Hot Scenes of Winter: Shepherd In the Subtropics

January 28, 2012
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Perhaps it was because I first encountered Sean Shepherd’s music online, that most disembodied medium, but when I finally heard him performed by the Cleveland Orchestra at Knight Hall, I closed my eyes. There. That makes the most sense. One is usually curious about who is making what sounds, how deftly an instrument is fretted and bowed, what physical energy is fueling the feelings, in what manner the conductor is pulling and pushing a composition. But after a few minutes of watching, it felt better not to. As if Shepherd’s Wanderlust emanated from another dimension. An inner one. Touched by an outer one. One … Continue reading →

Is the Rest Silence?: Music In the Time Of the Crisis

Sean Shepherd1

Walking into the middle of a session for U of Miami Frost School of Music composition students guided by Sean Shepherd at a room in the Knight Hall is like entering a scene from an elegant and spare art movie. The room is modern. So is the music. Most of the characters are young and casually attired. Everyone is very intense and intent on playing and listening. With Cleveland Orchestra musicians interpreting the work with the same seriousness they play the masters, this was the first time these young composers heard their music precisely, sharply, as they wrote it. Which was enlightening, for … Continue reading →

Fine Tuning: The Promise of a New Season

January 27, 2012
Franz Welser-Most

They’re in town. Once more The Cleveland Orchestra has begun its yearly Miami residency. By now, the orchestra is woven into the fabric of cultural life in our city. But no complacency. A new managing director, Bruce Coppock, has been talking to our community to better understand the curious phenom that is Miami and make changes in the project. What? He has not talked to you? No problem. This is the most democratic of media — as long as democracy includes Internet access. Let him, us, know what you think, right here in our Comments. What should the Cleveland Orchestra be about … Continue reading →

Ne mangez pas le pianiste!

September 27, 2011
Julio Cortazar

One of Julio Cortazar’s eerie short stories takes place in a concert hall, where a performance is so well received that the audience rises spontaneously to a wildly enthusiastic standing ovation, and continues to be so moved that they rush toward the stage to render their appreciation to the conductor. The Argentine master of magical realism describes the rush along aisles and corridors, as the elegantly dressed crowd flows toward the object of their admiration. Soon enough it’s clear that enthusiasm has degenerated into pandemonium. And beyond. Without bearing witness to the act of audience love, Cortazar tells how some of … Continue reading →

Musical Mortar; What Makes a Great Orchestra

August 29, 2011
Bruce Coppock

After a long hiatus, some very broad musings on The Cleveland Orchestra. Bruce Coppock, the new director of the Orchestra’s Miami Residency, calls the Orchestra “arguably the best orchestra in the country, one of the top in the world.” True, there are few American orchestras that could match, never mind surpass, the excellence of The Cleveland Orchestra. And, in the world, there are orchestras whose characteristics include differences in the interpretation of a piece, but The Cleveland Orchestra stands among the best. The question remains, what accounts for the excellence. I pondered this thought during the last Miami season, as I … Continue reading →

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