Cleveland Orchestra @ Blossom Music Center 7/10/11
The birds at Blossom, I’m happy to report, continue to see the Cleveland Orchestra as either a rival or a challenge. One particular bird responded over and over to violinist Leila Josefowicz as she played John Adam’s Violin Concerto. They both sounded superb. Josefowicz’s violin vibrated at times as if it were a lost creature wandering in a desert of sound, with the French horn its only companion. Her floor-length designer dress, a bright splash of color, added to the forest motif.
Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 concluded the program with its ever-touching evocation of just about everything that makes me want to cry (loss, eternity, hope, love — you get the picture). Franz Welser-Most conducted. Listening to concerts outside remains worth the drive to Blossom and (BTW) it’s a lot easier to find a place to park and get there on time if you come a bit early. Take along a picnic or just buy something there. Kids under 18 are free on the lawn (two passes with each paid admission). Sounds like a good deal.
An “up close and personal” media event before this concert with Cleveland Orchestra musicians Franklin Cohen (clarinet), Jung-Min Amy Lee (violin), Stephen Rose (violin), and Paul Yancich (timpani) and Cleveland Orchestra General Manager Gary Ginstling showed once again that professional musicians are just like the rest of us (only with [most likely] more talent and [even more likely] much more practicing).
The four shared funny accounts about their childhood introduction to classical music. Lee, for one, said she was “encouraged” to take up the violin (rather than the cello) because it was easier to carry. Young Cohen and his mother had to leave a concert once because they got the giggles over the squawking soloist in a Weber piece (the same one that Cohen plays at Blossom next month). Yancich and his brother (also a tympani player) still share a friendly, co-operative rivalry. The four panelists have upcoming solos at Blossom: Lee with the Joffrey Ballet Sat 8/20 & Sun 8/21; Cohen in Weber’s “Clarinet Concerto, No. 2″ on Sun 8/28; Rose with Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 1 on Sat 8/27; Yancich (along with brother Paul) with Beethoven’s Ninth” on Sat 9/10.
For more information or tickets go to http://ClevelandOrchestra.com.
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.
Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.