CityMusic Cleveland

The chamber orchestra and music director James Gaffigan began their fourth season Wednesday by throwing arms around a new location, St. Vitus Church on Lausche Avenue in Cleveland. The city's oldest Slovenian Roman Catholic parish opened its doors at this location in 1932, months before Severance Hall did the same due east. The church's beauty could have proved distracting, but Gaffigan and his musicians made sure that the eyes or ears didn't wander. Their program was a varied mix of beloved works that sounded buffed and polished in St. Vitus' acoustical halo. String details sometimes may not have emerged in the reverberant space, but the sheer exuberance Gaffigan poured into Mozart's overture to "The Abduction from the Seraglio" helped the music speak vibrantly. Rebecca Schweigert's oboe solo was touching.

Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto introduced the first of the program's soloists, Jinjoo Cho, a young artist of extravagant gifts. She is familiar to local audiences for appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. Her Mendelssohn confirmed she is maturing at a rapid pace. Cho played the first movement with intense concentration, shaping fervent and tender lines with equal sensitivity. The work's difficulties posed no problems, nor did Cho stint on heartfelt lyricism in the slow movement. The violinist might relax a bit in the finale, where Mendelssohn's elfin writing needs a sprinkling of charm. Still, Cho again gave notice that she is a forceful, expressive musician. Gaffigan and company provided tonal opulence while maintaining close contact with Cho.

In the scheme of American-music things, Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" must be deemed a treasure. Set to a text by James Agee, the young narrator paints a loving portrait of a Southern evening amid family. Gaffigan embraced the music by pointing out salient details and allowing the nostalgic paean to sing. His soloist, soprano Angela Mortellaro, was only partly successful clarifying the English text, especially in this acoustic. Yet Mortellaro did a lovely job defining the work's emotions, and the orchestra savored Barber's languid gem.

Ravel's "Mother Goose" suite found Gaffigan in full sync with the enchanting atmospheres. The excellent oboe, English horn and contrabassoon solos conjured up a world of characters. The night's encore was Strauss' "Morgen," which floated on Cho's hushed violin and Mortellaro's sweetness. - The Plain Dealer: October 10, 2007

CityMusic Cleveland is pure genius. The professional chamber orchestra with a dynamic young music director/conductor performs four series of programs throughout northeast Ohio each season. One series provides five concerts, the other three give six. But it isn’t just the music, which is superbly played, oh no! There is also free child care in most of the venues, and always an exhibit of various artworks by local artists. What’s not to like? Even the most confirmed curmudgeon would have to agree— CityMusic Cleveland is truly special.

Many of the venues are churches, which sometimes works against the music a bit. At the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Slavic Village Saturday evening, only one piece was unable to overcome the very resonant acoustics, but a different placement of the soprano soloist might have had a different result. The encore worked much better with her more towards the audience than in her featured piece.

Music Director James Gaffigan opened the program with a bright and lively rendition of Mozart's overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio. The middle Eastern influence was most evident in the percussion department with myriad cymbals and small bells accompanying the Austrian composer’s imaginative piece, which also featured a lovely oboe solo.

I’ve been privileged to hear Jinjoo Cho perhaps half a dozen times in the last three or four years, and she never ceases to amaze me. Of course, she has the same effect on everyone else within hearing range of her awesome talent. She and Mr. Gaffigan were absolutely on the same page in this performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, demonstrating once again her amazing musicality. She plays with an assurance and vigor and passion that would be envied by many adults. You know it’s something special when members of the orchestra are smiling as they play. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt when the conductor is dancing on the podium. The horn solo near the end of the concerto was very well played, although it was a tad loud. (But then, I was near the front; perhaps in the rear it was just as it should have been.)

Angela Mortellaro was the fine soprano in Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, one of my favorite works for soprano and orchestra. Set to a prose text by James Agee, the rather languid piece describes a slower-paced, more peaceable era in our society. Ms. Mortellaro stood back a ways, almost in the middle of the orchestra, and from there, her voice could not penetrate the rather bouncy acoustics of the beautiful sanctuary. The orchestral pieces worked fine, but it was very difficult to understand her, although she was articulating very clearly, with adequate emotion and sensitivity.

Ravel's enchanting Mother Goose suite tells five fairy tales in music: Sleeping Beauty; Tom Thumb; an unfortunate princess who journeys to the land of the Pagodas; Beauty and the Beast and the Enchanted Garden. The muted strings in Tom Thumb were downright eerie sounding, providing more than adequate atmosphere, as did the percussion in the land of the Pagodas. The concertmaster and contrabassoon carried on a charming conversation in Beauty and the Beast.

It was a vastly satisfying evening, which Mr. Gaffigan enhanced by adding an encore that featured both soloists. Morgen, by Richard Strauss, utilized the violin of Ms. Cho and the clear soprano of Ms. Mortellaro to offset the orchestral background in a shimmering tribute to love. It was perfection.

The art on display was by member artists of Artistas Latinos Unidos. To hear what you missed, the program of October 14 will be broadcast by WCLV (104.9 FM)on Sunday October 21 at 1 pm. - CoolCleveland.com: October 17, 2007

The lines were long outside Town Hall, and smart patrons had arrived at least an hour and a half early to stake out a place inside. An estimated 900 music lovers turned up and a few dozen were turned away, even after listeners had been stashed in every available cranny of the building.

All this for a solo cello recital by a 23-year-old? Well, not just any 23-year-old. The recitalist was Joshua Roman, the Seattle Symphony's new principal cellist, and the buzz about this brilliant young player was sufficiently exciting that musical Seattle turned out in droves. Fellow Symphony players, board members, music teachers, students and cognoscenti came to hear a program designed to say, "This is what I can do with some of the toughest, greatest pieces in the cello repertoire."
Review


Friday night, Town Hall, Seattle

What Roman could do with three works justified all the preconcert excitement. The Bach Cello Suite No. 6, the Ligeti Sonata for Violoncello Solo and the Kodaly Sonata for Solo Cello all pose unique, formidable challenges to the cellist's technique and interpretive finesse.

Roman met the challenges with a panache and maturity that belied his years. First among his assets is a deep, rich tone, due in no small part to the 1737 Montagnana "Gudgeon" cello, on loan from the David Fulton collection. At times in the Kodaly sonata, in which the two lower strings are tuned down a semitone, the low notes were almost magically reverberant.

Roman's technical security is so great that missteps were rare, even in such a difficult program. The Bach Suite emerged with an expansive, thoughtful style and a songlike quality, in a reading that was deeply personal without ever being merely quirky. Roman made a great case for the zesty, convoluted Ligeti sonata, but his strongest playing came in the impassioned Kodaly sonata. A lightning-fast bow arm, quick and accurate fingers and, most of all, Roman's commitment and conviction all made for a spectacular account of this soulful, complex sonata.

A rock star's ovation met the final note, and Roman returned to play a folksy, charming encore: "Julie-O," by Mark Summer. Will a cellist this good stay at the Seattle Symphony? Time will tell — but smart music lovers are going to enjoy him while he's here.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com
_____________________________ - Seattle Times

Ever since Joshua Roman walked on the stage of Benaroya Hall late last season to join his new colleagues of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra as principal cello, there has been a buzz.

Then, it was his looks: a 22- year-old with curly blond hair who looked as if he had stepped out of an Italian Renaissance painting. At the time, there was an audible intake of breath from the audience, at least those around me, at his visage, pleasing smile and confident walk.

In the months that followed, the buzz continued. Symphony officials were quick to take notice and started making use of him at symphony functions. He is a walking advertisement that the symphony can be as hip as any institution. There are other musicians in the orchestra, only slightly older than Roman, who make the same point, the difference being that he makes it more dramatically. His exposure as a musician has been less, small solos here and there plus a larger one earlier this season in the slow movement of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. Local impresarios have taken notice and booked him for later this year.

Roman made his Seattle recital debut Friday night at Town Hall. I can't remember when a symphony musician in his first year of local employment has made such a gesture, and I can't remember when a cello recital of such a young artist was not only sold out, but with people standing outside in a long line stretching down Seneca Street, hoping to secure a spare ticket. The concert was delayed more than 20 minutes as Town Hall officials tried to squeeze as many people as it could into the hall.

So, the music making: Just as Roman's appearance and demeanor are striking, so are his skills. The program was not long, but immensely challenging, all for solo cello: Bach's Sixth Suite, Ligeti's Sonata and Kodaly's Sonata.

Everything he did he did with poise and equanimity, technical difficulties flying away as if they were nothing. He is a musician of imagination and expressive breadth. The Bach was richly considered and thus executed; the Ligeti, compelling; and the Kodaly, completely persuasive. His tone is deep and strong, in part thanks to a loan of an early 18th-century cello made by Domenico Montagnana, from the string collection of David Fulton.
P-I music critic R.M. Campbell can be reached at 206-448-8396 or rmcampbell@seattlepi.com.
______________________________ - Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Three works are featured on this new CD produced by the very ambitious CityMusic Cleveland and its music director & conductor, James Gaffigan. Danses concertantes was the first work composed by the Russian Igor Stravinsky after he came to the US just before the outbreak of WWII. He specialized in danceable music, and indeed it’s difficult to sit still while listening to this engaging piece. The liner notes for the CD state that it was recorded in concert, brilliantly demonstrating the bright, lively sound achieved by the ensemble—and the rapt attention paid by the audience.

Concertmaster Michi Wiancko is, at heart, an international soul, thus inspiring composer Margaret Brouwer (head of the composition department at CIM) to produce a concerto particularly suited to the violinist. The three movements: Narrative, Ballad and Gypsy each take inspiration from a different musical partiality of the soloist. Having been a violinist herself, Dr. Brouwer knows how to make the instrument sing.

And then, there is Mozart. One of his last three great symphonies, the No. 39 in the bright and happy key of E-flat Major (K.543) receives a lustrous performance that will guarantee hours of pleasurable listening. As many times as I’ve heard this symphony in performance, I’ve never heard the clarinets so enchanting as on track 11, the menuetto. The finale really clips along at a smart pace.

This is the next best thing to actually being at one of CityMusic Cleveland’s exhilarating concerts. You can sample as well as purchase a copy for yourself or a gift at the website. (There are also others of the group's CDs available.) Go to http://www.citymusiccleveland.org. - CoolCleveland.com: December 19, 2007

Violinists have no shortage of concertos to test the extremes of their artistry. Even so, the instrument's enormous expressive range and agility continue to inspire composers to showcase these qualities.

Thank goodness. Margaret Brouwer's Concerto for Violin and Chamber Orchestra adds another fine vehicle to the repertoire, as its world premiere Wednesday by violinist Michi Wiancko and CityMusic Cleveland under music director James Gaffigan winningly revealed.

Brouwer, head of the composition department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, knows her way around the violin. She played the instrument professionally before devoting herself entirely to composing. But what makes her concerto so alluring is its surprising tension between skittish and poetic material.

The three-movement commissioned work abounds in extroverted passages that call upon the soloist to negotiate acrobatic flights and suddenly switch gears. In the opening "Narrative," the violinist has long, bravura statements that melt seamlessly into tender utterances and back again.

The slow movement, "Ballad," juxtaposes folklike charm with British trip-hop culture as soloist and drummer engage in a hip cadenza. And the sparks scurry in "Gypsy," a finale of Hungarian-style audacity in which the violin balances perpetual-motion charisma with high-altitude radiance.

Brouwer finds a keen balance between contemporary and tonal language throughout her fresh creation, which Wiancko played to the brilliant hilt. CityMusic's concertmaster tossed off the dizzying demands with extraordinary confidence and focus. Her sound remained shimmering, whether she was walking technical tightropes or sending songful lines aloft. Gaffigan and the orchestra were equal to Brouwer's inventive colors.

The program, heard at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights, surrounds the new piece with Stravinsky's "Danses concertantes" and Mozart's Symphony No. 39. The former is a lilting example of the Russian composer's neoclassical style, with typical rhythmic incisiveness and airy textures to enchant the ear. The performance was taut and invigorating, animated by Gaffigan's alert leadership and the orchestra's lean, crisp artistry.

The Mozart symphony received tightly coiled treatment, almost as if conductor and ensemble were immersed in a life-or-death experience. Gaffigan propelled each movement with fierce intensity, relaxing only to let the scherzo's endearing trio section dance.

The orchestra responded with playing of cohesive vibrancy. Balances between strings, winds, brasses and timpani (thrillingly pointed) were expert. Mozart sounded as alive as ever.

The Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg
_____________________________ - The Plain Dealer: March 30, 2007

Franz Joseph Haydn was called "Papa" during his lifetime for reasons musical and otherwise. Most importantly, he was one of the earliest fathers of the symphony and string quartet, and his creative gift extended to many other forms.

You certainly can hear Haydn's paternal clout in his Cello Concerto in C major, in which tempestuous personality, sublime tranquility and sheer, virtuoso fun come into brilliant play. The performance of the concerto that cellist Matt Haimovitz gave Wednesday with CityMusic Cleveland at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights had charismatic authority written all over it.

Haimovitz, who often eschews orchestras and concert halls to appear in coffeehouses, brought caffeinated zest to his duties. He led the performance from the cello, leaving many of the tempo-setting demands to concertmaster Michi Wiancko. Haimovitz swayed to and fro when not playing to keep the music on its transcendent trajectory.

When he did set bow to strings, he invested the music with a superb balance of muscularity and ardent poetry. Haimovitz used his robust sound to intensely vibrant effect, always with a keen sense of phrasing and detail to animate Haydn's brainstorm. The finale was a rousing race with every note in musical context.

Yet this wasn't just a showcase for a stellar cellist. Haimovitz suspended the sustained, wistful gestures of the slow movement with utmost sensitivity, and he interacted with the CityMusic players as if they were on an entrancing chamber-music holiday.

The night's other guest was Danail Rachev, assistant conductor of the Dallas Symphony. The Bulgarian-born Rachev collaborated closely with the Cleveland musicians in Mendelssohn's "The Fair Melusine" overture and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2.

The Mendelssohn is an opportunity for conductor and players to travel on serene and stormy seas. Rachev shaped the breezy aquatic episodes with seamless fluidity and invigorated the moments of dangerous drama.

The performance benefited from the glowing solos of clarinetist Amitai Vardi and flutist Heidi Ruby-Kushious. The small string contingent played with shimmering urgency, the winds were fresh and the brasses and timpani punctuated their lines with exceptional point.

Beethoven is in a bright mood in his Symphony No. 2, and Rachev made sure the score's chipper aspects leaped from the page. His pacing could be a bit too excitable for the music to settle, but the performance was coherent, vital and gorgeously played.

From The Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg
______________________________
- The Plain Dealer: February 22, 2007

CityMusic Cleveland has a welcome habit of spoiling concertgoers new and otherwise. Under music director James Gaffigan, the ensemble not only gives free concerts. It also galvanizes the works they face.

The opening concert of the orchestra's third season Wednesday at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights found Gaffigan to be his energetic and observant self, caressing phrases and drawing articulate, disciplined playing from his musicians. He led a varied program of pieces mostly by masters early in their careers.

The only score from a composer further along in life was a suite from Sibelius' incidental music to "Pelleas et Melisande." Each section describes a character or situation in luxuriant and atmospheric sonic terms, the Finnish composer's distinctive style evident at every point.

Gaffigan provided Sibelius' evocative pictures with keen shaping and detailing. String tone, despite the small number of players, was rich, and the winds sounded fresh. The English horn solos depicting Melisande were played with tender eloquence by Elise Belk.

Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides," also known as "Fingal's Cave," almost had to contend with rain falling on the church's roof. But the music's storminess drew attention from the real thing, as did Gaffigan's dramatic sensitivity and Amitai Vardi's poetic clarinet.

What a blissful time conductor and players had in Rossini's "The Italian Girl in Algiers" overture. Rebecca Schweigert's handsome oboe solos showed the girl to be crafty and savvy, and the mirth was extended by Heidi Ruby-Kushious' frisky piccolo, George Sakakeeny's limber bassoon and the orchestra's control in that delicious Rossini crescendo.

Finally, there was Schubert's Symphony No. 3, the product of an inspired teenager. Gaffigan stressed the work's sunny spirits and expressive generosity. The string slides in the finale were irresistible. Oboist Schweigert, clarinetist Vardi and bassoonist Sakakeeny again made stellar contributions. Overall, an electrifying meeting of music and musicians.

The program repeats at 8 tonight at St. Noel Church in Willoughby Hills, 8 p.m. Saturday at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Slavic Village and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Westlake Schools Performing Arts Center.


To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
Donald Rosenberg, Plain Dealer Music Critic
drosenberg@plaind.com
216-999-4269
______________________________ - The Plain Dealer: October 13, 2006

Would he or wouldn't he?
The question was on the lips of many Cleveland concertgoers last season when James Gaffigan, then an assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, was named associate conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, to start last month. Would Gaffigan, in other words, continue as music director of CityMusic Cleveland, the tip-top chamber orchestra that gives free concerts throughout the area?

Despite the impending move westward, the conductor made sure that his duties in San Francisco would give him time to lead at least several programs per season in Cleveland. With Gaffigan on the podium, CityMusic begins its third season tonight with a program of beloved works by Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Rossini and Schubert.

On the phone from his new San Francisco digs, Gaffigan calls CityMusic "such a break from reality. I do love guest conducting, but I always feel guest conducting, you're in and you're out. Just when you begin to have a relationship with an orchestra, you leave on Sunday."

Gaffigan, 27, made a big impact in Cleveland during his three seasons at Severance Hall, when he also began focusing his energy and smarts on CityMusic Cleveland. The latter ensemble brings classical music to listeners who otherwise would not have access to a cherishable repertoire.

To ensure quality, Gaffigan has insisted that CityMusic's players, who are part of a small pool of excellent free-lancers, take part in every concert during the season.

"That's very important for me," he says. "They know what my expectations are. It's such a pleasure. I've been looking forward to this week for a very long time."

Not that Gaffigan had a lot of time for pondering upon leaving Cleveland in August.

He traveled to London to hear concerts. He led two programs with the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich, Switzerland, and met up with the San Francisco Symphony in Luxembourg and Lucerne, Switzerland, where the ensemble and music director Michael Tilson Thomas ended the Lucerne Festival with Mahler's enormous Symphony No. 8 ("The audience just went nuts," Gaffigan says).

Since arriving in San Francisco last month, Gaffigan has had more time for reading and studying. He'll have no podium encounters with the San Francisco Symphony until December, when he will lead New Year's programs. He will conduct a subscription program in the spring and will preside over his first festival with the orchestra in June.

But Gaffigan's datebook is bulging with engagements elsewhere. He will make his Berlin debut next week with the German Symphony Orchestra at the Philharmonie, home of the celebrated Berlin Philharmonic. In early 2007, he will take the Leipzig Radio Orchestra to Spain and will lead his first performance of a Bruckner symphony (No. 6) with the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra, which he led several years ago when he was a first-place winner in the Solti conducting competition.

Back stateside, Gaffigan will conduct the Rochester Philharmonic in New York and the Columbus Symphony and make his New York Philharmonic debut leading Young People's Concerts.

"I've got a lot on my plate," he says.

His CityMusic plate is certainly full. Gaffigan says programming CityMusic concerts is so exciting that he keeps changing the works, though this season's music appears to be locked in place.

His opening menu this week has a dark first half consisting of Mendelssohn's "Hebrides" overture and Sibelius' "Pelleas and Melisande." Things lighten up considerably in Rossini's "The Italian Girl in Algiers" overture and Schubert's Symphony No. 3.

Gaffigan's December CityMusic program will field "bite-sized morsels," he says, such as Faure's "Pavane," Sibelius' "Valse triste," Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances, four movements from Berlioz's "Les nuits d'ete" (with mezzo-soprano Jamie Van Eyck), Delius' "Summer Night on a River," Ravel's "Le tombeau de Couperin" and solo works by Ravel and Blechinger for CityMusic violinist Liana Gourdjia and bassoonist George Sakakeeny.

For the February CityMusic concerts, Gaffigan has invited Danail Rachev, assistant conductor of the Dallas Symphony, to do the honors. Mendelssohn's "Fair Melusine" overture and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 will flank Haydn's Cello Concerto in C major, with Matt Haimovitz leading from the cello.

The season finale in the spring, again with Gaffigan, will comprise Stravinsky's "Danses Concertantes," a new violin concerto by Cleveland's Margaret Brouwer (featuring concertmaster Michi Wiancko) and Mozart's Symphony No. 39.

As he juggles programs for CityMusic's coming seasons, Gaffigan remains grateful that he's able to maintain Cleveland ties.

"It's a much different vibe here," he says of San Francisco. "I like it very much. I will miss the Cleveland Orchestra always and especially the people in the orchestra. But I'm learning so much about music from Michael [Tilson Thomas]. His overall connection with the audience is something he does the best.

"It's been v - The Plain Dealer: October 11, 2006

The soloist and the conductor seemed to be having the time of their lives.
Let me be a tad more accurate: The soloist and the conductor seemed to be having the time of his life. We don't often see anyone but pianists playing and conducting a concerto at once, but Franklin Cohen is showing this week that other musicians also can triumph in dual roles.
The Cleveland Orchestra's principal clarinetist is doing two-fold honors in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with CityMusic Cleveland, the chamber orchestra that plays free concerts throughout the region. His performance Wednesday at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights was a display of transcendent artistry, whether he was guiding the ensemble or applying poetic vibrancy to this unparalleled creation.
Cohen approached the concerto not as a maestro, but as a chamber musician interacting with colleagues. He set clear tempos in the orchestral passages and used robust or subtle body language while sending Mozart's phrases jubilantly or serenely into space.
It was a highly nuanced performance that benefited from Cohen's tasteful embellishments and his deployment of a basset clarinet, the instrument with a four-note lower extension, for which Mozart wrote the piece. The wide leaps and ascending lines make much more sense on basset clarinet, and Cohen was so masterful as probing protagonist and acrobat that the music's eloquence took on fresh dimensions. The orchestra sounded crisp and warm collaborating with Cohen.
The remainder of the program was led by James Gaffigan, the ensemble's music director, who's had quite a week. Sunday at Severance Hall in his final program as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, he conducted a forceful reading of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."
His CityMusic repertoire this week is far less aggressive, though Gaffigan imbues everything with customary zest and flexibility. Haydn's Symphony No. 49 ("La Passion") received an intensely shaded reading that conveyed both the score's darkness and buoyancy. The winds and horns were especially fine in the third-movement trio.
Gaffigan provided ample muscle in Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 ("Italian"), even as he allowed phrases to relax. The second and third movements may have been a bit weighty for the music's varied spirits, and the finale tended to race breathlessly. But the playing was alive to the moment and alert to Mendelssohn's felicitous details.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
Donald Rosenberg, Plain Dealer Music Critic
drosenberg@plaind.com,
216-999-4269
_____________________________ - The Plain Dealer: April 28, 2006