Chamberfest Cleveland 2023 Program

LIGHTNESS OF BEING

Welcome to ChamberFest Cleveland!

Table of Contents

3 BODY AND SOUL | Wed June 14

Reinberger Chamber Hall, Severance Music Center

6 KARENIN’S SMILE | Fri June 16

St. Wendelin Church

9 FIDELITY AND BETRAYAL | Sat June 17

Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

14 DADS, DVOŘÁK, AND DONUTS | Sun June 18

Nature Center at Shaker Lakes

15 MOZART, BRAHMS, AND REDEMPTION | Wed June 21

Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church

18 BRAHMS, BAGATELLES, AND BREWS | Thu June 22

Forest City Brewery

19 CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS | Sat June 24

Whether it’s music, painting, film, or poetry, art in any form is about creativity and inspiration. This season, we’ve been particularly inspired by one of our favorite 20th century works of literature, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Whether or not you’re familiar with the book, the focal themes of love and betrayal, physicality versus spirituality, politics, oppression, human and animal nature, these are themes that are relevant and eternally relatable. Kundera’s deep knowledge and references to classical music throughout the novel make it a particularly potent ground to play and mirror and reflect these ideas through the endlessly diverse world of chamber music. The world being what it is, we chose to spotlight the concept of “lightness,” and we invite you to experience this season with a sense of ease, celebration, and pure delight.

Kulas Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

24 VORTEX | Sun June 25

Harkness Chapel

27 ES MUSS SEIN (IT MUST BE!) | Thu June 29

Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

30 WORDS MISUNDERSTOOD | Fri June 30

Dunham Tavern

33 LIGHTNESS OF BEING | Sat July 1

Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

36 ARTIST BIOS

48 STAFF & BOARD

49 IN MEMORIAM

50 THANK YOU

GIVING BIRTH TO THE IMAGINATION

A Season Overview by Donald Rosenberg

What a difference a year can make. In 2022, we were still overwhelmed by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which had an impact on every phase of life. Arts organizations responded by programming with an ear toward symbolism, inclusivity, and hope. ChamberFest Cleveland was among the groups that reflected the times with a spectrum of enlightening repertoire if not solemn, then often serious in expression.

ChamberFest’s 2023 season has a markedly different thrust.

“We wanted this season to be lighter and more upbeat,” says co-artistic director Diana Cohen. “Last year was the fog of Covid. There were a lot of dark pieces.”

The season’s theme began to come into focus after co-artistic director Roman Rabinovich reread Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The 1984 novel’s musings about the human condition and music, Rabinovich sensed, would be a big help in inspiring a compelling selection of works, which they clearly did, without rigidly dictating the season’s content. “We didn’t want it to

be a literal translation in musical terms, but to give birth to the imagination,” Rabinovich says. “It gives us a frame. That’s what we’re after — that telescope to look through, a certain lens of ideas, and then we can be free with it.”

Many of this season’s programs are titled (freely) after chapters in Kundera’s novel, in which the protagonists endure the consequences of the Prague Spring of 1968, when protests supporting reform led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union. Kundera introduces a character, Tereza, who is “weighed down” by life and another, Sabina, whose “drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden, but the unbearable lightness of being.”

Listeners, of course, don’t attend concerts to seek anything unbearable, so the directors aptly named the ChamberFest season “Lightness of Being.” All of the works listeners will hear, in fact, are pleasurable, on different levels, from the magisterial beauty of four pieces by Mozart — the season’s record-holder in number of contributions — to the cheeky vibrancy of Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano

GIVING BIRTH TO THE IMAGINATION

and Winds, the quirky originality of Janáček’s Concertino, and the descriptive delights packed into Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals

The season’s repertoire spans five centuries, from incidental music Henry Purcell wrote for The Fairy Queen in 1692 to Michael Stephen Brown’s Vortex for Cello and Strings, which had its premiere just two months ago. Especially notable in a classical field still dominated by deceased white European male composers, the season of music by 26 composers includes five living composers who are women (three others are men). The programs journey across the stylistic map, with works from 11 countries and numerous musical eras.

Some of the composers may not yet be familiar to ChamberFest listeners, but that’s partly the point of their presence. After hearing Carl Frühling’s Clarinet Trio, Sergey Taneyev’s Piano Quintet in G minor, and pieces by living composers Lera Auerbach, Michael Stephen Brown, Paquito D’Rivera, Selena Fisher, Helmut Lachenmann, Caroline Shaw, Gabriella Smith, and Judith Weir, audience members might be inclined to try out other pieces by these exceptional creative voices.

Composers we never tire of hearing aren’t neglected, as they never should be. Along with Mozart, the beloved include Schubert (Fantasie in F minor for piano four hands), Brahms (String Sextet No. 1), Dvořák (Piano Quartet No. 2), and Mendelssohn (Piano Sextet in D major). Sibelius, who wrote extensively for chamber ensembles, is also here with an alluring work that has yet to be published: Nights of Jealousy, for the unusual combination of narrator, soprano (in the distance), violin, cello, and piano.

And then there’s Beethoven, whose seminal string quartets alone are reason enough for this composer to be an essential participant in any worthwhile chamber music festival. The one ChamberFest entry this season is the String Quartet No. 16, Beethoven’s last, which happens to have a direct connection to Kundera, who studied musicology and composition before he became

a novelist, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In eloquent prose about music, fate, Beethoven, and the issue of light vs. heavy, Kundera writes that “we believe that the greatness of man stems from the fact that he bears his fate as Atlas bore the heavens on his shoulders. Beethoven’s hero is a lifter of metaphysical weights.” For all its proclamations of “Es muss sein!” (It must be!) and a prayerful slow movement, the String Quartet No. 16 is the lightest of Beethoven’s late string quartets in its embrace of high spirits amid weightier moments. And perhaps Tereza in The Unbearable Lightness of Being speaks for many of us when Kundera notes that “Beethoven became her image of the world on the other side, the world she yearned for.”

We all yearn for a world in which wonders distract us, however briefly, from the mundane and troubling aspects of life. There can be no doubt that ChamberFest continues to provide marvels in this respect. The mix of familiar and unfamiliar, the variety of compositional approaches and instrumentation (even with that Sibelian soprano offstage), and the openness to adventure make the festival a special extravaganza. More evidence on this last point: The program that includes the Sibelius melodrama will find ChamberFest musicians further entering the unknown when clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski and percussionist Jamey Haddad join colleagues for a group improvisation.

All of the bursts of creative and performance imagination the festival is offering this season speak to our abiding desire to bask in the power that music — more than any of the other arts — holds on us. We certainly can identify with Franz, the professor in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, for whom “music was the art that comes closest to Dionysian beauty in the sense of intoxication,” writes Kundera. “He considered music a liberating force: it liberated him from loneliness, introversion, the dust of the library; it opened the door of his body and allowed his soul to step out into the world to make friends.”

Here’s to intoxication, liberation, and friendship, ChamberFest-style.

© Donald Rosenberg

BODY AND SOUL

PRELUDE TALK by Steve Pinkerton at 6:30pm

HENRY PURCELL

David Bowlin, violin

Diana Cohen, violin

Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola

Jonathan Swensen, cello

Derek Zadinsky, bass

Roman Rabinovich, harpsichord

Jamey Haddad, percussion

Incidental Music from “The Fairy Queen,” Z. 629

Prelude

Hornpipe

Air

Rondeau

Dance for the Fairies

Dance for the Green Men

Monkey’s Dance

Chaconne: Dance for a Chinese Man and Woman

wednesday 14 june 7:30pm

CARL FRÜHLING

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

Jonathan Swensen, cello

Amy Yang, piano

Clarinet Trio, Op. 40

Mäßig schnell

Anmutig bewegt

Andante

Allegro Vivace

-intermission-

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

Jacques Forestier, violin

Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola

Sterling Elliott, cello

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 87

Allegro con fuoco

Lento

Allegro moderato, grazioso

Finale. Allegro ma non troppo

BODY AND SOUL

From the religious to the romantic, the phrase “body and soul” has long held a fount of implications. The eponymous 1930 song, with music by Johnny Green and lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, and Frank Eyton, is a quintessential reflection of the aching challenges of love — one of the reasons it has been recorded by so many popular and jazz artists. Romantic ordeals haunt the characters in Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, including Tereza, who was “born of a situation which brutally reveals the irreconcilable duality of body and soul, that fundamental human experience.”

The works on the first program of this year’s ChamberFest Cleveland present three distinctive takes on human experience in the pure language of music. While there certainly are links between the plot of The Fairy Queen and the short pieces Henry Purcell lavished on this semi-opera, these miniatures have no need to mimic the action — just as ChamberFest’s programs don’t simulate specific content in Kundera’s book — to work their magic. Nor do they need words, which is also true of both Carl Frühling’s Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano and Dvořák’s Quartet No. 2 for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, pieces that embrace regional influences and share a tendency to wear their hearts (souls?) on their respective Austrian and Czech sleeves.

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was one of the great Baroque composers who embraced matters of the heart in his stage works as he rose to the pinnacle of his profession during his abbreviated life (a century later, Mozart would die at almost the same age). He dominated the field of British composers until the 20th century. Among Purcell’s many theatrical pieces was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that premiered in 1692 as The Fairy Queen. None of the Bard’s text was used in what was deemed “a Restoration spectacular,” but the story inspired Purcell to create more than two hours of music, much of it performed during the masques for the principal characters, and so voluminous and varied that it can hardly be considered “incidental.” (Soon after the earliest performances, the score disappeared, only to resurface in the early 20th century.)

The score’s nearly 60 selections include dances, arias, duets, choruses, and instrumental numbers played by winds, trumpets, timpani, strings, and harpsichord. The music has been performed in countless versions for period and modern instruments alike. The sprightly and majestic excerpts on this ChamberFest program are drawn from the first, third, and fifth acts, whetting the appetite for more Purcellian treasures.

If a 17th-century British composer has been feted for centuries, the Austrian composer Carl Frühling remains known largely to pianists and champions of his orchestral, chamber, choral, and pieces for voice and piano. Frühling (18681937) was most admired as a teacher and collaborative pianist who teamed in recital with such eminent violinists as Bronisław Huberman and Pablo de Sarasate. He studied in Vienna during the late 1880s, which may explain his music’s resemblance to that of an epic figure of the period and the city — Johannes Brahms. Frühling’s art is in full blossom — appropriate: his surname means “spring” — in the so-called Clarinet Trio, Op. 40, which was published in 1925 but likely was composed several decades earlier.

Whatever its provenance, the work is rich and affecting, with sweeping melodic content and buoyant conversations among clarinet, cello, and piano. The opening movement is the most Brahmsian in its warm interplay and wealth of contrapuntal writing. In the playful second movement, Frühling employs the popular dance forms of the waltz and Ländler to keep the instruments in swirling and tender motion. The pensive slow movement finds musical lines transformed through subtle rhythmic and chromatic means, with hints of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde suggesting a source of motivation. Ebullient spirits dominate the finale, whose brief clouds are set aside by giddy surges of activity, the instruments often savoring the shared material. It is clear from this trio that more of Frühling’s music deserves to emerge from the shadows.

By contrast, Antonín Dvořák needs no introduction, since he is a frequent and cherished presence in concert halls and opera houses. But there is another

good reason for including him on this program. He shares a homeland with Kundera, who mentions him in The Unbearable Lightness of Being when the painter Sabina ponders the nature of identity and wonders what binds Czechs together. Possibly the landscape, she muses. “Or the culture? But what was that? Music? Dvořák and Janáček? Yes. But what if a Czech had no feeling for music? Then the essence of being Czech vanished into thin air.”

Those of us who love music can hardly fathom how anyone of any nationality can’t have a feeling for it, and certainly where Dvořák is concerned. Like so many of his works, the Piano Quartet No. 2, Op. 87, is generous in emotion and fertile in compositional imagination. Dvořák wrote it in the summer of 1889, just before he composed the sunny Symphony No. 8, Op. 88. Both scores are characteristic of Dvořák, a master melodist and virtuoso of motivic development — the ability to take small kernels of material and massage them into different shapes and atmospheres.

This gift is immediately apparent in the opening bars of Op. 87 as the strings announce the robust first subject, which will undergo numerous

transformations, and are soon joined by the piano. New ideas pop up or evolve from previous incarnations of the first subject as they move through major and minor keys and a spectrum of moods. It’s a euphoric ride typical of this most open-hearted of composers.

The cello announces the main theme in the touching slow movement. The piano answers in kind, and the other strings add subtle touches as the original material is expanded into dramatic and tranquil regions. “Grazioso” is Dvořák’s indication at the start of the third movement, a scherzo that couldn’t be more genial, even when it changes character midway to kick up its local heels with all sorts of dotted rhythms and arpeggiated piano flourishes. The invigorating finale is yet another example of Dvořák’s wizardly skill at seamlessly forging ideas into fresh guises. Everyone is on board to begin the movement, which abounds in folksy bravura and a kind of Dvořákian lyricism that this composer mustered to beguiling effect.

© Donald Rosenberg

friday 16

june 7:30pm

KARENIN’S SMILE

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

David Bowlin, violin

Jacques Forestier, violin

Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola

Kirsten Docter, viola

Jonathan Swensen, cello

String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K. 515

Allegro

Andante

Menuetto. Allegretto

Allegro

LEOŠ JANÁČEK

Roman Rabinovich, piano solo

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

Andrew Brady, bassoon

Nelson Ricardo Yovera Perez, horn

Diana Cohen, violin

Jacques Forestier, violin

Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola

Concertino

Moderato

Più mosso

Con moto

Allegro

-intermission-

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS

Diana Cohen, violin

Sterling Elliott, cello

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 92

Allegro non troppo

Allegretto

Andante con moto

Gracioso

Allegro

KARENIN’S SMILE

There is a moment in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being when the couple Tomas and Tereza attempt to distract their dying dog, Karenin, from his discomfort. (Named after the husband in Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, the pet nevertheless is female.) They play a favorite game involving rolls, from a nearby bakery, that seem to provide temporary relief, if not for the dog, then for Tomas and Tereza. “Standing there watching him,” writes Kundera, “they thought once more that he was smiling and that as long as he kept smiling he had a motive to keep living despite his death sentence.”

Smiling or otherwise, animals make an enchanting contribution to this program in Leoš Janáček’s Concertino, as they will to an even greater extent later in the festival in Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals. It isn’t necessary, of course, for creatures great and small to be on the premises for the works at this concert to prompt smiles. Mozart is at his fetching best in the String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K. 515, while Saint-Saëns goes to extremes of emotion in his Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 92, that can’t fail to keep ears riveted.

But back to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was a very busy writer of masterpieces in 1787. Along with the C major quintet this year, he composed the String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, Ein musikalischer Spaß (A Musical Joke), Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music, for two violins, viola, cello, bass), and the opera Don Giovanni. He scored all six of the string quintets he wrote from 1773 to 1791 for string quartet and an additional viola, causing these works to be referred to, somewhat confusingly, as “viola quintets.” All of the pieces are in different keys. The String Quintet No. 3 in C major has the distinction of being the work that inspired another Austrian composer, Schubert, to write his sublime quintet in the same key, but with a second cello joining a string quartet. (His “Trout” Quintet has an even more unusual instrumentation: piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.) The presence of the second viola in Mozart’s quintets, it must be said, adds richness to the overall textures, and it provides another voice in the profusion of exchanges throughout the four movements.

The cello and first violin introduce the principal material at the start of the remarkable first movement — the former outlining the key of C major and the latter setting up the lyrical side of the narrative. They reverse places, in C minor, before all of the instruments share and pass phrases to one another. The development section continues the cello-first violin argument while thickening the conversation and finally entering into a sunny recapitulation, with violins and then violas moving in genial thirds leading to a serene conclusion. The Menuetto that follows finds instruments paired in novel fashion and leads to a trio section of mysterious, lilting elegance.

Mozart the master dramatist comes to the fore in the slow movement, one of his peerless instrumental operatic scenes, in which first violin and first viola engage in heartfelt discussion. It is not far in mood, and transcendence, to the reconciliation scene at the end of The Marriage of Figaro, composed the previous year, with violin as Countess Almaviva and viola as her contrite husband. Everyone is in a mirthful frame of mind in the finale, especially the first violin, which skitters about and sings merrily along with friends. Mozart modifies and disperses the opening theme in all sorts of newfangled ways — at once impish and tender, as only he can be.

Our first encounters with animals at ChamberFest this season happen in Leoš Janáček’s Concertino, which the Czech composer initially envisioned as a piano concerto but turned into a chamber work — or small concerto, as the title indicates — featuring piano, violin, viola, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. Janáček (1854-1928) had already shown his affection for beasts in his 1924 opera The Cunning Little Vixen, which explores the cycle of life with a cast including foxes, hens, and all sorts of other creatures. When he came up with the idea of the Concertino for pianist Jan Heřman, he initially gave no indication that the four movements had any programmatic implications. Only in 1927, a year after the work’s premiere, did Janáček provide specifics about the figures that inhabit this captivating score.

The composer’s individual style, blending elements of Moravian speech and folk music, pervades the Concertino’s quirky activity. The piano begins the opening movement with a galumphing theme that is answered with three morose notes from the horn — a theme Janáček said depicts a “grumpy hedgehog.” Egged on by the piano, the mammal moves higher and becomes more energetic. But the piano dominates, and all the poor hedgehog can do is return to the land of stupor. A trilling and pecking E-flat clarinet portrays a “fidgety squirrel” in the second movement, with the piano brandishing chords and swirling figures that suggest a thwarted attempt to find common ground with the rodent. The seven instruments finally join forces in the shimmering third movement, full of “night owls and other night animals.” A hearty piano cadenza leads to a brilliant close. Janáček described the fourth movement as “a scene from a fairy-tale, where everybody is arguing.” It is part temperamental Czech dance and part piano display piece that winds up with ensemble glee.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) as both virtuoso pianist and composer can be discerned in the enormous Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor that ends this program. Cast in five movements, the 1892 work is an eruption of Gallic Romanticism, with the piano exploring every nook of the keyboard while trading fervent and nimble ideas with violin and cello. The first movement abounds in moody interplay, while the second is charming and suspenseful as set in patterns of five. Saint-Saëns marks the central slow movement “appassionato,” which is conveyed in the long poetic lines the three instruments unfold and intertwine. The players waltz joyfully in the fourth movement, a striking contrast to the sweeping urgency of the finale. Fugal elements add interest and intrigue as the music progresses through transformations of the principal material and into a heavenly realm leading to a dynamic conclusion.

© Donald Rosenberg

FIDELITY AND BETRAYAL

This concert is dedicated to the memory of Rick Goddard, long-time ChamberFest Cleveland Board Member and past Board Chair, who generously and selflessly gave his love and time to the entire ChamberFest community.

PAQUITO D’RIVERA

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

Amy Yang, piano

Three Pieces for Clarinet and Piano

Contradanza

Habanera

Vals Venezolano

saturday 17

june 7:30pm

FRANZ WAXMAN

Jacques Forestier, violin

Amy Yang, piano

JEAN SIBELIUS

Jonathan Swensen, narrator

Ashlee Foreman, soprano

David Bowlin, violin

Sterling Elliott, cello

Amy Yang, piano

Carmen Fantasie

Svartsjukans Nätter (Nights of Jealousy), JS 125

-intermission-

FRANZ SCHUBERT

Amy Yang, piano

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Fantasie in F minor, D. 940

Allegro molto moderato

Largo

Scherzo. Allegro vivace

Final. Tempo primo

LUMANOVSKI & HADDAD

Ismail Lumanovski, clarinet

Jamey Haddad, percussion

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Improvisation

FIDELITY AND BETRAYAL

The character of Sabina in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a direct reflection of the title. She lives life as if she knows it is short and to be relished in the moment. The result is a tendency to see relationships as temporary and disposable. As Kundera writes of Sabina, “Betrayal means breaking ranks and going off into the unknown.”

Whether any of the composers on this program betrayed anyone is not our concern. They certainly went off into the unknown, writing music of arresting originality and depth. Two of the works may be new to listeners — Paquito D’Rivera’s Three Pieces for Clarinet and Piano and Jean Sibelius’s Nights of Jealousy — while the improvisation featuring clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski and percussionist Jamey Haddad is sure to head into uncharted territory. The remaining two fantasies are familiar in one way or another. Carmen, who betrays Don José in Bizet’s opera and meets her doom, is a figure of endless fascination, as can be heard in Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie for violin and piano. In the last year of his life, Schubert composed a number of his greatest masterpieces, among them the Fantasie in F minor for piano four hands, a glorious immersion into darkness and lightness.

Paquito D’Rivera (born 1948) was a virtuoso saxophonist and clarinetist before adding composer to his list of accomplishments. For his contribution to the worlds of jazz, Latin, and classical music, he has won numerous Grammy Awards and received a 2005 National Medal of Arts. The Cuban-American composer wrote Three Pieces for Clarinet and Piano in the early 1990s, turning to music of his homeland and South America to generate these vibrant miniatures. The three movements take the instruments through dance forms based on old models. “Contradanza” hails from a country dance in 18th-century England that here sizzles with irresistible abandon, including foot stomps toward the end. The second movement, “Habanera,” is the first of two on this program. Originally a slow Cuban dance, it was adopted by Bizet for Carmen’s famously seductive aria, which makes a prominent appearance in the Waxman fantasia. D’Rivera heads further south to summon a swirling whirlwind in “Vals

Venezolano,” or Venezuelan waltz, complete with foot stomps by both players.

The German-born Franz Waxman (1906-1967) wrote a fair amount of concert music, including two oratorios, but he is best known for his Hollywood scores for such legendary films as Sunset Boulevard, Rebecca, A Place in the Sun, and The Bride of Frankenstein. He composed the Carmen Fantasie — not to be confused with Pablo de Sarasate’s 1882 Carmen Fantasy — for the 1946 movie Humoresque as a vehicle for the protagonist, violinist Paul Boray, who is portrayed by actor John Garfield. All of the violin sequences in the film — including excerpts from the Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky concertos — show Garfield going through the masterly motions with inestimable help from the hands and artistry of Isaac Stern, who took over from the originally scheduled Jascha Heifetz. Waxman’s fantasia, which he expanded for concert purposes at Heifetz’s request, employs themes associated with the title character in Bizet’s opera that exploit the solo instrument’s expressive and pyrotechnical possibilities. It has long been a popular showpiece for intrepid

violinists, in both Waxman’s duo and orchestral versions.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) is celebrated chiefly for his seven symphonies, tone poems, Violin Concerto, Finlandia, incidental music to plays, and other works featuring orchestra, but he also wrote a good deal of chamber music. This repertoire includes songs and instrumental pieces, among them an amalgam of the two in the extraordinary Svartsjukans nätter (Nights of Jealousy) for violin, cello, piano, soprano, and narrator. ChamberFest received permission from the Sibelius family to perform the unpublished 1893 score. The setting of a poem by the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg — to be recited here in English — finds the narrator musing of his lost love, whom he encounters in a dream while walking in nature. The instruments open the piece with glistening gestures that hint at the ardor soon to be explored. As the narrator recalls his aching romance, a woman’s voice is heard in the distance — his former lover, Minna, who has become “another’s.”

The work precedes all of Sibelius’s symphonies, dating from the period when he was beginning to establish himself as Finland’s foremost composer with such tone poems as Kullervo, Four Legends from the Kalevala, and En saga. His series of melodramas range from the dramatic The Wood Nymph and Snöfrid to the intimate Svartsjukans nätter, written for a concert paying tribute to poet Runeberg (1804–1877). It is such an outpouring of passion and tenderness that one can only wonder why it has never been published. But Sibelius apparently recognized the value of what he had wrought: He drew several of its themes for the last two of his six impromptus for piano, which he also scored for string orchestra. The piano version has been championed by many major artists, including Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes.

[Text for Nights of Jealousy can be found on the next page.]

Music can be monumental without requiring monumental forces, as illustrated to supreme effect in Franz Schubert’s Fantasie in F minor for piano four hands.

The seating of two pianists at one keyboard would appear to limit their ability to explore a world of expressive opportunities, but this couldn’t be further from the truth as conjured by Schubert. He wrote the work in early 1828 — he would die at the end of the year at age 31 — and played the premiere with Eduard von Bauernfeld in May. It is performed often and has been recorded by dozens of illustrious piano teams. In 1979, the choreographer Heinz Poll used the score to keen effect in his Fantasy in F minor for Ohio Ballet.

The Fantasie in F minor is cast in four movements, which proceed without pause, maintaining suspense throughout its evolution of moods and pianistic reciprocity. The opening movement’s dark theme gives way to the same music in F major before bursting into an angry section that will haunt the work. More vehemence arrives in the Largo, whose dotted and triple rhythms lead to a brief episode of Schubertian otherworldliness. The following Scherzo is a tripping waltz with clouds on the horizon that gradually take the pianists back to the first movement’s principal theme. But Schubert doesn’t merely repeat what he’s stated: He plunges the players into a massive fugue that builds in intensity, with lines echoed and transformed as they pass back and forth in agitated layers. Then a bar of silence intervenes before the opening movement’s two themes reappear and move tragically to the final bars, which contain what the musicologist Maurice Brown deems “the most remarkable cadence in the whole of Schubert’s work.”

There likely will be more than a few remarkable cadences — and other musical surprises — when clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski and percussionist Jamey Haddad embark on an improvisation with intrepid ChamberFest allies at concert’s end. Will these musicians be true to the concert’s title, choosing fidelity to certain themes and progressions or playfully betraying one another en route? Stay tuned.

© Donald Rosenberg

Nights of Jealousy

text by Johan Ludvig Runeberg

O dream, O heavenly, sweet, delightful dream! Of you shall I recount the earth’s barren fells,  until their dissonant echo forgets the cry of pain they heard from me, and become accustomed to mutter merely A glad greeting to the astonished wanderer. So quieten, forests, your gentle sighing! And cease, brooks, your cheerful course for an instant! And cliffs, raise your greying brows, and all the spirits of the earth: listen – listen!

It was an evening, a Nordic summer evening, an evening when the sun did not retire within the earth’s embrace, but merely kissed her and then hastened back to the day’s delights; it was such an evening – the wide west lay and slumbered in a sea of gold and saffron, and over all the green hills in the east, like rose gardens in the blue stillness, the tattered, purple-tinged clouds gathered.

In dew and voluptuousness, nature lay still, and I – I wandered amid her wonders, silently, like nature herself. I knew no sorrow, but unconsciously within my heart dwelt a silent pain, like the hunter’s dart that in a wounded eagle’s side remains, yet when he later sits at the cliff edge, and mingles his blood with the sun’s rays, then he feels the torment within his breast but knows not from where it comes, nor when it shall cease; so with the melancholy I could not grasp, a riddle to myself, I walked among the field’s beauties, downcast and low.

When suddenly, from afar, a gentle sound, as if from lute strings lightly struck, dying in unison, reached my ears. I listened – another note, and again a sigh from the spirits within the lute, then later calm, a tranquility reigned, like the quiet of a dusky sound, when the last wave passes across the shoals and the rippling water shines like a mirror.

Then at once my pain had gone, and like a flower I felt at ease, just as the earth’s springs dry out, and the heavens rinse my tears, yet unconscious, like a flower, was my joy.

Carefree longing drew me hence to her, from whose embrace the sound had come, to her I hastened, as though borne on wings, and listened, and then listened more.

Then I came into an arbour, where each trunk raised verdant shields against the light, and not a breath of evening breeze disturbed the twilight sanctuary. No trace of footprints touched the ground, nor sign of working human hands, which seek to raise artistic crowns upon the ruined beauty of the land.

Every plant within the garden bloomed, each tree in sumer leaf arrayed; a flock of birds, air’s feathered children, sat, among the branches with their dreams, as their singing slumbered on their tongues.

I stopped, and there no longer knew, of suffering, or of naught else; my soul was like a ship at sea, stranded without stream or current, and no wind to fill its sails.

But then the heavenly sound came again, and at that instant every spring proclaimed a rich and solemn harmony, which filled melodically with a woman’s voice.

All that was silent in a trance sprang up, each bird then opened up its beak to sing, each leaf within the arbour shook, from every petal rained a gentle dew, and I, I heard the voice so close and near, and knew it then – for it was Minna’s voice.

If you had stood, wrapped in a haze upon a cliff, embraced by spring, and sensed the fragrant roses, even though their crimson hearts you had not seen, and in the warmth you bathed your limbs, although its source was out of sight, and you saw the fleeting storm dispel the hanging mist, as hills and valleys from the formlessness emerged, and if you saw with clarity the friends, who had your sensual joy supplied; then you knew what I became, at the moment Minna’s voice arose, and what I’d suffered, for so long, had sweetly taken, thought so true, within my soul such radiance shone, and love passed like the sun above.

Banished from my heart’s enchanted Eden was a single thought alone, that: Minna, Minna was another’s. Yet my happiness was all I felt, for us together; nothing more could dim my gladness as I ran to close the distance still between us and fall down before her feet.

But she, without surprise or fear, then looked at me with such a caring smile, as though I had been with her for an age; just like an angel to a child she seemed, as when the mother lays the cradle softly

and in the dream the familiar sight appears.

But then the lute was heard no more. No broken word nor passing sigh was offered; but on the little bridge, and through the gaze between the heavens of our hearts, love, in all its myriad forms, was passed and pleasures and abodes exchanged.

Inseparable was our embrace, our lips could never be apart, and in her arms I lay and sensed the swelling of her breast, and drank the moisture from her cheeks and fainted from the ecstasy – and woke.

Translation © Daniel M. Grimley

sunday 18

june 11am-1pm

DVOŘÁK, AND DONUTS

A Father’s Day event in partnership with the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes.

Celebrate Father’s Day with a magical outing, observing musicians in their natural habitat! Mini-concerts take place along a trail leading from the Pavilion to the Gazebo to the Marsh Overlook — you can follow along for all the performances or drop in and out. Performances feature a wide variety of music, from The Fairy Queen to Latin jazz and everything in between. Hands-on activities and sweet treats contribute to the al fresco adventure.

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

Andrew Brady, bassoon

Nelson Ricardo Yovera Perez, horn

David Bowlin, violin

Diana Cohen, violin

Jacques Forestier, violin

Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola

Sterling Elliott, cello

Jonathan Swensen, cello

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Amy Yang, piano

A fun-filled event for all ages, featuring ChamberFest Cleveland performances, hands-on music exploration, youth writing activities from Lake Erie Ink, and more. Food and beverages are available for sale from EDWINS Leadership Institute & Restaurant.

There is limited on-site parking at the Nature Center. Additional parking is available on the surrounding streets. Visit the NCSL website for more information: shakerlakes.org.

MOZART, BRAHMS, AND REDEMPTION

JUDITH WEIR

Zlatomir Fung, cello Unlocked

No. 2: No Justice

No. 3: The Wind Blow East

No. 4: The Keys To The Prison

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, oboe

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

William Caballero, horn

Andrew Brady, bassoon

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Quintet in E-flat major for Piano and Winds, K. 452

Largo – Allegro moderato

Larghetto

Allegretto

-intermission-

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Itamar Zorman, violin

Diana Cohen, violin

Maiya Papach, viola

Samuel Rosenthal, viola

Zlatomir Fung, cello

Nicholas Canellakis, cello

String Sextet No.1 in B-flat major, Op. 18

Allegro ma non troppo Andante ma moderato Scherzo. Allegro molto Rondo. Poco allegretto e grazioso

wednesday 21 june 7:30pm

POSTLUDE DONOR RECEPTION with festival artists

MOZART, BRAHMS, AND REDEMPTION

Metaphors often are helpful guides to meaning and insight, but they can be stretched too far. Or can they? The Mozart and Brahms works on this program have no need for extra-musical analysis; their narratives allow each of us to enter a world of feelings that can never be adequately expressed in words. Judith Weir’s work for solo cello, which ChamberFest Cleveland’s Roman Rabinovich relates to “the theme of political oppression in Czechoslovakia” as portrayed in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, is another matter. These songs are pleas for redemption, to be set free, to be treated fairly and humanely. What all of the pieces on this program share is a spirit of generosity cast in music of striking eloquence.

British composer Judith Weir (born 1954) is the first woman, since the post was created in the 17th century, to serve as Master of the King’s Music, or, as she was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014, Master of the Queen’s Music. Her duties include writing music for royal events, among them the Queen’s state funeral in September 2022. Weir has written numerous operas and musical-theater works, as well as pieces in other genres. She composed Unlocked in 1999 for cellist Ulrich Heinen. She has said that the collection of five movements arose “out of my interest in the magnificent collection of American folk songs in the Library of Congress, Washington, collected by John and Alan Lomax in the 1930s. A significant proportion of the songs were collected from prisoners — mostly Black prisoners in Southern jails. The piece is made up of freely composed cello ‘fantasias’ inspired by five of these songs.”

The soloist on this program, Zlatomir Fung, who in 2019 became the first American in four decades to win first prize in the Tchaikovsky International Cello Competition in Moscow, discusses Unlocked in a YouTube video. The songs have a common thread, he says, “which I think is what makes these pieces relevant today, and that thread is the promise of hope for a better future.” Fung will play three of the songs. “No Justice” (No. 2) is a set of variations on a prison song from Georgia that uses such techniques as strumming, foot stomps, and tapping to reflect the urgency of the text. Yearning lines, pizzicato

passages amid lyricism, and chords conjure a chorus from the Bahamas in “The Wind Blow East” (No. 3). In “The Keys To The Prison” (No. 4), skittish high statements, folksy gestures, and plaintive harmonics evoke a boy in prison singing to his skeptical mother about possessing the keys that will enable him to escape.

Speaking of skeptical, one can only wonder what Leopold Mozart must have thought when his son wrote to him in March 1784 about his newest work, the Quintet in E-flat major for Piano and Winds, K. 452: “I myself consider it to be the best thing I have written in my life.” Big words. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had already composed 37 symphonies, 16 piano concertos, 16 string quartets, and a number of operas, including Idomeneo and The Abduction from the Seraglio. Then again, who are we to argue with Mozart, who could be forgiven for changing his mind in coming years upon creating such works as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, the late symphonies, and so much more? (But not enough, given his death in 1791 at the age of 35.)

The piano-winds quintet is a sterling score in which the instruments are equals — no easy feat, given the virtuoso piano part. But the keyboard, while occasionally a bit of a show-off (as was its original interpreter, Mozart), is mostly collegial in the three contrasting movements. Once the ensemble establishes the key of E-flat in the first-movement introduction and the piano plays the opening theme, the winds have their expressive say as they all wend their way to the main body. What follows is glistening and playful repartee, with Mozart taking the instruments briefly away from the home key before deftly thickening the plot and summoning acrobatic flourishes from piano and horn to bring the activity to a close. The winds are in a serene mood in the Larghetto, passing tender phrases to one another while the piano provides subtle commentary. A few stern moments aside, the aura is lyrical and empathetic, as if the Countess in Figaro — not to be born for two years — is sharing her bittersweet plight. The piano announces the main theme in the last movement, with the winds in perkiest form as they add their buoyant two cents. They shift into minor

ever so briefly, chatter away, and arrive at a group cadenza during which they imitate one another and expound on the principal material. And before you realize it, “the best thing” Mozart had written to that point has taken its final bow.

By the time he composed his String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18, in 1860, Johannes Brahms had already written some of his most indelible music, including the two serenades, the Piano Concerto No. 1, and a bounty of piano works, among them the three piano sonatas (but none of the four symphonies). Surely, his first string sextet is one of his “best things” — until that time or later. Aside from Luigi Boccherini, who wrote nine string sextets, Brahms was an early champion of the combination of two violins, two violas, and two cellos. His two string sextets (the second came four years after the first) are beloved for all of the reasons we hold Brahms so dear: the warmth, the contrapuntal interest, the rhythmic intrigue.

The opening movement of Op. 18 finds Brahms at his most rapturous and fertile. In the first two pages alone, the exquisite theme is passed from two cellos and first viola to violins, with the second viola soon arriving as the music expands and reaches an initial euphoric height. The second theme is marked “dolce” (sweet), the lyricism punctuated by pizzicato input from second viola and second cello. And then Brahms becomes even more poetic, as if this is possible, first with an ardent first-cello statement amid undulating figures and then moving higher into the first violin and first viola in octaves. The development section is made of fragments from the exposition shared throughout the ensemble. The mood darkens and brightens, with the various themes caressed and transformed before the ensemble tiptoes on light pizzicato feet and ends with a hearty bowed flourish.

In the second movement, the first viola states the stern theme, which is answered by the first violin and undergoes a series of elaborate variations. One of them features stormy figures passed among the instruments and is followed

by episodes marked “molto espressivo” and “dolce.” The atmosphere shifts to country-dance mode in the Scherzo, which is layered and rhythmically sly, with no pause into an energetic trio section and later an even sprightlier coda.

Like the first movement, the Rondo finale begins with the first cello stating the theme. Brahms develops and varies material with magisterial command through contrasts of texture and evolution of lines. A central section full of bold echoes leads back to the primary theme and charming fluctuations in character as the six instruments race exuberantly to the finish line.

© Donald Rosenberg

thursday 22 june 7:30pm

BRAHMS, BAGATELLES, AND BREWS

A festival celebration and performance in the Waldorf Beer Hall at Forest City Brewery

“Tap” into a fun and fascinating (and free!) flight of musical selections at this popular west side brewery. Can we interest you in a few neo-Dadaist miniatures? A splash of Balkan music, perhaps? Have you tried the solo horn with a side of electronics? Be sure to save room for a slice of this truly delicious string sextet by Brahms. Just pure fun for musicians and audience alike, no reservations required...but ID is — 18 and over only.

Denis Savelyev, flute

Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, oboe

Ben Chen, clarinet

Andrew Brady, bassoon

William Caballero, horn

Diana Cohen, violin

Itamar Zorman, violin

Maiya Papach, viola

Samuel Rosenthal, viola

Nicholas Canellakis, cello

Zlatomir Fung, cello

Celebrate ChamberFest 2023 with a festive and informal musical gathering. The evening features a selection of solo works and chamber pieces performed by festival artists. Food and beverages are available for sale at the brewery.

The building entrance is located on Freeman Avenue. There is free street parking around the brewery. Additional parking is available in the parking lot at St. Wendelin’s Parish. Visit the Forest City Brewery website for more information: forestcitybrewery.com.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

PRELUDE TALK by Owen Cantor at 6:30pm

GYÖRGY LIGETI

Denis Savelyev, flute & piccolo

Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, oboe

Ben Chen, clarinet

William Caballero, horn

Andrew Brady, bassoon

Six Bagatelles

Allegro con spirito

Rubato. Lamentoso

Allegro grazioso

Presto ruvido

Adagio. Mesto

Molto vivace. Capriccioso

SALINA FISHER

Diana Cohen, violin

Nicholas Canellakis, cello

Roman Rabinovich, piano

LUKAS FOSS

Zlatomir Fung, cello

Orion Weiss, piano

Kintsugi for Piano Trio

Capriccio for Cello and Piano

-intermission-

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS

Jeremy Johnson, narrator

Denis Savelyev, flute & piccolo

Ben Chen, clarinet

Itamar Zorman, violin

James Thompson, violin

Maiya Papach, viola

Zlatomir Fung, cello

Nathan Farrington, bass

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Orion Weiss, piano

Marc Damoulakis, percussion

Robin VanLear, director & costume design

Dancers: Joshua Brown, Story Rhinehart Cadiz, Stephanie Roston, and Kenya Woods

Students from Inlet Dance Theatre

Students from Village Family Farms

Carnival of the Animals

I. Introduction and Royal March of the Lion

II. Hens and Roosters

III. Wild Asses (Swift Animals)

IV. Tortoises

V. The Elephant

VI. Kangaroos

VII. Aquarium

VIII. Characters with Long Ears

IX. The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods

X. Aviary

XI. Pianists

XII. Fossils

XIII. The Swan

XIV. Finale POSTLUDE SOCIAL with festival artists

compliments of Mitchell’s Ice Cream

saturday

24

june

7:30pm

CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

The theme of “lightness” that ChamberFest is exploring this season reaches a peak in this program featuring works from three centuries, including the second concert paying tribute to creatures who delight (and nourish) human beings. Lightness, it should be stressed, doesn’t imply lightweight: It suggests frames of mind and atmosphere, rather than anything relating to matters of gravity or importance. Grace, color, vivacity, and whimsy appear in the program’s varied styles of works by composers from Hungary, New Zealand, the United States, and France.

György Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles for woodwind quintet dates from 1953, before the Hungarian-Austrian composer (1923-2006) ventured into more experimental territory following his 1956 departure from Budapest for the more welcoming artistic milieu of Vienna and Cologne. He would become one of the most original composers of the 20th century, though, ironically, perhaps best known for the music that provides so much of the otherworldly aura in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, alongside pieces by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, and others.

Ligeti’s quintet is much more intimate, to say the least, but no less bewitching. The word “bagatelle,” which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “a short unpretentious instrumental composition,” can be traced to François Couperin and a harpsichord work he wrote and played in 1717. The six bagatelles in Ligeti’s collection reflect the Oxford definition, as well as the influence of Ligeti’s compatriot Béla Bartók, who is memorialized in the fifth piece. Throughout the bagatelles, Ligeti defies convention, surprising the ear as the wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon) embraces spiky rhythms, extremes of dynamics and range, and mysterious expressive realms. The third bagatelle combines waltz-like lines with darting, seven-note figures, the fourth dances in exuberant patterns of seven. After the mournful and aching lament to Bartók, Ligeti sends the quintet on an exuberant and folksy ride alternating meters of two and three before literally dying away.

Another composer who conjures magical sound worlds is Salina Fisher (born 1993 in New Zealand), whose Kintsugi for Piano Trio is a study in shimmering sonorities shared by piano, violin, and cello. As Fisher has written about her 2020 work: “Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. All the pieces of a broken bowl or pot are carefully joined back together with gold-dusted urushi (lacquer). Rather than hiding the damage, kintsugi celebrates all the cracks or ‘scars’ for the unique history that they represent. The object is more beautiful for having been broken. I am personally drawn to kintsugi as a metaphor for embracing ‘brokenness’ and imperfection as a source of strength. This piece for piano trio is my expression and exploration of kintsugi, and involves musical fragmentation, fragility, mending, and finding

beauty in the ‘cracks’.” Violin flutters and crystalline piano figures are melded with high cello trills and slides. The rhapsodic interplay evolves organically through hushed details, sharp edges, and ruminative gestures.

the score with narrator, which ChamberFest is honoring, began in the late 1940s, when Ogden Nash wrote a set of witty topical verses to accompany the music.

Of distinctly more extroverted personality is Lukas Foss’s Capriccio for Cello and Piano, written in 1946 while the German-born American composer was serving as pianist of the Boston Symphony. The piece received its premiere in 1946 at Tanglewood by cellist Gregor Piatogorsky and Foss, who dedicated it to Natalie Koussevitzky, the late first wife of Boston Symphony music director Serge Koussevitzky. Foss (1922-2009) was born in Berlin and moved to the United States with his family in 1937. He absorbed a wealth of musical traditions at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he met Leonard Bernstein, and at Tanglewood. The “American” nature of the Capriccio for Cello and Piano stems in part from Foss’s familiarity with the music of Aaron Copland, including the ballet Billy the Kid. The cello opens with a robust theme that is answered to equally proud effect by the piano. Foss packs an enormous amount of rambunctious and affectionate activity into this six-minute score, which finds the instruments reveling in one another’s company and exploiting the range of their expressive and technical possibilities.

The animal kingdom appears in all its diverse splendor in Camille SaintSaëns’s The Carnival of the Animals for two pianos and chamber ensemble. The French composer wrote the 14-movement collection in 1886 but refused to publish it or allow public performances during his lifetime, fearing that the music world would no longer consider him a serious composer. (He did, however, allow publication of the ethereal 13th movement, “The Swan,” in a version for cello and one piano.) The entire work received a number of semiprivate performances shortly after its creation, sometimes with Saint-Saëns as one of the pianists and the musicians “wearing masks of the heads of the various animals they represented,” according to British writer Edward Blakeman. The full score wasn’t published until 1922, the year after the composer’s death, and quickly became one of his most beloved works. The tradition of performing

Saint-Saëns employs his estimable descriptive powers to portray the fourlegged, airborne, and aquatic protagonists in The Carnival of the Animals Along the way, he briefly quotes Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Offenbach, Rameau, and even himself. The music is as colorful and light as anything Saint-Saëns wrote, full of good humor and tenderness. The two pianos face notable challenges, as in the scampering octaves of No. 3 (“Hermonies,” or wild asses) and the satirical drudgery of scale practicing in No. 11 (“Pianistes,” depicted as a species all their own). Saint-Saëns makes fun of himself in No. 11 (“Fossiles”), borrowing from his own Danse macabre to portray dancing skeletons (partly via xylophone, mais oui) even as he folds popular tunes and a bit of Rosina’s aria “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville into the mischievous narrative. And Saint-Saëns outdoes anything in Disney under the sea in No. 7 (“Aquarium”).

The “lightness of being” that informs so much of ChamberFest’s programming is placed on momentary hold when the cello unfolds the forlorn melody in “The Swan” amid placid piano lines. (The piece shot to international fame in 1905, when Mikhail Fokine choreographed a solo for Anna Pavlova titled The Dying Swan.) But poignancy gives way to rollicking spirits in the finale, with the pianos again trilling and scurrying, the carnival bursting with music-hall exuberance, and many of our animal friends returning to the scene, including the hee-hawing donkeys that tip their tails to Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream

[Text for The Carnival of the Animals can be found on the next page.]

© Donald Rosenberg

Introduction

Camille Saint-Saëns

Was wracked with pains, When people addressed him, As Saint Sanes. He held the human race to blame, Because it could not pronounce his name. So, he turned with metronome and fife, To glorify other kinds of life. Be quiet please - for here begins His salute to feathers, fur, and fins.

The Carnival of the Animals verses by

Ogden Nash

Wild Asses

Have ever you harked to the jackass wild, Which scientists call the onager? It sounds like the laugh of an idiot child, Or a hepcat on a harmoniger. But do not sneer at the jackass wild, There is a method in his heehaw. For with maidenly blush and accent mild The jenny-ass answers shee-haw.

Kangaroos

The kangaroo can jump incredible, He has to jump because he is edible. I could not eat a kangaroo, But many fine Australians do. Those with cookbooks as well as boomerangs, Prefer him in tasty kangaroomeringues.

Royal March of the Lion

The lion is the king of beasts, And husband of the lioness. Gazelles and things on which he feasts Address him as your highoness. There are those that admire that roar of his, In the African jungles and velds, But, I think that wherever the lion is, I’d rather be somewhere else.

Tortoises

Come crown my brow with leaves of myrtle, I know the tortoise is a turtle, Come carve my name in stone immortal, I know the turtoise is a tortle. I know to my profound despair, I bet on one to beat a hare. I also know I’m now a pauper, Because of its tortley, turtley, torper.

Aquarium

Some fish are minnows, Some are whales. People like dimples, Fish like scales, Some fish are slim, And some are round, They don’t get cold, They don’t get drowned. But every fishwife Fears for her fish. What we call mermaids They call merfish.

Hens and Roosters

The rooster is a roistering hoodlum, His battle cry is “cock-a-doodleum”. Hands in pockets, cap over eye, He whistles at pullets, passing by.

The Elephant

Elephants are useful friends, Equipped with handles at both ends. They have a wrinkled moth-proof hide. Their teeth are upside down, outside. If you think the elephant preposterous, You’ve probably never seen a rhinosterous.

People With Long Ears

In the world of mules

There are no rules.

The Cuckoo in the Middle of the Wood

Cuckoos lead bohemian lives, They fail as husbands and as wives, Therefore, they cynically dispariage Everybody else’s marriage.

Aviary

Puccini was Latin, and Wagner Teutonic, And birds are incurably philharmonic, Suburban yards and rural vistas Are filled with avian Andrew Sisters. The skylark sings a roundelay, The crow sings “The Road to Mandalay,” The nightingale sings a lullaby, And the sea gull sings a gullaby. That’s what shepherds listened to in Arcadia Before somebody invented the radia.

Fossils

At midnight in the museum hall, The fossils gathered for a ball. There were no drums or saxophones, But just the clatter of their bones, A rolling, rattling carefree circus, Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas. Pterodactyls and brontosauruses Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses. Amid the mastodonic wassail I caught the eye of one small fossil, “Cheer up sad world,” he said and winked, “It’s kind of fun to be extinct.”

Finale

Now we’ve reached the grand finale, Animale carnivale. Noises new to sea and land, Issue from the skillful band. All the strings contort their features, Imitating crawly creatures. All the brasses look like mumps

From blowing umpah, umpah, umps. In outdoing Barnum and Bailey, and Ringling, Saint-Saëns has done a miraculous thingling.

Pianists

Some claim that pianists are human, And quote the case of Mr Truman. Saint Saëns, upon the other hand, Considered them a scurvy band. A blight they are, he said, and simian, Instead of normal men and womian.

The Swan

The swan can swim while sitting down, For pure conceit he takes the crown, He looks in the mirror over and over, And claims to have never heard of Pavlova.

sunday 25 june 3pm

VORTEX

PRELUDE TALK by Owen Cantor at 2pm

ALFRED SCHNITTKE

Itamar Zorman, violin

Diana Cohen, violin

Moz-Art (after the fragment K. 416d)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Orion Weiss, solo piano

Itamar Zorman, violin

James Thompson, violin

Samuel Rosenthal, viola

Nicholas Canellakis, cello

Nathan Farrington, bass

Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414

Allegro

Andante

Rondeau. Allegretto

-intermission-

MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN

Nicholas Canellakis, solo cello

Diana Cohen, violin

Itamar Zorman, violin

James Thompson, violin

Samuel Rosenthal, viola

Maiya Papach, viola

Zlatomir Fung, cello

Nathan Farrington, bass

FRANCIS POULENC

Denis Savelyev, flute

Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, oboe

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

William Caballero, horn

Andrew Brady, bassoon

Roman Rabinovich, piano

Vortex for Cello and Strings

Sextet for Piano and Winds, FP 100

Allegro vivace

Divertissement: Andantino

Finale: Prestissimo

This ChamberFest program draws its title not from a novel but from a work receiving one of its earliest performances. It shares the stage with two views of Mozart — first by a Russian composer and then by The Man himself — and the season’s most insouciant piece, Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds. Contrasts are rampant at this concert. Prepare to be propelled into a whirlpool — a vortex — of styles and moods.

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) was a master of stylistic variety, the ability to meld numerous influences into something new, fresh, subversive, and meaningful. Initially indebted to his fellow Russian, Dmitri Shostakovich, Schnittke eventually carved out his own artistic niche through the polystylism that would inform many of his works. He wrote that “the goal of my life is to unify serious music and light music, even if I break my neck in doing so.” No necks are broken during Moz-Art, his five-minute violin duo, though more than a few rules are. Schnittke borrows themes from Mozart, including a fragment from an unpublished 1783 pantomime (K. 416d) and the famous opening from the Symphony No. 40, as he places the violins in consonant and dissonant conversation (competition?). Notes clash and caress, tempos change suddenly, one violinist whistles, plucked notes rub shoulders with bowed ones. It’s all very Classical, except when it isn’t. As Roman Rabinovich puts it, “They try to play Mozart but constantly get interrupted with the wrong things.” In 1977, a year after he wrote the piece, Schnittke expanded the score for two violins and two small string orchestras under the title Moz-Art à la Haydn

Which brings us to real Mozart in the form of the Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414. What, a piano concerto on a chamber-music concert? Why not? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote all of these concertos for himself as soloist with a small group of colleagues. A conductor isn’t required in most of these pieces. The pianist can set tempos and collaborate closely with the other musicians on details as if they are playing chamber music — which they are. It was common, in fact, for ensembles to adapt instrumentation for intimate

circumstances. So, the two oboes and two horns in the concerto’s original score give way to the more streamlined string version offered at this concert, with no injury to the music.

And what happy and affectionate music it is. Mozart wrote the piece in 1782 in Vienna during a productive period that included the composition of The Abduction from the Seraglio, Serenade No. 12 in C minor for Winds, and the “Haffner” Symphony. The score’s genial nature is established in the first movement with the strings shaping the first theme and then handing it over to the soloist. The piano engages in playful and lyrical interplay with the strings, suggesting how agile a player Mozart was, and also how inventive a composer. Further evidence can be heard in the cadenza, written out in the score, which heads in many directions as Mozart improvises on what he has already shared. He pays tribute to Johann Christian Bach in the Andante, quoting from his late mentor’s overture to La calamità de’ cuori with warm lyricism and offering an eloquent cadenza. Mozart returns to the brightness of A major in the playful finale, an Allegretto full of tender and nimble activity.

Like Mozart, Michael Stephen Brown (born 1987) is an admired pianist who also has won acclaim as a composer. He was the recipient of the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant and appears often with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His Vortex for Cello and Strings is the newest piece at ChamberFest this season, having received its premiere in April under the auspices of Chamber Music Sedona. In a program note provided to ChamberFest, Brown writes:

“Vortex for Cello and Strings is inspired by both Ezra Pound’s quote, ‘the vortex is the point of maximum energy,’ and the mythical energy believed to exist in the natural landscape of Sedona. Sedona’s beauty and powerful energy has moved me since I first visited when I was eight years old. Vortex is also a culmination of fifteen years of artistic collaboration with cellist Nicholas Canellakis. We play in a cello/piano duo, and I’ve written several works for him. After showing Nick a draft of Vortex, he was disappointed there weren’t enough beautiful cello melodies. After a great deal of arguing, I realized he was right. I reworked

the piece with that in mind, and the final version intermingles soaring cello melodies with kinetic, pulsating energy. The strings swirl vibrantly all around the central voice of the cello, as if pushing and pulling against the currents of life. You might think of the work as a hero’s journey during uncertain times, resolved at the end by all the players uniting in a feeling of celebration.”

The urge to celebrate is on copious display in Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds, a staple of the wind repertoire. The French composer (18991963) was a member of the group known as Les Six, founded in the 1920s, of young French and Swiss composers who revolted against Romanticism and Impressionism and produced music that balanced the serious with the irreverent. Poulenc was a master in this regard, capable of writing works as penetrating as the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1956), songs, and choral pieces or whipping up pieces as zany and sentimental as the Sextet for Piano and Winds (1931-32). He wrote the last during the same period he composed the whimsical chamber cantata Le bal masqué, which shares some material with the Sextet, and the motoric, Mozart-like Concerto for Two Pianos.

The first movement of the Sextet is marked “Very fast and carried away,” which tells volumes about the music’s character. The piano and friends race up scales, the horn whoops into the stratosphere, and the ensemble proceeds with loony abandon. Poulenc seems to be thumbing his nose at the world as he flings flutter-tongued passages, pointed grace notes, and curlicue phrases at our ears. Then the motion stops as the bassoon plays a sad solo and a tune resembling “My Melancholy Baby” makes its way around the group. But the jazzy events of the early part of the movement return to conclude the romp.

The oboe introduces a sugar-coated tune in the second-movement “Divertissement,” but the serenity is interrupted by a middle section abounding in musical hijinks before settling back into lyrical mode. Rude remarks begin the last movement, a scene of heightened frivolity set in a music hall or cabaret. Then everything stops and the music settles back into the nostalgic world of “My Melancholy Baby,” suggesting that life is destined to balance the light with the dark.

© Donald Rosenberg

ES MUSS SEIN (IT MUST BE!)

PRELUDE TALK by Rabbi Roger C. Klein at 6:30pm

LERA AUERBACH

Diana Cohen, violin

Julie Albers, cello

Michael Stephen Brown, piano

Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 28

Prelude

Andante lamentoso

Presto

thursday 29

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Daniel Chong, violin

Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin

Jessica Bodner, viola

Jay Campbell, cello

String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135

Allegretto

Vivace

Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo

Der schwer gefasste Entschluss

-intermission-

SERGEY TANEYEV

Daniel Chong, violin

James Thompson, violin

Teng Li, viola

Julie Albers, cello

Michael Stephen Brown, piano

Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 30

Introduzione: Adagio mesto – Allegro patetico

Scherzo: Presto – Moderato teneramente

Largo

Finale. Allegro vivace

june 7:30pm

ES MUSS SEIN (IT MUST BE!)

Fate is not something we can control, even if we try. Milan Kundera addresses the issue in The Unbearable Lightness of Being through the lens of Tomas, who realizes he must respond to his separation from Tereza by leaving Zurich and returning to her in Prague. “Es muss sein. Es muss sein,” Tomas says. He is quoting Beethoven, a stalwart believer in the concept of fate, who prints the phrase at the start of the last movement of his final string quartet, No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, under the title “Der schwer gefasste Entschluss,” or “the difficult decision.” Beethoven’s transcendent quartet shares a ChamberFest program with pieces by Russian-born composers for whom destiny played vital roles in the trajectory of their careers. Auerbach defected from her homeland in 1991 to pursue a new musical life. Taneyev was a titanic pianist and teacher — his students included Rachmaninoff, Gliere, and Scriabin — whose music was destined, unjustifiably, to loom in the shadows of works by such colleagues as Tchaikovksy and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Lera Auerbach, born in 1973 in Chelyabinsk, Soviet Union, has thrived not only as a composer, but also as a pianist, author, playwright, and visual artist. She has said that she was not influenced by Russian composers; she came to the United States at the age of 17 during a concert tour. But her music does have the expressive power of Shostakovich, if with a distinctive personality all its own. “To me, music is communication,” Auerbach told San Francisco Classical Voice in 2013. “Somehow I guess the intensity that I put into my work is able to translate to the listener, or reach the listener through the performers. It’s hard to tell. What I try to do as an artist is just to be very honest with each piece.”

In her Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 28, from the mid-1990s, Auerbach explores a range of moods packed into 13 minutes of music. The short Prelude begins with the piano introducing a darting theme soon answered by disembodied cello and violin playing harmonics. The cello sings mournfully in the Andante lamentoso, with the piano shaping rising figures and the violin offering hushed responses. The Presto finale shows another side of Auerbach’s art, full of energy, propulsion, and foreboding, the strings occasionally eerie. An audacious race leads the ensemble to a vehement close.

Ludwig van Beethoven never heard his String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, in performance. It received its premiere in March 1828, a year after his death. The work is almost a summation of Beethoven’s achievement as composer of string quartets, at once charming, affecting, and aware of his place as artist and mortal. Unlike the revolutionary quartets immediately preceding it, Op. 135 embraces matters of Classical style with masterly humility. Which is not to say that the music is in any way conventional. Beethoven continually astonishes with a freshness of imagination and feeling that seizes us from the opening playful gestures to the finale’s delightful farewell.

With the instruments starting things off by teasing us in the first movement, we don’t discern the key of this F major quartet until the fifth bar. Beethoven constantly switches gears in rhythm, texture, and thematic material, stopping

now and then to take a breath before tweaking what’s already been stated. The Vivace second movement finds the strings skipping blithely in offbeat patterns, with a dizzying dance midway that fades back and takes up earlier activity.

The third movement, marked “singing and tranquil,” is among the most touching in the Beethoven canon. Each instrument plays a crucial role in this act of musical reverence, moving slowly in the opening section and almost standing still as Beethoven continues his rumination. He returns to the movement’s key of D-flat major as the instruments expand on the main theme and bring the movement to peaceful resolution.

Beethoven generates the content of the finale from the “Muss es sein?”—“Es muss sein!” motives printed at the top of the movement beneath the heading “Der schwer gefasste Entschluss.” Whatever the “difficult decision” implied by the title, the motives take the ensemble through bright, endearing interplay interrupted by momentary darkness. “Muss es sein?” the strings plead before offering a hesitant “Es muss sein!” They tiptoe through a quick coda and wind up determined to put an exclamation point on the matter: “Es muss sein!” — and goodbye.

If Beethoven says what he needs to say in 24 minutes, Sergey Taneyev requires nearly twice as long to get his musical thoughts off his chest in the massive Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 30 (1910-11). It is worth the effort onstage and off. Here is an extraordinary, and largely unknown, work that shows Taneyev (1856-1915) to be a composer of remarkable vision and technical prowess, as well as a Romanticist never reluctant to turn up the artistic heat. Tchaikovsky called him the “Russian Bach” for his mastery of polyphony; others dubbed him the “Russian Brahms” for similar reasons. The piano writing in the Quintet indulges in virtuosic flights, just as Taneyev evidently did at the keyboard. But the density of material for all the instruments also shows his command of counterpoint in richly colored and expressive splendor.

Taneyev is always clear about his emotional intentions. The opening of the first movement is marked Adagio mesto, slowly and sad, with the piano intoning the initial theme and strings answering accordingly. They arrive suddenly at the main body, Allegro patetico, fast and pathetic. What follows is an extended unfolding of brooding, lyrical, and potent ideas that become more ardent as the instruments weave lines around one another. The players thunder and dance, commiserate and yearn. Taneyev’s penchant for chromaticism pervades the movement, which somehow never feels padded, even though the musicians (and listeners) are occupied for about 19 minutes. Think of Schubert’s “heavenly length” transferred to Russia, and you get the picture.

The remaining movements are shorter, though no less compelling. The Scherzo is an elfin march of intricate and captivating interplay, with piano and strings occasionally engaged in giddy competition. Taneyev changes course for a trio of lilting tenderness before returning to the opening march, with glittering piano figures adding to the festive atmosphere. The Largo begins with a heavy unison statement, followed by a passacaglia-like phrase in the cello that permeates the movement. Songful string lines, filigreed piano passages, and urgent melding of materials add to the striking and impassioned nature of the movement.

It may be wise to fasten seat belts for the finale, a profusion of ideas that alternate between ferocity, ardor, and grandeur. Taneyev somehow builds the narrative to greater heights as he knits instrumental lines together on the way to what can only be called a euphoric conclusion that his student Rachmaninoff must have envied.

© Donald Rosenberg

friday 30

june 7:30pm

WORDS MISUNDERSTOOD

GYÖRGY LIGETI Poème symphonique (for 100 metronomes)

CAROLINE SHAW

Teng Li, viola

Jay Campbell, cello

Limestone & Felt

GABRIELLA SMITH

Diana Cohen, violin

Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin

Jessica Bodner, viola

Jay Campbell, cello

Carrot Revolution

MAX BRUCH

Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin

Diana Cohen, violin

Daniel Chong, violin

James Thompson, violin

Teng Li, viola

Jessica Bodner, viola

Julie Albers, cello

Nathan Farrington, bass

String Octet in B-flat major

Allegro moderato

Adagio

Allegro molto

WORDS MISUNDERSTOOD

The arts reflect the sensibilities of their age. Some works embrace the status quo in style and substance. Others are ahead of their time and must wait to find acceptance, or even acknowledgement that they exist. This program of music most listeners may never have heard is an opportunity to open ears and take in an array of sound worlds. ChamberFest Cleveland co-artistic director and pianist Roman Rabinovich calls it “a funky program, not without humor.”

The evening’s title, like so many others at this year’s festival, comes from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, in which the characters of the painter Sabina and her lover, the professor Franz, are constantly testing one another’s limits. “If I were to make a record of all Sabina and Franz’s conversations, I could compile a long lexicon of their misunderstandings,” Kundera writes. Franz goes further, questioning the ability of words to communicate and espousing the ineffable power of music. As Kundera writes of Franz, “what he yearned for at that moment, vaguely but with all his might, was unbounded music, absolute sound, a pleasant and happy allencompassing, overpowering, window-rattling din to engulf, once and for all, the pain, the futility, the vanity of words. Music was the negation of sentences, music was the anti-word!”

No words, but certainly hints of misunderstanding, greeted the September 1963 premiere in Hilversum, the Netherlands, of György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique, which is scored for the unusual instrumentation of 100 metronomes. The work couldn’t be more different from the composer’s Six Bagatelles performed earlier this season at ChamberFest. As a video of the premiere of Poème symphonique made for Dutch television reveals, the audience sat uneasily as 10 men and women dressed in concert attire wound up the metronomes, turned them on (at Ligeti’s signal), and left the platform. During the 10 minutes that followed, the metronomes ticked away at different tempos, the textures thinning and the rhythmic motion decreasing as machines gradually dropped out, leaving a single metronome to have its dying say (minus words). Some listeners snickered at the sound of so much

audacious absurdity, but everyone sat politely afterwards as Ligeti explained his creation, in German. (The video was never broadcast and only rediscovered in recent years.)

Seven decades later, Poème symphonique remains an invigorating example of Ligeti’s relentless exploration of sonic possibilities. The piece also was the composer’s way of criticizing what was happening in the music world at the time. “What bothers me nowadays are above all ideologies (all ideologies, in that they are stubborn and intolerant towards others), and Poème symphonique is directed above all against them,” he wrote. “So I am in some measure proud that I could express criticism without any text, with music alone.”

Words also aren’t needed for the rest of this program. Caroline Shaw, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music, a year earlier composed a work that paints images of diverse textures. In Limestone & Felt, a viola and a cello limn hard and soft surfaces. As the composer (born 1982) has written, “These are materials that can suggest place (a cathedral apse, or the inside of a wool hat), stature, function, and — for me — sound (reverberant or muted). In Limestone & Felt, the hocketing pizzicato and pealing motivic canons are part of a whimsical, mystical, generous world of sounds echoing and colliding in the imagined eaves of a gothic chapel. These are contrasted with the delicate, meticulous, and almost reverent placing of chords that, to our ears today, sound ancient and precious, like an antique jewel box. Ultimately, felt and limestone may represent two opposing ways we experience history and design our own present.”

Another gifted American composer, Gabriella Smith, mashes together a mad assortment of ideas in Carrot Revolution, which ChamberFest co-artistic director Diana Cohen likens to “rock music for string quartet.” Smith (born 1991) was inspired to create the piece in 2015 on a commission from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia for an exhibition titled “The Order of Things,” which also involved three visual artists. As she walked through the museum, the composer thought of a quote mistakenly attributed to Cézanne: “The day will come when a single, freshly observed carrot will start a revolution.” The result is a work in which all sorts of musical styles bump into one another, with the instruments immersed in a hyperactive flow of interplay with roots from ancient sources to newfangled ideas. “The piece is a patchwork of my wildly contrasting influences and full of weird, unexpected juxtapositions and intersecting planes of sound, inspired by the way Barnes’ ensembles show old works in new contexts and draw connections between things we don’t think of as being related,” Smith has written.

The final work on the program is the oldest, and the last, written by German composer Max Bruch (1838-1920). Begun as a string quintet in 1919, soon after

the death of his wife and Germany’s defeat in World War I, the piece became a String Octet in B-flat major the following year, not long before Bruch’s death. The score existed only in the composer’s own handwritten manuscript until it was published in 1996.

Bruch dedicated the piece to a friend, the German-born violinist Willy Hess, whose artistry can be discerned in the extravagant writing for the first violin. Indeed, the String Octet sometimes sounds like a concerto for violin and strings as the “soloist” scales the heights in rapturous and acrobatic phrases redolent of what Bruch had woven into his two most beloved scores, the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 (1866), and Kol Nidrei, Op. 47 (1880), for cello and orchestra. The German Romanticism that pervades those early works is firmly in place in the String Octet many decades later, even as Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and others were heading in new directions.

The String Octet is warm and forceful, abounding in glowing thematic narratives and rich harmonic writing. The opening movement begins with an almost prayerful layering of string lines before the first violin takes the reins and drives the dramatic activity. Bruch’s mastery of counterpoint imparts notable inner interest to the intricate conversation, with motives echoed by the lower strings. The second-movement Adagio is a solemn song underpinned by dotted figures. A nostalgic middle section as lovely as anything Bruch wrote leads back to more troubled sentiments and then an aura of wistful resignation. The buoyant finale returns the first violin to the role of primary narrator. Bruch provides ample contrasts of key and texture, including short, soaring lines for lower instruments, and whips up a burst of animated energy to end his vibrant swan song.

© Donald Rosenberg

LIGHTNESS OF BEING

PRELUDE TALK by James O’Leary at 6:30pm

HELMUT LACHENMANN

Jay Campbell, cello Pression

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Franklin Cohen, clarinet

Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin

Diana Cohen, violin

Jessica Bodner, viola

Jay Campbell, cello

Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581

Allegro

Larghetto

Menuetto – Trio I – Trio II

Allegretto con variazioni

-intermission-

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Daniel Chong, violin

Jessica Bodner, viola

Teng Li, viola

Julie Albers, cello

Nathan Farrington, bass

Michael Stephen Brown, piano

Piano Sextet in D Major, Op. 110

Allegro vivace

Adagio

Menuetto. Adagio – Trio

Allegro vivace

saturday 01 july 7:30pm

LIGHTNESS OF BEING

And so, we come to the final program in the 2023 season of ChamberFest Cleveland, which has drawn inspiration from, but not been restrained by, themes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The program’s title, echoing that of this year’s festival, is reflected to supreme effect in the works by two of the most famous prodigies in music, Mozart and Mendelssohn. The living German composer Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression for cello stands as a stark contrast to the worlds of his Austrian and German predecessors. Such is the ever-changing nature of the human condition, as Milan Kundera probes in his novel: “The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?...”

Helmut Lachenmann, born in 1935, has alternated between weight and lightness as one of the champions of musique concrète, a style embracing recorded sounds but expanded by the composer as musique concrète instrumentale to define music that explores a range of acoustical sounds. As the composer has written, “This piece originated as an introduction to instrumental musique concrète. In this sort of piece it is common for sound phenomena to be so refined and organized that they are not so much the results of musical experiences as of their own acoustic attributes. Timbres, dynamics, and so on arise not of their own volition but as components of a concrete situation characterized by texture, consistency, energy, resistance. This does not come from within but from a liberated compositional technique. At the same time it implies that our customary sharply-honed auditory habit is thwarted. The result is aesthetic provocation: beauty denying habit.”

Pression for cello, written in 1969 and revised in 2010, exemplifies this aesthetic through sundry pressures via extended techniques. Fingers lightly touch the strings and slide up and down. The bow grazes the bridge and beneath the tail piece. The player taps and rubs the body of the instrument. Otherworldly

sounds emerge as fingers stroke the strings from below and the bow glides along the bridge. The results are provocative and beautiful.

Nothing is remotely provocative about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A major, K. 581, which resides in a realm of sublime beauty. As noted earlier in ChamberFest, Mozart considered his Quintet in E-flat major for Piano and Winds, K. 452, composed in 1784, to be “the best thing I have written in my life.” But he could have made the same claim about so many of his other works, including the Clarinet Quintet, from 1789. Mozart wrote the piece for his favorite clarinetist, Anton Stadler, on whom he would bestow the equally celestial Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A major, K. 622, two years later (just two months before the composer’s death at 35).

“Lightness of being” couldn’t be summoned more luminously than in K. 581, in which the clarinet and string quartet enter into conversations at once poetic and entrancing. The strings open the first movement with a theme of infinite warmth answered by the clarinet in sophisticated, chipper fashion. This is clearly a meeting of equals: Each instrument contributes commentary as the narrative unfolds in all its graceful wisdom. The second violin introduces a tender new theme that the clarinet mirrors in minor. Mozart wanders from A major in the short development section and introduces fugal elements, with the clarinet playing buoyant arpeggios until the opening material returns with new expressions on its face.

As is often the case in Mozart, the slow movement, Larghetto, is a scene of operatic poignancy, with the clarinet spinning lines of ineffable delicacy. The first violin and clarinet trade phrases, and the clarinet rises softly above shimmering, muted strings before returning to the main theme and a gradual descent to the tranquil close. The hearty Menuetto, unusually, has two trios, rather than one. The first trio, for strings, shifts into A minor, with the first violin wandering above the others. The clarinet plays a charming, Ländler-like figure in the second trio, which includes two-octave arpeggios this instrument

negotiates so nimbly.

Never at a compositional loss, Mozart offers a brilliant finale, Allegretto con variazioni, in which everyone has the chance to comment on the theme. The clarinet is typically acrobatic and lyrical, the strings alternate between support system and featured quartet. In the third variation, the viola plays a lamentation. The clarinet’s ability to scamper is celebrated in the fourth variation. An Adagio finds the players in a serene frame of mind, with the clarinet again touchingly agile. Light breaks through clouds for the jovial final Allegro, almost a gleeful foreshadowing of Papageno in The Magic Flute two years later.

“The Mozart of the nineteenth century.” That’s what Robert Schumann called Felix Mendelssohn, who showed gifts at a young age similar to those of his Salzburg counterpart. By the time he was 17, Mendelssohn had already composed his remarkable Octet and the glistening overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Both his exceptional compositional skill and pianistic prowess can be heard in the Sextet in D major for Piano and Strings, Op. 110, which he wrote in 1824 at the age of 15. The score wasn’t published until 1868, more than two decades after Mendelssohn’s death, but it has been taken up by musicians eager to explore more of this composer’s rich chamber repertoire.

Especially pianists, in this case. The Sextet — for piano, violin, two violas, cello, and double bass — features a keyboard part of eye- and finger-crossing

intricacy. The strings introduce the graceful theme that will pervade the first movement, and the piano extends the delightful discourse, while skipping about the keyboard and exulting in Mendelssohn’s youthful lyricism. As the strings take up these ideas, the piano journeys through eighth-note figures and a triplet marathon of exhilarating sparkle — a hallmark of Mendelssohn style — that spills into the development section and all the way to the recapitulation.

The Adagio is marked “dolce,” and Mendelssohn delivers all of the sweetness at his teenaged beckon. Mozart hovers over the lyrical lines, with the piano embroidering amid string sighs. A stormy Menuetto in D minor follows, its trio shifting into F major and strings waltzing gently alongside graceful piano flourishes.

Mendelssohn the keyboard whiz and frolicsome spirit inhabits the finale. The piano simply can’t restrain itself while flickering around the strings, which do their best to mirror their colleague’s irrepressible, sixteenth-note glee. But wait! Mendelssohn thrusts the ensemble back to the Menuetto’s turbulent theme — and then just as quickly returns to the finale’s main material at a breakneck pace to bring the work, and ChamberFest Cleveland’s 2023 season, to a fiery finish.

© Donald Rosenberg

ARTIST BIOS

ARTISTIC DIRECTORS

Violinist DIANA COHEN is the co-founder and co-artistic director of ChamberFest Cleveland. She leads a multi-faceted career as a concertmaster, chamber musician, curator, and soloist. She was appointed Concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in 2012 and has appeared as soloist with numerous symphony orchestras, including those in Calgary, Richmond, Rochester, Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Charleston, among others. Ms. Cohen has toured and

FRANKLIN COHEN, clarinet, is the cofounder and co-artistic director of ChamberFest Cleveland. He was the longest serving principal clarinetist and most frequent soloist in the history of The Cleveland Orchestra, and was named Principal Clarinet Emeritus, the first honor of its kind since the orchestra’s founding. Mr. Cohen has been the featured soloist in more than 200 performances throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. His Deutsche Grammophon recording of Debussy’s First Clarinet Rhapsody, conducted by Pierre Boulez, won two Grammy Awards in 1996. Mr. Cohen has collaborated with such leading artists as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Emanuel Ax, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler, and András Schiff, and has

Pianist ROMAN RABINOVICH was named as a co-artistic director of ChamberFest Cleveland in 2022. At the opening of the 2022-23 season, he made his Carnegie Hall Concerto Debut, stepping in at 24-hours’ notice with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Mozart’s Concerto K. 271.

recorded with the Grammy-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and performed with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Sejong Soloists, The Knights, The Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, she was awarded the Jerome Gross Prize in Violin and this year is the recipient of the 2023 Alumni Achievement Award. She was also inducted into the Cleveland Heights High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. Together with her husband, pianist Roman Rabinovich, Ms. Cohen founded Calgary’s first international chamber festival, ChamberFest West, which had its inaugural season in July 2022.

performed with the Guarneri, Takacs, Tokyo, and Emerson String Quartets. He gained international recognition as the first clarinetist awarded First Prize at the 1968 Munich International Music Competition. Mr. Cohen has been on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music since 1976, with former students in orchestras and ensembles throughout the world.

Other solo appearances include the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony, NFM Leopoldinum, Israel Symphony, Punta Gorda Symphony, and Helena Symphony. Recent recital engagements include Phillips Collection, Portland Piano International, the Steinway Series at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Philip Lorenz Memorial Piano Series, Maverick Concerts, and Music at MoCA Concert Series. Mr. Rabinovich made his Israel Philharmonic debut under Zubin Mehta at age ten, having immigrated to Israel a year before from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Winner of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2008, he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and The Julliard School, and was among the first of three young pianists to be championed by Sir András Schiff for his ‘Building Bridges’ series.

FESTIVAL MUSICIANS

JULIE ALBERS is Principal Cello of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. She made her major orchestral debut at seventeen with The Cleveland Orchestra and has performed in recital and with orchestras throughout North America, Europe, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand. Ms. Albers moved to Cleveland in high school to pursue studies through the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. After winning the Grand Prize at the XIII International Competition for Young Musicians in Douai, France, she toured that country as soloist with Orchestre Symphonique de Douai. She was named the

JESSICA BODNER is the violist of the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet. She has recently appeared at venues such as Carnegie Hall, 92nd Street Y, Library of Congress, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Wigmore Hall (London), Musikverein (Vienna), Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Seoul Arts Center, as well as festivals including Chamber Music Northwest, ChamberFest Cleveland, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Yellow Barn, Perigord Noir in France, Monte Carlo Spring Arts Festival, San Miguel de Allende, Istanbul’s Cemal Recit Rey, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hitzacker, and Heidelberg String Quartet Festival. Recent collaborators include mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, clarinetists Charles Neidich and

Parker Quartet’s appointment as Blodgett Quartetin-Residence.

DAVID BOWLIN is on the violin and chamber music faculty at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he also serves as Chair of Strings. First prize winner of the 2003 Washington International Competition, he has performed extensively as a soloist, with premieres of violin concertos written for him at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and Aspen Music Festival. As a chamber musician, he has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and performs regularly with the Oberlin Trio and the Bowlin-Cho Duo. He is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and a former member of the Naumburg Awardwinning Da Capo Chamber Players. Mr. Bowlin

first Gold Medal Laureate of South Korea’s 2003 Gyeongnam International Music Competition. Ms. Albers participated in a three-year residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two. Her album with ChamberFest’s Orion Weiss on Artek includes works by Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Schumann, Massenet, and Piatagorsky. She serves as an assistant professor at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, where she holds the Mary Jean and Charles Yates Cello chair at the McDuffie Center for Strings.

Jörg Widmann, pianists Menahem Pressler, Shai Wosner, Gloria Chien, and Orion Weiss, violinists Soovin Kim and Donald Weilerstein, violists Kim Kashkashian and Roger Tapping, cellists Deborah Pae, Marcy Rosen, Natasha Brofsky, and Paul Katz, and percussionist Ian Rosenbaum. Ms. Bodner is a faculty member of Harvard University’s Department of Music in conjunction with the

has performed as guest concertmaster with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Marlboro Festival Orchestra, and IRIS Orchestra. He has appeared at the Banff, Bowdoin, Bridgehampton, Chesapeake, Olympic, and Ojai festivals, ChamberFest Cleveland, the

Boston Chamber Music Society, and the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival.

ANDREW BRADY joined the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2022-23 season as Principal Bassoon, having previously held that position in both the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Louisiana Philharmonic. As a soloist, Mr. Brady has performed concertos by Hertel, Rossini, Mozart, Weber, and Zwilich with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Southeast Symphony, the Los Angeles Doctor’s Symphony, and The Colburn Orchestra.

MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN, pianist and composer, was the winner of the 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant. He recently performed as a soloist with the National, Seattle, Grand Rapids, North Carolina, New Haven, and

Hartford Symphony, as well as Third Horn with the Montreal Symphony and Montreal Opera, and Acting Third Horn with the Boston Symphony

He appears regularly as Principal Bassoon with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, and has performed as the guest principal with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and at Carnegie Hall, and on European tours with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In past summers, Mr. Brady has been a proud member of the Chineke! Orchestra, the United Kingdom’s first ensemble for Black and ethnically diverse classical musicians, including a performance at the 2017 BBC Proms. He graduated from The Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Richard Beene. Other major teachers and influences include Anthony Parnther, Rick Ranti, and Suzanne Nelsen.

Albany Symphonies and in recital at Carnegie Hall, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Beethoven-Haus Bonn. He is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and regularly performs recitals with his duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis. He was selected by András Schiff to perform on an international recital tour. As a composer, Mr. Brown recently toured his own Piano Concerto around the US and Poland with several orchestras. He was the Composer and Artist-in-Residence at the New Haven Symphony for the 2017-19 seasons and a 2018 Copland House Residency Award recipient. A native New Yorker, he lives there with his two 19th century Steinway D’s, Octavia and Daria.

WILLIAM CABALLERO has served as Principal Horn of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for 33 seasons, under Maestros Manfred Honeck, Mariss Jansons, and Lorin Maazel. He previously held the same position with the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, and

and Boston Pops. Born in New Mexico and raised in Wisconsin, Mr. Caballero’s early horn studies included working under Larry Simons, Barry Benjamin, and Basil Tyler, as well as studying the piano and pipe organ. He graduated from New England Conservatory in Boston. Currently, he is the associate teaching professor of horn at Carnegie Mellon University School of Music. Recent chamber music performances include performing Brahms’s Horn Trio in E-flat major with Gil and Orli Shaham in Zankel Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and appearing live on NPR’s Performance Today in its Washington, DC studios.

Cellist JAY CAMPBELL is the only musician ever to receive two Avery Fisher Career Grants — in 2016 as a soloist, and again in 2019 as a member of the JACK Quartet. He made his concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013. In 2016, he worked with Alan Gilbert as the artistic director for Ligeti Forward, part of the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival and appeared at the Berlin Philharmonie

with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2022 as curator and cellist for his second Green Umbrella concert. Deeply committed to collaborative music, Jay is a member of the JACK

Quartet, the Junction Trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and composer/pianist Conrad Tao, and the multidisciplinary artist collective AMOC. He frequently works with composers and performers like Helmut Lachenmann, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, John Zorn, Tyshawn Sorey, and many others.

Cellist NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing regularly in Alice Tully Hall and on tour internationally. Recent concert highlights include concerto appearances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware, Stamford, Richardson, Lansing,

Artist-in-Residence; Europe and Asia tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, including appearances in London’s Wigmore Hall, the Louvre in Paris, Seoul Arts Center, and the Shanghai and Taipei National Concert Halls; and recitals across North America with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Brown. Mr. Canellakis is the artistic director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, he began his Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center career as a member of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), and has been in residence at Carnegie Hall as a member of Ensemble Connect.

As a young musician, clarinetist BEN CHEN made his American solo debut at the Kennedy Center after winning the National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute concerto

Erie Philharmonic. He has performed as a guest musician in subscription concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Equally dedicated to chamber music, Mr. Chen has been a member of the award-winning North Coast Winds quintet since 2015. Festival appearances include the Artosphere Festival Orchestra, Breckenridge Music Festival, Pacific Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra, Sarasota Music Festival, and ChamberFest Cleveland. He performs with his husband, pianist Dean Zhang, in the Edgewater Duo, presenting recitals nationwide.

DANIEL CHONG is the founding first violinist of the Parker Quartet, garnering wide recognition for his performances in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Musikverein, and Wigmore Hall. Recent solo engagements include National Sawdust (New York City), Seoul Arts

and Bangor Symphonies, Erie Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, and New Haven Symphony as

competition. He returned to the nation’s capital eight years later, serving as Assistant Principal/ E-flat Clarinet with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. Mr. Chen was previously Principal Clarinet of the Youngstown Symphony and currently holds positions with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra, Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and

Center, and Jordan Hall (Boston). He received the Cleveland Quartet Award and top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild and Bordeaux International String Quartet Competitions. He can be heard on the Zig-Zag Territoires, Naxos, and Nimbus Records labels, with a recent release on the ECM New Series featuring the Parker Quartet and Kim

Kashkashian. Mr. Chong has performed at major music festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, Mostly Mozart, Festspiele MecklenburgVorpommern, and Perigord Noir Music Festival. An advocate for new music, he has worked with György Kurtág, Augusta Read Thomas, Helmut Lachenmann, and Chaya Czernowin. He won a 2011 Grammy Award with the Parker Quartet for their recording of György Ligeti’s string quartets.

Percussionist MARC DAMOULAKIS has been a member of The Cleveland Orchestra since August 2006, named as Principal Percussion in 2013. He is co-chair of the percussion department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He performs as a soloist, chamber musician, and is a committed educator and clinician at institutions and festivals worldwide. Throughout his career, he has performed and recorded as a guest artist with the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, and the Hong

has performed with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Gilmore Festival, the New Music Consort, and the Pulse Percussion Ensemble, and is a founding member of the Time Table Percussion Quartet.

CYNTHIA KOLEDO DEALMEIDA was appointed by Lorin Maazel as Principal Oboe of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1991. Prior to that, she was Associate Principal Oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti. She received a Bachelor of Music from the University

KIRSTEN DOCTER is an associate professor of viola and chamber music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. First prize wins at the Primrose International and American String Teachers Association Viola Competitions launched her on a career that includes a 23-year tenure with the Cavani Quartet, concerts on major series and festivals, and numerous appointments as a masterclass clinician and teacher. Ms. Docter’s festival appearances include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Kneisel Hall. Her work can be heard on the Azica, Albany, and New World labels. She previously served on the chamber music and viola faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Michigan. She has been a jury member of the Primrose International Viola,

Kong Philharmonic. Mr. Damoulakis is an active chamber musician, playing regularly with the Strings Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, and the Sun Valley Music Festival “In Focus” Series, where he is also the principal percussionist. He

of Michigan, studying with Arno Mariotti, and a Master of Music degree from Temple University, a student of Richard Woodhams. Ms. DeAlmeida has been featured as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in concertos by J.S. Bach, Leonardo Balada, Alan Fletcher, Francaix, Haydn, Mozart, Lucas Richman, Richard Strauss, and Vaughan Williams. An avid chamber musician, she appears frequently in recital at Carnegie Mellon University. She performs and teaches as a faculty member of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, and has performed at the Strings Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, La Jolla Festival in La Jolla, California, and Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.

Fischoff National Chamber Music, and Sphinx competitions. In the summer Ms. Docter serves on the viola faculty of the Perlman Music Program and Bowdoin International Music Festival.

Cellist STERLING ELLIOTT

is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. He has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the

Boston Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, and the Dallas Symphony. He recently performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Gil Shaham

Symphony. He was recently named Principal Bass of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra under James Conlon and Placido Domingo. He has appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Olympic Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, and the Da Camera Society. In addition to performance, Mr. Farrington is deeply interested in cinema. His LA-based audio company, Hazard Audio, connects top classical minds with creative artists in movie and TV production. Recent

Key Bank Music Scholarship and the Excellence for the Arts Scholarship. She studied at Cleveland

at the Aspen Festival and made his German debut in Munich in May 2022, collaborating with Daniel Hope. Other recent performances include appearances with the Colorado, Cincinnati, North Carolina, and Fort Worth Symphonies, and Buffalo Philharmonic, among others. He has been presented in recital by the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, Shriver Hall, Tippett Rise, and Capitol Region Classical. Mr. Elliott is currently a Kovner Fellow at The Juilliard School. He performs on a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello on loan through the Robert F. Smith Fine String Patron Program, in partnership with the Sphinx Organization.

NATHAN FARRINGTON is a bassist, singer, and composer living in Los Angeles. He regularly appears in the bass sections of many of America’s top orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and the Seattle

projects include co-writing a score for a Martin Scorsese-produced documentary Building a Bridge, co-arranging a score to accompany Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, and managing a commission by Dafnis Prieto for soloists People of Earth and orchestra.

Soprano ASHLEE FOREMAN is a native of Akron, Ohio, and graduated from the Cleveland School of the Arts. She studied voice with the late Dr. A. Grace Lee Mims of the Cleveland Music Settlement, Amanda Powell of Apollo’s Fire, and Noriko Paukert of Cleveland. She joined the Akron Symphony Orchestra in Porgy and Bess (2011) and Titanic: The Musical (2012), and The Cleveland Opera in her debut of Clara in Porgy and Bess (2019). Ms. Foreman has been the recipient of the

State University and The University of Akron, and was awarded African American Spiritual performance scholarships named for her teacher, the late A. Grace Lee Mims. Ms. Foreman was Apollo Fire’s first Artistic Outreach Intern, singing the role of Princess Pamina at in-school workshops and performances. She currently performs with Apollo’s Fire as a MOSAIC Artist Fellow.

Canadian violinist JACQUES

FORESTIER

has performed in concert halls across North America, Europe, and Asia. Hailed by CBC Music as one of the “Top 30 Hot Classical Musicians Under 30”, he began his studies at the age of two under the instruction of his mother. He currently holds the Thomas D. Watkins Fellowship at the

Curtis Institute of Music, studying with Shmuel Ashkenasi and Pamela Frank, as well as with Itzhak

Perlman at the Perlman Music Program. A top prize winner at the Stulberg International Strings Competition, the Irving M. Klein International Strings Competition, the Johansen International Competition, the Shean Strings Competition, and the OSM Manulife Competition, among others, Mr. Forestier made his solo debut with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at age eleven, and has gone on to perform with orchestras and ensembles internationally. He is grateful for the support of many, including the Anne Burrows and Edmonton Community Foundations for their generosity in supporting his education.

The first American in four decades and youngest musician ever to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division, ZLATOMIR FUNG is a recipient of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship 2022

Cello Biënnale Amsterdam. A winner of the 2017 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2017 Astral National Auditions, Mr. Fung has taken the top prizes at the 2018 Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition, 2016 George Enescu International Cello Competition, 2015 Johansen International Competition for Young String Players, 2014 Stulberg International String Competition, and 2014 Irving Klein International Competition.

Cleveland native JAMEY HADDAD is regarded as one of the foremost world music and jazz percussionists. He has been the percussionist for Paul Simon for more than 20 years. Other collaborations include Sting, Michael League (Snarky Puppy), Bokanté, Osvaldo Golijov, Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Esperanza Spalding, Joe Lovano, Billy Drewes, Dave Liebman, Elliot Goldenthal, Brazil’s Assad Brothers, Simon Shaheen, and The Paul Winter Consort. His own group Under One Sun had a 2017 release and was featured in Downbeat Magazine. Mr. Haddad is a recipient of the Cleveland Arts Prize and was

2012 he was voted the Top World Percussionist in DRUM Magazine and one of the top four world percussionists by Modern Drummer (July 2007).

Mr. Haddad is currently a professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

TENG LI is the Principal Viola of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, after more than a decade performing in the same role with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Li is an active recitalist and chamber musician who has participated in

and a 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Recent orchestral engagements include the BBC and Rochester Philharmonics, Milwaukee and Sante Fe Symphonies, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and others, with a world premiere of a new cello concerto by Katherine Balch with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. International tours include a recital at Wigmore Hall and two performances at

recognized as a Legend of Jazz by the Cleveland Jazz Society. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has been awarded multiple NEA grants for performance. In

the festivals of Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe, Music from Angel Fire, Rome, Moritzburg, and the Rising Stars Festival in Caramoor. She has been a featured soloist with the National Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and the Haddonfield Symphony, among others. Her discography includes a solo CD, entitled 1939, in addition to many recordings with the Toronto Symphony recordings. She has won the top prize at the Johanson International and the Holland-America Music Society Competitions, the Primrose International Viola Competition, the Irving K. Klein International String Competition, and the ARD International Music Competition.

ISMAIL LUMANOVSKI launched a career as a soloist and chamber musician in both classical and cross-over repertoire. His performances throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, South America, and Asia have received critical acclaim, mesmerizing audiences across the globe. Mr. Lumanovski has taken the stage in countless venues, including Carnegie Hall (New York), United Nations (New York), Musikverein (Vienna), Luzerner Saal (Luzern),

University’s McDuffie Center for Strings, she was concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra and the Oregon Symphony. She has premiered concertos for Grammy winner Matt Catingub and her Mercer colleague Christopher Schmitz, collaborated with James Ehnes for Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two Violins and Bartók’s 44 Duos (both contributions

World Intellectual Property Organization (Geneva), Lufthansa Technik (Hamburg), Pierre Boulez Saal (Berlin), National Radio Symphony Hall (Katowice), Emirates Palace (Abu Dhabi), Cemal Resit Rey (Istanbul), Expo Yeosu (Korea), Heydar Aliev Merkezi (Baku), Casa de la Musica (Quito), Berklee Performance Center (Boston), and many others. He appeared as the soloist in Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Concerto for the composer’s 100th birthday celebration in New York, alongside musicians from the New Juilliard Ensemble and the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, under the legendary musical director Pierre Boulez.

Violinist AMY SCHWARTZ MORETTI has a musical career of broad versatility. Before becoming the inaugural Director of Mercer

to Chandos recordings receiving consecutive Juno Awards for Classical Album of the Year in 2014 and 2015), and performed the complete cycle of Beethoven String Quartets in Seoul, Korea, with the Ehnes Quartet. Recognized as a deeply expressive artist, Ms. Moretti enjoys the opportunity to travel and perform concerts around the world. Her many festival appearances include Bridgehampton, ChamberFest Cleveland, Evian, La Jolla, Meadowmount, Music@Menlo, Seattle, and Manchester Music Festivals. The Cleveland Institute of Music has honored her with an Alumni Achievement Award, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music their Fanfare Award, and she was named to Musical America’s “Top 30 Professionals” in 2018.

MILENA PAJARO-VAN DE STADT

viola, has appeared as soloist with the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Jacksonville Symphony, and the

Sphinx Chamber Orchestra, and has performed in recitals and chamber music concerts throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, including an acclaimed 2011 debut recital at London’s Wigmore Hall. She was the founding violist of the Dover Quartet, playing in the group from 2008-2022. During that time, the Dover Quartet was the First Prize-winner and recipient of every special award at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition and winner of the Gold Medal and Grand Prize in the 2010 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt’s numerous awards also include First Prize of the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and top prizes at the Sphinx Competition and the Tokyo International Viola Competition. She

,

is a member of the newly-formed piano quartet “Espressivo!” alongside esteemed colleagues Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, and Anna Polonsky.

MAIYA PAPACH is Principal Viola of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. A member of the orchestra since 2008, she has made solo appearances in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with concertmaster Steven Copes, Benjamin Britten’s Lachrymae, and Woolrich’s Ulysses

Awakes. Ms. Papach has made frequent national and international appearances as a chamber musician, with versatile performances of both traditional and contemporary repertoire. She is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), with whom she performed frequently at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and dozens of experimental venues. She has toured extensively in the former Soviet Union with the Da Capo Chamber Players, across North America with Musicians from Marlboro, and has made appearances at Prussia Cove (UK), the Boston

summer of 2016, he has attended the renowned Perlman Music Program. Recent summer festival

Music, and a Master’s degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies at The Orchestra Now of Bard College. He is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Savelyev performs and

Chamber Music Society, the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, the Chattanooga Chamber Music Festival, and Chamber Music Quad Cities. She is currently a member of Accordo, a Twin Citiesbased chamber ensemble.

Violist SAMUEL ROSENTHAL began his musical studies in Cleveland, studying with Jeffrey Irvine as a member of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His passion for chamber music was ignited by formative work with the Cavani String Quartet and Cleveland Quartet violinist Peter Salaff. Since the

performances include Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Encore String Quartet Intensive, and Music from Angel Fire. Later this summer, he will attend the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. A prize winner at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition (Razumovsky String Quartet) and the Johansen International Competition, Mr. Rosenthal received the Silver Medal at the 2021 Primrose International Viola Competition. He is currently a Kovner Fellow at The Juilliard School, where he is completing his Master’s degree with Misha Amory and Hsin-Yun Huang.

Flutist DENIS SAVELYEV is an international soloist, chamber, and orchestral player based in New York and Baltimore. Newly accepted member of the Marlboro Festival, he is the firstprize winner of the 2017 New York Flute Club Competition, “Rising Star“ at the 2021 Galway Flute Festival, and Young Artist of the 2019 National Flute Association. From Lviv, Ukraine, Mr. Savelyev started to play the flute at age five. He earned a Special Degree in Music at Gnesin Academy of Music in Moscow, Master’s at Mannes School of

gives lessons worldwide, loves collaborating with other artists, and is passionate about teaching. He is an Altus Flutes Artist.

Cellist JONATHAN SWENSEN made his concerto debut at the age of twenty performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. Since then he has appeared as soloist with the Greenville Symphony Orchestra, Mobile Symphony Orchestra, Ciudad de Granada, Venice State Symphony Orchestra, Poland’s NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Odense

Symphony Orchestra, Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, and the Sun Symphony Orchestra in

Vietnam. Winner of the prestigious 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he received First Prize at the 2018 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, the 2018 Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the 2019 Windsor International String Competition. Young Concert Artists presented his recital debuts in New York on the Michaels Award Concert at Merkin Concert Hall, and in Washington, DC on the Alexander Kasza-Kasser Concert at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. Mr. Swenson currently attends the New England Conservatory of Music for graduate studies.

Chamber Orchestra. He was invited to perform in Budapest as part of the First Bartok World Competition and in Sendai for the Seventh Sendai International Violin Competition. Mr. Thompson holds Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Artist Diploma degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music; his primary teachers include Jaime Laredo, William Preucil, and Paul Kantor. He currently resides in Rochester, New York, with his wife, violinist Jeanelle Thompson.

heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels. Awards include the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, Avery Fisher Career Grant, and Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. A native of Ohio, he attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and The Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax.

Violinist JAMES

THOMPSON

enjoys a multifaceted career as a chamber musician, soloist, educator, and lecturer. He is currently on faculty at Music@Menlo and has been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program since 2021. Mr. Thompson performs regularly for chamber music organizations across the country, and serves

Pianist ORION WEISS has performed with dozens of orchestras in North America, including the Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic, and at major venues and festivals worldwide. An avid chamber musician,

as the director of Music@Menlo’s annual winter residency in California. Solo engagements include appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and the Blue Water

he performs regularly with violinists Augustin Hadelich, William Hagen, Benjamin Beilman, and James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; cellist Julie Albers; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. In recent seasons, he has performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Weiss can be

Pianist AMY YANG balances an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, and pedagogue. In 2020, she shared the stage with Anne-Marie McDermott, Yefim Bronfman, Paul Neubauer, and the Dover Quartet in a myriad of performances at Bravo! Vail. Additionally, she gave her solo debut while joining forces with the Jasper String Quartet in piano quintets by Tania Léon and Joan Tower for Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s 35th season. 2021 brought appearances with violinist Tessa Lark at Wigmore Hall, Gardner Museum, Cal Performances, Rockport Music Festival, and International Violin Competition of Indianapolis Series. Ms. Yang’s recent appearances include Hawaii Concert Society, Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, The Seattle Series, Music at

Pine Street, Coastal Concerts (DE), Philadelphia Chamber Music Society (with violist Roberto

Díaz and oboist Philippe Tondre), Santa Fe Music Festival (with violinists Danbi Um and Paul Huang), Cleveland Chamber Music Society, and Chamber Music San Francisco. Ms. Yang is the Associate Dean of Piano Studies and Artistic Initiatives at the Curtis Institute of Music.

NELSON RICARDO YOVERA PEREZ

is a member of the horn section in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Third Horn of the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra. He was Principal Horn of the Classical Music Institute Symphony Orchestra (San Antonio, TX) and the orchestras of Opera San Antonio and Ballet San Antonio. He is a frequent substitute with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has participated in many summer festivals, including Marlboro Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, and Classical Tahoe. From 2015 to 2018,

Roosevelt University in Chicago.

DEREK ZADINSKY has performed in The Cleveland Orchestra as Assistant Principal Bass since 2021, and as a section member previously, starting in 2012. He currently teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory

Atlanta Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, KBS Symphony Seoul, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, German Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Kremerata Baltica, and American Symphony. As a recitalist he performed at Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debut series, Wigmore Hall, People’s Symphony Concerts, the Louvre Museum, Suntory Hall, and Frankfurt Radio. Mr. Zorman is a member of the Israeli Chamber Project and the Lysander Piano Trio, which won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition. He studied at the Jerusalem Academy, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and the Kronberg

Mr. Yovera Perez was a member of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (the youngest musician to win a position), including multiple tours of Europe and Latin America under the baton of Maestro Gustavo Dudamel. He served as Associate Principal Horn of the San Juan Symphony Orchestra of Argentina from 2018 to 2021. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Horn Performance with David Cooper at

of Music, and Cleveland State University. Mr. Zadinsky has a Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Harold Robinson and Edgar Meyer. As a chamber musician, he has performed with Carter Brey, Ray Chen, Jinjoo Cho, Vadim Gluzman, Ida Kavafian, Joseph Silverstein, and members of the Dover Quartet. As a soloist, he has performed twice with orchestras in Carnegie Hall, and has recorded an album on the Oberlin Music Label, available for streaming on Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Additionally, he has an edition of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 published on Apple Books.

Violinist ITAMAR ZORMAN is the winner of the 2014 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. He has performed as a soloist with Mariinsky Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, New World Symphony,

Academy. He is currently a Visiting Guest Artist at the Eastman School of Music. Mr. Zorman plays a 1734 Guarneri Del Gesù violin from the collection of Yehuda Zisapel.

RISING STARS

The Rising Star Program of ChamberFest

Cleveland, in which talented artists in the early stages of their careers are chosen to perform alongside established festival artists, is generously supported by Drs. Beth Sersig and Christopher Brandt, among others. The program has seen the Cleveland debuts of many important artists.

GUEST ARTISTS FOR THE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

In Cleveland, ROBIN VANLEAR is perhaps best known as the founder and director of Parade the Circle and the department of Community Arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art. However, for the past 34 years, since moving to Cleveland from Santa Barbara, CA, Ms. VanLear, often working as Art Acts, has been active creating art all over Greater Cleveland. She has created masks and puppets for The Cleveland Orchestra. Her puppets are showcased annually at the CCC JazzFest. Together with Mark Jenks, Ms. VanLear created the opening parade for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her most recent projects include an installation at Holden Arboretum, a nature trail at Hopewell Therapeutic Farms, and an annual Lantern Festival for Coventry Village each December. Ms. VanLear was awarded the Robert P. Bergman Award from the Cleveland Arts Prize and two Creative Workforce Fellowships. Her newest puppets, based upon Romare Bearden’s Wrapping It up at the Lafayette and created through a Karamu House Room in the House Residency, will debut June 23 and 24 at this year’s CCC JazzFest.

JEREMY JOHNSON is the President and CEO of Assembly for the Arts, an arts advocacy organization that strengthens and unifies the voice of greater Cleveland’s arts and culture sector. A Cleveland native, Mr. Johnson interned at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He worked in philanthropy and arts administration in New Jersey before returning to his hometown

in 2021. He has performed in gospel, classical, and theatric settings, including roles in Godspell, Pippin, and Bach’s St. John’s Passion. A University School alumnus, he attended Kenyon College, the University of Iowa, and Rutgers Business School.

JOSHUA BROWN graduated with a BA in Theatre Education and a Dance Minor at Ohio Wesleyan University. He danced for Inlet Dance Theatre from 2004 to 2020. Since 2020, he has been teaching and training others as an Inlet Teaching Artist, occasionally returning to perform. He currently trains the dancers in Inlet’s Trainee and Apprentice Program.

STORY RHINEHART CADIZ is an artist and choreographer who lives in Shaker Heights with her husband, two daughters, and their dog, Banton. When she is not choreographing or dancing inbrilliant costumes and/or giant puppets with her mom, Robin VanLear, she is teaching creative writing to kids and teenagers through Lake Erie Ink. She is thrilled to be getting to perform for the first time in a concert with her daughter, Sienna Cadiz.

STEPHANIE ROSTON is a Columbia, Missouri native. She began dancing in youth musical theater at the age of 13. She studied with Karen Grundy at the School of Missouri Contemporary Ballet. Ms. Roston received her BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography

from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi. Recent works include her 2021 Screendance Today Could Be the Day, created with Inlet’s Summer Dance Intensive students and her documentary Halfway There: Stories of Life, Loss, and Love in West Jackson, produced in collaboration with the homeless population of West Jackson. Ms. Roston has danced with Inlet since 2018 and serves as the company’s video production coordinator.

KENYA WOODS is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and holds more than 30 years of experience in dance performance, choreography, teaching, and leadership. She holds a degree in dance from Tennessee State University and is certified in Lester Horton Pedagogy, the official technique taught at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Madame Darvash, Dr. Diane McIntyre and Lynn Simonson have influenced her teaching style as well. Ms. Woods is currently a faculty teacher of Dance at Case Western Reserve University for students in the MFA Theater Program. She continues to teach dance to students of all ages and lead programs that help cultivate technique, artistry, body awareness and empowerment and appreciation for dance.

INLET DANCE THEATRE

, a professional contemporary dance company, was founded in 2001 by Executive/Artistic Director Bill Wade. Inlet embodies his longstanding belief that dance viewing, training, and performing may serve

as tools to bring about personal growth and development. During Inlet’s 22-year history, they have transformed from a small dance company with local impact into a celebrated organization that impacts people internationally. Our core strengths reside equally in performance and education. Whether performing at local venues, conducting regional residencies or international exchanges, Inlet continues to inspire, educate, and innovate – all with the vision that dance can further people. ChamberFest Cleveland welcomes students from Inlet’s dance program to perform in The Carnival of the Animals

VILLAGE FAMILY FARMS is an urban community farm located 10 miles from downtown Cleveland, serving and educating the community on fresh, locally grown produce. In the heart of the predominantly African American neighborhood of Hough, Jamel Rahkeera and family have transformed vacant lots into a growing and thriving ecosystem in an effort to engage residents in community gardening while selling their chemical-free goods to local stores and restaurants and at farmers markets. ChamberFest Cleveland is thrilled to include talented students from Village Family Farms as performers in this production of The Carnival of the Animals.

STAFF & BOARD

ARTISTIC & ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

Diana Cohen....................................Co-Artistic Director

Franklin Cohen................................Co-Artistic Director

Roman Rabinovich........................Co-Artistic Director

Jessica Peek Sherwood.................Executive Director

FESTIVAL STAFF

Gary Adams....................................................Photography

Alan Bise................................................Audio Production

Mackenzie Brauns.................Personnel & Production

Erica Brenner........................................Video Production

Cheryl Carter....................................Box Office Manager

Eric Farnan..............................................Festival Librarian

Tom Frattare...................................Production Manager

Andrew Jerabek......................................Graphic Design

Kameryn Lueng..............................Box Office Assistant

Anderson Oleskiewicz.......................Festival Assistant

Deedee Paster................................................Artist Liaison

Sector-Santina...........................................Arts Marketing

Lily Sherwood.............................................Festival Intern

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Rebecca Carmi, Chair

Dan Lindsay, Vice Chair

Diana Cohen, President

Daniel Bollinger

Franklin Cohen

Julie Comber-Martin

Joyce Glickman

Barbara Gross

Robert Jackson

Dr. Michael Lederman

Ellen Loughan

Benjamin McKelvey

Hedy Milgrom

Sarah Kappus Peck

Costa Petridis

James Robinson

Dr. Beth Sersig

Kyle Stimpert

Christina Thoburn

ADVISORY BOARD

Jonathan Biss

Irad Carmi

Alexander Cohen

Marcia Kodish Cohen

Gayle Gathercole

Lauren Generette

John Gibbon

Dr. Bernette Jaffe

Dr. Damir Janigro

Mary Beth Karakul

Kurt Karakul

Marjorie Kitchell

Rabbi Roger C. Klein

Nancy Osgood

Jeanne Tobin

Orion Weiss

IN MEMORIAM

In the past few months, ChamberFest Cleveland has lost three pillars of our extended family: Richard P. (Rick) Goddard, Barbara S. Robinson, and William P. (Bill) Blair III. Their infectious enthusiasm, wise counsel, and generous support played an immeasurable role in our success, and we remember them with deep fondness and gratitude.

Richard P. Goddard, Board member and past Chair of the Board of ChamberFest Cleveland, passed away on March 9, 2023, in his Cleveland Heights home following a short illness. Born and raised in Indiana, Rick graduated from Oberlin College in 1974 and Washington & Lee University School of Law in 1979. He joined the Cleveland law firm Calfee, Halter & Griswold in June 1979, where he became a partner in both the litigation and labor departments. Rick and his wife, Anne Unverzagt, were among the original supporters of ChamberFest Cleveland. As housing hosts, they graciously welcomed a multitude of guest artists into their home beginning in ChamberFest’s first season,

Born in Cleveland, Barbara S. Robinson was celebrated for her devotion to culture and the arts in Ohio. She was at the forefront of efforts to promote and support arts and culture locally, regionally, and at the state and national levels, with an extraordinary record of leadership. She served as Chair of the Ohio Arts Council for many years, was named one of Cleveland Magazine’s “Most Influential” people, and was the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Cleveland Arts Prize, Cleveland Institute of Music Luminary Award, the Ohio Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Cleveland Heritage Medal. Barbara was instrumental in the development of ChamberFest Cleveland, serving on its Advisory Board since the organization’s inception. We are grateful for her love and commitment to the arts in Cleveland and beyond.

developing close friendships with several returning musicians who stayed with them year after year. Rick financially supported the organization both personally and as a corporate donor through Calfee, Halter & Griswold, and he made it possible for ChamberFest to hold several benefit events in the firm’s lobby throughout the years. As annual Ambassador Pass holders, Rick and Anne could be found in the audience at every festival performance. We will be eternally grateful for Rick’s generosity of time and expertise as he supported the organization on so many levels. Rick will be dearly missed by all of us at ChamberFest Cleveland.

William P. Blair III passed away on February 2, 2023. Born and raised in Canton, Bill was a proud alumnus of The Ohio State University, where he received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in History and Government, Master of Arts in Public Administration, and Juris Doctor from the College of Law. He was dedicated to his hometown and to his state, and served with distinction as Executive Counsel to the Director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Canton City Prosecutor, private practice attorney since 1977, and as one of the state’s most dedicated arts and culture advocates. A passionate supporter of classical music, Bill was a member of ChamberFest Cleveland’s Advisory Board since the organization’s start, lending his voice and expertise to strengthen and further its mission. His legacy of arts advocacy will be appreciated for years to come.

THANK YOU

BENEFACTOR ($5,000 AND ABOVE)

Dr. Christopher P. Brandt and Dr. Beth Sersig

Yuval Brisker

Rebecca and Irad Carmi

Franklin and Marcia Cohen

Patrick and Kris Ellingsworth

Jeffrey and Norma Glazer

Joyce Glickman

Renate Miller +

Barbara Robinson +

DONOR ($2,500-$4,999)

William P. Blair, III +

Diana Cohen and Roman Rabinovich

Robert and Donna Jackson

Morton and Judith Levin

Kenneth and Amy Rogat

Dale and Marcie Rubin

PATRON ($1,000-$2,499)

Carol Battle

Mark and Kathleen Binnig

Richard Bogomolny and Patricia Kozerefski

Daniel Bollinger

Marshall and Brenda Brown

Alexander Cohen and Tiffany Fauval

Barbara Ann Davis

John and Pam Gibbon

Richard Goddard + and Anne Unverzagt

Francis and Maureen Greicius

Brooks M. Jones, Jr.

Rabbi Roger C. Klein

Larry and Barbara Kronick

Michael Lederman and Sharmon Sollitto

Richard and Barbara Lederman

Dan and Courtney Lindsay

Ellen and Frank Loughan

Benjamin and Sarah McKelvey

Deborah Neale

Nancy Osgood

Sarah and Edward Peck

Douglas and Lois Rose

Joel and Beth Scott

Alice Sherman

Charna Sherman

Jessica and Tom Sherwood

Stephen and Martha Somach

Susan Starrett and Jerold Smith

John and Ann Steinbrunner

Kyle and David Stimpert

Bruce and Virginia Taylor

Christina and Tom Thoburn

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who makes ChamberFest Cleveland possible!

Individual donors as of May 26, 2023

SUPPORTER ($500-$999)

Tom and Abby Abelson

Ruth Anna Carlson and Albert Leonetti

Irene Ten Cate and Parswa Ansari

Gary and Debra Franke

Barbara Hawley and David Goodman

Franklin and Kathleen Hickman

Bernette Jaffe

Kurt and Mary Beth Karakul

Stephan and Lillian Levine

Glenn and Ida Mercer

Bert and Marjorie Moyar

Costa Petridis

Patricia Plotkin

John and Linda Roush

Judy Solganik

George and Mary Stark

Ronald and Eugenia Strauss

Jordan and Jeanne Tobin

Carl Tretter

Stephen Warner and Carolyn Gladiel Warner

Israel and Judith Weitzman

CONTRIBUTER ($250-$499)

Grete Anderson

William and Catherine Annable

Bonnie Baker

Nancy Bronson

David and Debby Daberko

Avrum and Phyllis Froimson

Gayle Gathercole

Robert Gilkeson

Barbara Gross and Terry Pollack

Linda Johnson

Junior Ratner Club

William Katzin and Katherine Solender

Michael and Sarah Knoblauch

Jeff Litwiller

Christopher and Gaylee McCracken

Vincent M. Monnier

Peta Moskowitz

Diane Paster

Jane Peterson and Philip Star

Jeffrey Pollock and Martha Brandt Pollock

Richard and Joanne Prober

Donald Rosenberg

Melvin and Susan Schwarzwald

Gunter Schwegler

Jan C. Snow

Avi Stern and Bracha Cohen

Don and Jackie Stimpert

Terry Woods

FRIEND (UP TO $249)

Nancy A. Adams

Anne Adamson

Penny Adelstein

Samuel Adler

Carolyn Alpert

Eleanor and Richard Aron

James Baker

Ken and Sharen Bakke

Katherine Ball

Victoria Baraz

Marilyn Bedol

PJ Bednarski

Paulette Beech

Cynthia Beeker

Gina Beim and Mark Freeman

Nancy and Russell Benghiat

Eleanor Bergholz

Judy Bidgood

Kaaren Biggin

Matthew Bittner

Sharon Bleiweiss

Stephen Bottorff and Pat Moyer

Terry Boyarsky

Debra Brass

Jung Wha Brindle

Kristen Brooks

Sharon Broniatowski

Mary Brownell

David and Doris Budin

Jane Busch

Claire Brugnoletti

Denise Buckley

Sharon Chapman

Charla Coatoam

Joanne Cohen and Morris Wheeler

Robert and Sharon Cohen

Dana Crowe

Anthony Day

Ralph Day

Joan Delahay

Wendy Deuring

Maureen Dinner

Mary Doherty

Michael Doherty

Christine Dolce

Patricia Dorner

Kate Drummond

Joan Englund

Paul and Caryl Eyre

Barbara Fitzhugh and Howie Smith

Antonia Forster

Douglas and Gail Fox

Adam and Susan Fleischer

Carol Frankel

Hollie Freedman

Jean Friedman

Bruce Frumker and Judith Ryder Frumker

Richard Galaska

Loraine Gardner

Peter Garlock

Barbara A. Gartland

Margaret Geiger

Joel Genuth

Francesca German

Janet Ghiandoni

David Gilson

Maggie Ginn

Walter Ginn

Sheldon and Nan Gisser

Ruth Anne Goldberg

Lois Goldwasser

Kathleen González

Sally Good

Florence Goodman

Ron and Marcia Grant

Dan Greicius

Peter and Joanne Griesinger

Dennis Grossman and Julie Short

Tom and Kirsten Hagesfeld

Megan Hall

David and Loraine Hammack

Sally Hanley

Patti Hester

Edith Hirsch

Shirley Hoffman

Robin J. Holzman

Fannie Hood

Richard Horvitz and Erica Hartman-Horvitz

Anne Hunter

Gale and Jim Jacobsohn

Nancy Jamieson

Catherine Joslyn

Maxine Karns

Debby Kastner

Joel and Nancy Kay

Robert Keefe

Louis Kelsch and Robin Lieberman

Julie Ketterer

Emily and Paul Klarreich

Donald and Kathleen Kne

Andrew and Joan Kohn

Nancy and Rik Kohn

Emily Koritz

Kristen van Kranenburgh

Andrew and Susan Krembs

Jackie Krentzman

Barbara Kuby

Chris and Marilyn Langmack

Jonathan and Leah Lass

Mark Lewine

Joanne Lewis

Debra Light

Georgia and Whitney Lloyd

Agnes Loeffler

Jackie Lurie

Nikolay Makinin

Adin Mann and Suzanne Zilber

Richard and Patricia Martin

Kevin McCardle

Daniel McCroskey

Mary McDonnell

Frank McNutt

Frederick T. McGuire

Barbara C. Megery

Ian Mercer

Betty Meyers

Brenda Mikota

Antoinette Miller

Paula Mindes

Glen Minner

Timothy Minnis

Juanita Monteiro

Barbara Morrison

Sarah Mortimer

Marjorie Moskovitz

Barbara Nahra

Molly Nash

Steve Nash

Rachel Wayne Nelson

Andrei and Anastasia Nova

Mark O’Keefe

Patrick Percival

Laura Peskin

Stacey Pickering

Dan Polster and Deborah Coleman

Elinor Polster

Quentin and Gay Quereau

Lyndsey Deane Ratchford

Charles Ratner and Ilana Horowitz Ratner

A. Rich

Marcia Rohweder

Daniel Rose

Illene Rosewater

Dan Rothenfeld

Pauline Ryder

Marjorie Bell Sachs

William Saks

Peter and Sylvia Salaff

Rodolfo Salas

Wilma Salisbury

Rick and Judy Schiller

Gail and Elliott Schlang

Bruce Schwartz and Shelley Roth

Lewis and Diane Schwartz

Linda Serra

M. Ruth Severiens

Laura Sheridan

Ronna Sherman

Shmuel Shkop

Bella Shteyngarts

Elaine Siegel

Jay and Toby Siegel

Allan Silberger

Howard and Beth Simon

George Smiga

Bill Smith

Debbie Smith

Gretchen D. Smith

Kempton and Nancy King Smith

Rochelle Solomon

Linda Sperry

Myron Stern

Rachel Sternberg

Judith Stroup

Diane and Arthur Stupay

Peter and Karen Sullivan

Fan-Chia Tao

Paul Teske

Virginia Thomas

Carol Tizzano

Diane Tizzano

Jim and Jean Triner

Howard and Sara Tucker

Oleksiy Turchyn

Steve and Denise Umans

Mirfee Ungier

Felix and Inna Vilinsky

Lorene Ward

Ginger Ware

Harriet Warm

Dave and Diana Watt

Beth Weiner

Carol Weiss

Lita Weiss

Robert and Judith Weiss

David and Patricia Welle

Stephen Wertheim

Kathryn Westlake

Morley and Ina White

Morgan Williams

Carol Wilson

Kathryn Wisch

Pamela and Leonard Young

Nan Zieleniec and Michael Kirsch

Sandra Zieve

+ deceased

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

$30,000-$50,000

The Cleveland Foundation

The Milton and Tamar Maltz

Family Foundation

Paul M. Angell Foundation

$20,000-$29,999

The George Gund Foundation

$10,000-$19,999

National Endowment for the Arts

Ohio Arts Council

$5,000-$9,999

Kulas Foundation

John P. Murphy Foundation

$2,000-$4,999

Balgley Family Charitable Foundation

Cleveland Israel Arts Connection

(a program of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland)

Harry Fox and Emma R. Fox

Charitable Foundation

David and Inez Myers Foundation

FESTIVAL PARTNERS

Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art

Cleveland Institute of Music

Fireside Book Shop

Inlet Dance Theatre

Literary Cleveland

Loganberry Books

Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry

Nature Center at Shaker Lakes

Open Doors Academy

Rainey Institute

Seigal Lifelong Learning Program (CWRU)

Visible Voice Books

HOST FAMILIES

Steve Brown and Betsy Mahlke

David and Carol Entrikin

Richard and Christine Elliott

Gary and Deb Franke

Kurt and Mary Beth Karakul

Willie Katzin and Katie Solender

Bob and Katie Kibbe

Michael and Sarah Knoblauch

Glenn Meyer and Kristin Brooks

Deedee Paster

Bill and Cari Ross

CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS

CONCERT SPONSOR LEVEL

Eaton Corporation

MUSICIAN SPONSOR LEVEL

Beacon Financial Partners

CORPORATE HOST LEVEL

Danco Home Pro

First National Bank

Goldman Sachs –Steve Callahan and Joe Hall

Joseph and Antje Vendemia

Bryan and Ginger Ware

SPECIAL THANKS

ClevelandClassical.com

Carol and David Entrikin

Debra Franke

John and Pamela Gibbon

Cassie Goldbach

Grace Harper

Mitchell’s Fine Chocolates

Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream

Murray Hill Market

Phoenix Coffee

Elisabeth Plumlee-Watson

Steinway Piano Gallery of Cleveland

Valerie Suffron

Aaron Terkel

Christina Thoburn

Matt Weinkam

David and Inez Myers Foundation

The Wine Spot — proud supporter of ChamberFest Cleveland since 2012. Join us on our patio for a glass of wine, pint of beer or a craft cocktail. We look forward to serving you!

thewinespotonline.com

2271 Lee Road • Cleveland Heights

Wednesday, July 5 at 7:30pm

Chamber Round

Thursday, July 13 at 7:30pm

Artists

July 5 - 16, 2023

Our summer programming kicks off with featured recitals leading up to the 2023 CIPC for Young Artists. You won't want to miss these exceptional performances!

CIPC

Concerto Round

Saturday, July 15 at 7:30pm

Cleveland Museum of Art

Get your tickets at PIANOCLEVELAND.ORG

Mixon Hall Cleveland Institute of Music

Eva Gevorgyan

Mixon Hall

Cleveland Institute of Music

CIPC for Young Artists

Gartner Auditorium

for Young Artists

Photo: EvgenyEvtyukhov for Young

Presented by In partnership with

JULY AUGUST

BEETHOVEN’S ODE TO JOY

JUL 1

SALUTE TO AMERICA*

JUL 2, 3, & 4

MOVIE NIGHT LIVE JURASSIC PARK

JUL 7, 8, & 9

ROMANTIC RACHMANINOFF

JUL 15

SHE’S GOT SOUL

JUL 16

DEBUSSY’S LA MER

JUL 22

FEINSTEIN & THIBAUDET TWO PIANOS: WHO COULD ASK FOR ANYTHING MORE

JUL 23

MOVIE NIGHT LIVE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS

JUL 28, 29, & 30

SIBELIUS’S FIRST SYMPHONY

AUG 5

MOZART IN THE MEADOWS

AUG 12

AN EVENING WITH AUDRA MCDONALD

AUG 13

FUJITA PLAYS TCHAIKOVSKY

AUG 19

IMPRESSIONS FROM FRANCE AND SPAIN

AUG 26

SEPTEMBER

MOVIE NIGHT LIVE DISNEY: THE SOUND OF MAGIC

SEP 1, 2 , & 3

DISTANT WORLDS music from FINAL FANTASY*

SEP 9

* Please note The Cleveland Orchestra does not appear on this concert.

Fireworks following the concert (weather permitting)

AKRON CONCERT SERIES

TUESDAY MUSICAL PRESENTS: the Akron Concert Series; our 136th season: 2023-2024. SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW ON SALE!

CUARTETO LATINOAMERICANO

OCTOBER 24

AKROPOLIS REED QUINTET

NOVEMBER 7

THE KING’S SINGERS

DECEMBER 5

AARON DIEHL TRIO

FEBRUARY 13

KYIV VIRTUOSI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

MARCH 12

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS

APRIL 20

330-761-3460

tuesdaymusical.org

SO MANY REASONS TO GIVE

ChamberFest Cleveland lives by its mission to nurture a deep family-like connection between musicians and audiences of all ages.

Since 2012, CFC has presented world-class chamber music performances throughout the Cleveland metro area. Our 11th season brings expanded community partnerships and outreach to provide even more ways to be introduced to the festival and explore the music and musicians. With increased digital content and radio broadcasts, CFC now reaches thousands of local, national, and international fans - students and adults alike! Spreading joy and camaraderie through music is the cornerstone of all we do.

Your generosity helps to make it all possible! Please make a gift today to support the music and musicians we love. Every gift, no matter the size, makes an impact.

THANK YOU!

ONLINE: chamberfestcleveland.com/donate/ | PHONE: (216) 471-8887

MAIL a check (payable to ChamberFest Cleveland): 20620 John Carroll Boulevard, Suite 217, Cleveland, Ohio 44118