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To•Day

Diary, Tuesday, June 17, 2025

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2:30 this afternoon, ChamberFest Cleveland hosts “Meet Composer Errollyn Wallen!, a family-friendly event that begins with a performance of Remember, Marimba by percussionist Tanner Tanyeri, followed at 3:00 by a conversation with Errollyn Wallen CBE & Sandra Morgan OBE (interim mayor of East Cleveland).

From 4 to 5:30, a hands-on percussion activity will be led by Gabriel Globus-Hoenich. The day ends at 6 pm with a concert of Wallen’s music, — including selections from the Errollyn Wallen Songbook. The event at East Cleveland Public Library is free.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Neighborhood Connections has approved $325,792 in grants to support 83 projects in Cleveland and East Cleveland. Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC), the local public funder for arts and culture, will co-fund 24 of these resident-led arts and culture projects through a partnership with Neighborhood Connections. Read more here. [Read More…]

Pre•Views & Features

Judith Markovich’s Oh, my son to receive world premiere at ChamberFest

by Mike Telin

“When Frank Cohen called and said he had received an email from David Stern, I thought, oh my goodness,” composer Judith Markovich recalled during a Zoom conversation. “Frank told me that David had sent him a poem and it’s devastating. Frank said ‘Go to your email because you have to read it right now.’ And so I went to my computer and we read it — we were nearly in tears.”

On Friday, June 20 at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall, ChamberFest Cleveland will present the world premiere of Judith Markovich’s Oh, my son… The program also includes Witold Lutosławski’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Bright Sheng’s Four Movements for Piano Trio, and Franz Schubert’s Cello Quintet in C major. Markovich will join pianist Eric Charnofsky for a pre-concert conversation beginning at 6:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

[Read on…]

June festivals get up to speed this week in Northeast Ohio

by Daniel Hathaway

June has become the unofficial summer festivals month in Northeast Ohio, with ChamberFest Cleveland, the ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival, and the Ohio Light Opera summer season all beginning at once — and with more to come. Here’s what they’re offering just this week (in alphabetical order):

ChamberFest Cleveland continues its thirteenth season on Friday, June 13 with “Reflections.” Ten artists perform music by Arvo Pärt, Anton Arensky, and Camille Saint-Saëns (7:30 at the Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights).

ChamberFest offers two events on Saturday, June 14: “Rhythm & Clues,” a free, family-friendly concert by the Nate’s World Trio including a scavenger hunt (11:00 am in the Friends Pavilion at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes), and “A Musical Feast” featuring a new work by Errollyn Wallen in a “chamber cabaret” performance from Nate’s World — the fertile imagination of bassist Nathan Farrington (7:30 at Heights Theater in Cleveland Heights). [Read on…]

Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute gears up to celebrate the music of England

by Stephanie Manning

When Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute (BPI) began more than half a century ago, dedicated programs for studying and performing early music were almost nonexistent.

“ In the early seventies, it was really the only place where you could study that repertoire in the States,” artistic director Kenneth Slowik said in a recent interview. Thankfully, “nowadays, there are several different options.”

Throughout the decades, the renowned summer workshop has continued its annual meetings, with only a brief pause for the pandemic. From June 15–29, BPI will mark its 53rd year when it welcomes a group of both professional and avocational musicians to Oberlin Conservatory. Performers ages 15 and up will participate in workshops, master classes, and large ensembles under the theme “Music in England from Purcell to Handel.”

Where does BPI fit into today’s early music landscape? “ It still has its place, I think,” Slowik said. “Certainly, the people who come take away a two-week experience that’s unlike anything else they’ve done.”

[Read on…]

ChamberFest: a conversation with Raman Ramakrishnan

by Mike Telin

With a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a Masters in music from The Juilliard School, Raman Ramakrishnan’s career path could have gone in numerous directions. “For me, it’s always been about the cello,” Ramakrishnan said during a recent interview. “And from the beginning, chamber music is what I loved.”

Next week the Athens, Ohio-born cellist will make his ChamberFest Cleveland debut in three programs. I began our Zoom conversation by asking him if he has spent any time in Cleveland.

Raman Ramakrishnan: Actually, my mother was born in Cleveland and grew up in Cleveland along with her three sisters. And my grandparents are buried in Cleveland on the West Side.

Mike Telin: You were born in Athens, Ohio.

RR: I was. But to be honest, I only spent two months of my life there before my parents moved. [Read on…]

ChamberFest Cleveland welcomes composer/performer Errollyn Wallen

by Mike Telin

In her memoir Becoming a Composer, Errollyn Wallen recalls being nine years old and walking to Ridley Road Market with her uncle to buy fruit and vegetables. “I told Uncle Arthur that I could hear ‘all these sounds in my head’ but I didn’t know what to do with them. Uncle Arthur suggested that perhaps I was a composer.”

Little did that young girl — who was born in Belize and brought up in Tottenham, England — know that she would go on to become one of the world’s top twenty most performed living classical composers.

In 2024, Wallen was appointed Master of the King’s Music by His Majesty The King, and in 2025 she was named BBC Classical Music Magazine’s Personality of the Year. This month Wallen is also ChamberFest Cleveland’s composer-in-residence.

Opening the Zoom link from her home in Orkney, I began our conversation by asking how the ChamberFest invitation came about.

[Read on…]

ChamberFest Cleveland invites you to spend time in Nate’s World

by Mike Telin

“I’ve been coming to ChamberFest for a number of years, and it’s always a wonderful thing to come back,” bassist Nathan Farrington said via Zoom from Los Angeles. “I grew up in Columbus but I have a huge family in the Medina area so it also gives me a chance to perform for and reconnect with them.”

On Saturday, June 14 at 7:30 pm at Heights Theater, Nathan Farrington will join pianist Ahmed Alom and drummer Gabriel Globus-Hoenich for a chamber cabaret from “Nate’s World.” The program also includes J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E, Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, and Errollyn Wallen’s Making Hay. Wallen and composer Michael Frazier will present a pre-concert conversation at 6:30 pm. A cash bar will be available in the lobby. Tickets can be purchased online.

What is Nate’s World? Farrington said that it grew out of the frustration he and his trio members had with the role of performers in traditional classical concerts — the genre doesn’t always do the best job of acknowledging the role of the performer.

[Read on…]

Irish guitarist Alan Mearns to make Guitar Festival debut this weekend

by Daniel Hathaway

When I asked Armin Kelly, the founder and artistic director of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, who he would recommend that I speak to for a preview article this time around, he didn’t miss a beat.

“I think you will find Irish concert classical guitarist, composer, poet, and songwriter Alan Mearns a particularly interesting, well-spoken artist to interview. This will be Alan’s first time to perform in Cleveland, and he will be taking part in a pre-concert discussion with Jonathan Leathwood in a lecture entitled Beyond Transcription, A Conversation with Alan Mearns, on Thursday, June 5, from 6:00 to 7:15 pm, and playing a solo recital on Sunday at 3 pm.

“Alan’s transcriptions of Bach and other composers have electrified audiences and critics far beyond the confines of the classical guitar world. His approach is a fundamentally imaginative one — perhaps not surprising from such a multi-faceted artist. His transcriptions seek to recreate the excitement of the original music in terms of the guitar.”

[Read on…]

See all previews

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