Violist's Life is a Balancing Act

In an interview with The Plain Dealer, Cleveland Orchestra violist, Eliesha Nelson talks about how she balances recording, performing, travel and family. The Grammy Award-winning musician also talks about the struggles of being a “married single mother.”

Latvian Concerto "Like a Handwritten Letter"

 

On February 24 and 26, the Orchestra’s English horn player, Robert Walters, performs the English Horn Concerto by the living Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks at Severance Hall. Guest conductor Andrey Boreyko calls the concerto “warm, moody, melancholic, sensual, human” and “composed, not constructed.”

Robert describes the piece as deeply expressive:

“The melodic and harmonic language of his English horn Concerto is Eastern European to be sure, Baltic beyond that, but more importantly - it is beautiful and personal; he writes music that feels like a handwritten letter-- expressing musical and emotional truths that every member of the audience will recognize as somehow their own.”

Click here for a video of Robert playing excerpts and talking about the work. 

 “To my mind, every honest composer searches for a way out of the crises of his time—towards affirmation, towards faith…And if I can find this way out, this reason for hope, the outline of a perspective, then I offer it as my model.” – Composer Pēteris Vasks

Photo of Robert Walters by Matt Dine

3,260 pounds of food donated to Cleveland Foodbank – Thank You!

The numbers from The Cleveland Orchestra’s food drive in January are in: 3,260 pounds of food were donated to the Cleveland Foodbank!

Musicians, staff, and volunteers collected food donations from patrons at Severance Hall concerts and events between January 14 to 17, and donations were collected from musicians, staff, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, and Cleveland Orchestra Children's Chorus throughout January and the first week of February.

The food drive is part of Orchestras Feeding America, a national food drive held by America’s symphony orchestras. Last season, more than 250 orchestras representing all 50 states collected more than 200,000 pounds of food for their communities. The project was the single largest orchestra project organized at a national level, uniting musicians, staff, volunteers, and audiences to help alleviate hunger.

Thank you to everyone who donated and volunteered as part of this effort!

Photo caption: Cleveland Orchestra musicians Shachar Israel, Robert Woolfrey, and Scott Dixon with food donated by the Orchestra's musicians

Rotary Club of Cleveland honors Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra for international service

The Rotary Club of Cleveland presented Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra with its International Service Award on February 17, 2011.

Executive Director Gary Hanson accepted the award on their behalf and spoke about the Orchestra’s expanding role in economic development in Northeast Ohio and around the globe.

Rotary officers Ingrida Bublys and Charles A. de la Porte presented Mr. Hanson with a plaque, which reads "In recognition of your Dedication & Commitment to International Service through the International Language of Music in the furtherance of World Understanding and Peace."

Michael Mendolera, special assistant to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, presented Mr. Hanson with a proclamation from the Mayor, which recognizes Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra for "the outstanding awareness they bring to our community on the international stage." 

He continues, "Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra are among Cleveland's best known international ambassadors.  They travel the world as representatives of the quality of life and importance our city places on the arts.  The Orchestra furthers world understanding and peace through the power of music.  This universal language could not be in better hands and our city could not have a better representative of the arts.  Cleveland is known the world over through the performances and recordings of The Cleveland Orchestra."

 

1967 film with fictional Cleveland Orchestra storyline to be shown on February 20

The film Double-Stop, shot in Cleveland in 1967 and centering around race relations in a fictionalized Midwestern city, will be shown at the Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art (11141 East Blvd.) on Sunday, February 20, at 2:30 p.m. 

A main character (played by actor Jeremiah Sullivan) is a cellist in The Cleveland Orchestra.  He and his wife (played by Mimi Torchin) choose to have their son participate in the city schools’ busing for integration program, bringing liberal and conservative  beliefs into contrast.  A number of scenes include views of Severance Hall and University Circle, and The Cleveland Orchestra was hired for two days to appear in the movie. 

The Cinematheque calls the film “an earnest plea for harmony and tolerance” made at the height of the racial tensions of the late 1960s.  The film’s creators, Cleveland natives and brothers Gerald and Roger Sindell, will attend the screening. 

For more information, please visit http://www.doublestopmovie.com/ or call 216-421-7450.

Read Cleveland Magazine's article about the film, or listen to Gerald Sindell's recent interview with WCPN's Dee Perry.

Congratulations to the Grammy winner

Congratulations to Mitsuko Uchida on winning a 2011 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra) for her recording of Mozart's Piano Concertos Nos. 23 and 24 with The Cleveland Orchestra.   Read more.

On Valentine's Day, Uchida performed a recital at Severance Hall that included music on her recent Schumann recording.   

Cleveland Orchestra concludes East Coast Tour with performances in New York City, Newark

Carnegie Hall, February 4, 2011

The Cleveland Orchestra is back in Cleveland following its Indiana University Residency, Miami Residency, and tour dates in Ann Arbor, New York City, and Newark, New Jersey.

The Orchestra performed two evenings of concerts February 4 and 5 at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. Writing about the Orchestra’s performance of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, New York Times music critic James R. Oestreich wrote, “The orchestra gloried in the work’s brilliant and kaleidoscopic sonorities and produced powerful heft, with shining woodwinds and brasses, without letting the sound turn blowsy. William Preucil, the concertmaster, performed the violin solos beautifully as well as playing an obvious role in keeping the whole spectacle together. Not that Mr. Welser-Möst needed much help with a band clearly responsive to his every gesture.” Read the full review at nytimes.com.

Then, on February 6, the Orchestra held one final performance at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Reviewer Ronni Reich for The Star-Ledger wrote, “Most affecting was concertmaster William Preucil’s solo, with a delicate, melting tone and, as was the orchestra’s hallmark throughout the performance, musical, expressive playing even in its most virtuosic moments.” Read the full review at nj.com.

Photos from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center performance:

Snow Prevents Travel, Doesn't Stop Musicians: Classical Revolution Ann Arbor

Silvio's Organic Pizza in Ann Arbor, Michigan turned into the place to be when the nationwide "Snowpocalypse" prevented The Cleveland Orchestra from traveling to Chicago for a concert on February 2.  Pianist Pierre-Laurent joined the Orchestra musicians and students on the restaurant's upright.

Read the full story at cleveland.com. 

 

Here's Classical Revolution Ann Arbor's blog post about the evening:

 

 

A night at Silvio’s with the Cleveland Orchestra

Last Wednesday, a very surprising and wonderful thing happened: snowed-in members of the Cleveland Orchestra came to Silvio’s Organic Pizza for a night of chamber music. I thought I’d get down my account of what happened before it’s completely gone from my memory.

For us, this was a case of being in the right place at the right time: (1) they played Hill Auditorium last night just as the snowstorm was getting into full swing—a brilliant concert, by the way; (2) Wynton Marsalis & Jazz at Lincoln Center got stuck in Toronto; (3) we have chamber music jam sessions every Wednesday night; (4) I knew a violist in the orchestra, Joanna Patterson, from Seattle Youth Symphony; and (5) Liz Stover of UMS keeps track of us on Facebook. (Can I call this a “perfect storm” without it sounding quite as cliché as usual?) Thanks to Liz and Claire Rice at UMS for connecting things together, to Carol Lee Iott, personnel director of the Cleveland Orchestra, for getting the word out on their end, and to Stephen Shipps, violin professor, for bringing in a raft of new student musicians that hadn’t been to CR before. And especially to Silvio Medoro, who made his wonderful pizza joint the perfect place for the whole shebang on extremely short notice.

I was blown away by how many Cleveland Orchestra members showed up to play, which I don’t think is just a statement about the Wednesday night scene in Ann Arbor—it shows a real openness on their part. Two appearances by celebrities (at least within the classical music world) were particularly unexpected: concertmaster Bill Preucil, who had dinner plans at 7:30, showed up right at 6:30 to play quartets for an hour with Joanna and a rotating band of local cellists and violinists. Later in the evening, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano soloist touring with the orchestra, jumped into the fray with the finale from the Brahms G minor piano quartet, elevating the dinky little piano we had donated a few months ago to newfound heights.

In all, we played music from 6:30 PM to nearly midnight, the program including:
 • Various Beethoven and Mendelssohn quartet movements
 • Schubert cello quintet
 • Bach trio sonatas
 • Brahms G minor piano quartet (finale)
 • Beethoven serenade for flute, violin, and viola
 • Mozart horn quintet
 • Brahms B major piano trio
 • Rachmaninoff Vocalise arranged for three basses
 • Mozart flute quartet
 • Mendelssohn octet (with oboe on second violin)

and probably more, but my memory is limited.

An attempt at listing the musicians that played, in alphabetical order:
 • Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
 • Martha Baldwin, cello
 • Ed Baskerville, cello
 • Charles Bernard, cello
 • Katie von Braun, violin
 • Charles Carleton, bass
 • Hans Clebsch, horn
 • Scott Dixon, bass
 • Max Dimoff, bass
 • Alicia Doudna, violin
 • Max Geissler, cello
 • David Harrell, cello
 • Kat Lawhead, viola
 • Amy Lee, violin
 • Hilary Lewis, viola
 • Corie Lint, cello
 • Joanna Patterson, viola
 • William Preucil, violin
 • Frank Rosenwein, oboe
 • Jake Saunders, cello
 • Julia Siciliano, piano
 • Anča Skálová, violin
 • Josh Smith, flute
 • Brian Thornton, cello
 • Dan Winnick, violin

and I know I’m forgetting the names of at least one bass student, two violin students, and probably others.

I was also happy to see administrative bigwigs there—along with Carol Lee were Cleveland executive director Gary Hanson and general manager Gary Ginstling, and life-of-the-party Ken Fischer, president of UMS. I think their presence was a good thing not because Classical Revolution needs direct support from or entanglement with large, well-endowed arts organizations, but rather that a group of people that may read about things like CR, even abstractly like the idea, were able to see it in the flesh. Under normal circumstances, I suspect a trip to a local Cleveland bar may not have made it onto their busy schedules.

Zachary Lewis of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was traveling with the orchestra, and wrote a nice little piece, focusing of course on the “orchestra’s unexpected night off” angle.

Let’s just hope blizzards keep more orchestras stuck in town. When’s the Berlin Philharmonic here next?

–Ed


Cleveland Orchestra in Ann Arbor

Despite a blizzard, a large crowd turned out in Ann Arbor, Michigan to hear The Cleveland Orchestra last night at Hill Auditorium presented by the University Musical Society. 

The Cleveland Orchestra concert tonight at Symphony Center is cancelled.   Unfortunately, the Orchestra could not travel due to severe weather and a state of emergency in Illinois.

University Musical Society presented The Cleveland Orchestra at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor

Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra on stage at Hill Auditorium