from Steinway Piano Gallery Cleveland between March 19 and May 7, the concerts featured local artists and gave viewers the opportunity to contribute to a Musicians’ Fund.

“It surpassed our goals,” Kohlberg said. “We went into the series not knowing really what to expect. We just knew that we wanted to react as quickly as possible and try to support our musicians. People were so kind and generous, and responded so well.” [Read more…]

Live streaming: a roundtable discussion and Q&A’s with recent performers

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by Daniel Hathaway, Jarrett Hoffman, and Mike Telin

With the recent spread of COVID-19, the opportunity to attend live classical music performances has come to a complete halt and will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future. Many organizations and individual artists are seeking to fill that void through online streaming.

On Thursday, March 19, two area institutions presented the first of what will likely be many live-streamed concerts. At 4:30 pm in Oberlin Conservatory’s Stull Recital Hall, Flute Professor Alexa Still and Faculty Collaborative Pianist Evan Hines presented a program of works by Koechlin, Chopin, Coleman, and Debussy.

On the same day at 7:30 pm in Steinway Piano Gallery Cleveland, Piano Cleveland presented the first of its Quarantine Concerts. Pianist Yaron Kohlberg played selections by Schumann and Grieg, and duo pianists Irwin Shung and Natsumi Shibagaki played works by Bach, Rachmaninoff, and Gershwin.

Remotely streamed concerts raise an interesting question for journalists: is it possible to critically evaluate live performances when you’re not in the same room? Three of ClevelandClassical’s writers attempted to answer that and other questions about covering virtual performances.

[Read more…]

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