By Mike Telin “ Fred Frith is unique among improvisers in his ability to draw so effortlessly on such a wide variety of styles,” Oberlin Conservatory Assistant Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts Peter Swendsen said during a recent telephone conversation. “His styles range from the purely sonic abstract worlds that we might think of as electro-acoustic, to things that draw extensively on popular forms, on jazz, on music for film and dance. His comfort zone is everything and everywhere.” This week Northeast Ohio audiences will have two opportunities to hear the acclaimed songwriter, composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist when performs concerts on Wednesday, February 26 at 8:00 pm in Fairchild Chapel (Bosworth Hall) at Oberlin College and Friday, February 28 at 7:30 pm as part of the CMA Concerts at Transformer Station series. Swendsen, who studied with Frith while doing graduate work at Mills College, remembers him as a wonderful teacher who was very supportive. Filed Under: Tagged With:,,, February 25, 2014.

By Mike Telin Making his first Northeast Ohio appearance, the internationally renowned Chinese multi-instrument virtuoso Guo Yazhi will present a colorful showcase concert at Hiram College’s Frohring Recital Hall on Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 3:00 pm. During Sunday’s concert Guo will play more than ten different traditional Chinese wind instruments, including the xun (an ancient clay ocarina dating back 7,000 years), the guanzi and shuangguan (single and double oboes with clarinet-like tone) and various sizes of suona (a shawm with metal bell). During some of the musical selections Guo will be accompanied by the Cleveland Chinese Music Ensemble, David Badagnani, director, performing on the dizi (bamboo flute), sheng (mouth organ), erhu (fiddle), pipa and yueqin (lutes), drums, gongs, and other percussion. The program is sponsored by the Music Department and the Hiram Community Trust. Born in 1966 in Shanxi province in northern China, Guo Yazhi is China’s premier performer of the suona, also playing nearly 30 other musical instruments.

Filed Under: Tagged With:,, February 25, 2014. Yanobox Monotype Serial Download Manager there. By Daniel Hathaway Before concert halls became ubiquitous, piano recitals were usually intimate affairs staged in domestic music rooms or salons.

Caroline Oltmanns recreated that kind of ambiance during her recital on Sunday afternoon, February 23 at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls when she played the annual midwinter piano concert on the Chagrin Valley Chamber Music series. The room is not large, though the ceiling is lofty. The audience was good-sized for a February Sunday, but not numerous enough to need to be addressed as though it were a public meeting. And the piano, somewhere between a baby grand and a six-footer, was the sort of instrument you might encounter in someone’s living room. Oltmanns took profit of all of those circumstances to spend an engaging hour communicating directly to her listeners, both through her flawless and eloquent playing and through her running commentary.

Filed Under: Tagged With:, February 25, 2014. By Mike Telin On Saturday, March 1 beginning at 7:30 in Plymouth Church, Blue Water Chamber Orchestra continues its fourth season with a concert titled “Lake Winds Bring Spring Strings”. The concert, performed without intermission, includes Barber’s Capricorn Concerto featuring orchestra principals Sean Gabriel, flute, Martin Neubert, oboe and Neil Mueller, trumpet.

Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Handel, and Jean-Baptiste Lully were among the composers who took advantage of the theme. La Folia’s Endless Possibilities. Jordi Savall. Jordi Savall Bernadet. Orchestra director and musicologist specialising in medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. Considered by critics to be one of the.

BWOC Artistic Director Carlton Woods will also lead performances of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Elgar’s Introduction & Allegro and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. A pre-concert Meet & Greet for children 12 and under begins at 6:45 pm. During a recent telephone conversation Carlton Woods gave us his insights into Saturday’s intriguing program. Carlton Woods: Well, the Capricorn came about because Neil is somewhat of a champion of the piece and he’s never had the opportunity to do it. Filed Under: Tagged With:,,,, February 25, 2014.

By Daniel Hathaway Apollo’s Fire has made a name for itself in over twenty years’ worth of vivid and passionate interpretations of early music on period instruments. Now, founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell has taken her ensemble in a new direction with a program of Jewish music from Spain and Italy entitled “Sephardic Journey: Wanderings of the Spanish Jews,” which is making the rounds of venues in Akron, Cleveland Heights, Beachwood and Rocky River from February 20-25. I heard the performance on February 21 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. Filed Under: Tagged With:, February 24, 2014. By Mike Telin Beginning on Wednesday, February 26 in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music director David Bamberger and the CIM Opera Theater will present two one-act masterpieces of English opera, Dido & Aeneas and Riders to the Sea.