Fri 3/28 @ 7:30PM
Sun 3/30 @ 7:30PM
Mon 3/31 @ 7:30PM
Wed 4/2 @ 8PM
Sat 4/5 @ 8:30PM
Sun 4/6 @ 7:30PM
Northeast Ohio is home to one of the world’s top symphonies, several world-class conservatories, and numerous university music programs. So it’s not surprising that the concentration of topnotch musicians and educated music listeners has spawned ensembles dedicated to different aspects of classical music.
One of these is the 34-year-old Cleveland Chamber Symphony. Its focus is contemporary composers, the ones who often get shunted aside in favor of yet another performance of Mozart or Beethoven. And it’s known for the many works it’s commissioned and premiered.
It’s now kicking off a brand new music festival called NEOSonicFest, a play on words that encompassed both its passion for the new and its base in northeast Ohio. And a key part of the festival mission is to draw attention to composers working in Northeast Ohio.
The opening event takes place at Cleveland State’s Drinko Hall of Fri 3/28. The Cleveland Chamber Symphony and Verb Ballets will pay tribute to Cleveland Chamber Symphony founder and prolific composer Edwin London, who died last year at the age of 84.
On Sun 3/30, Verb Ballets will be featured again. They’ll join Ensemble HD, a sextet led by Cleveland Orchestra flutist Joshua Smith, for a concert at Harkness Chapel on the Case Western Reserve campus.
Organist Jonathan William Moyer will mix old and new in a solo concert called “Music From the Abyss” on Mon 3/31 at the Church of the Covenant where he is music director and organist. His program will range from Bach to Schoenberg and Messaien and Ligeti to living composers William Bolcom and Piet Kee.
Jazz/classical sax player Howie Smith (pictured), a Cleveland State professor and frequent collaborator with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, will present a program called “The Speed of Time” for sax and 9-channel surround sound at Drinko Hall Wed 4/2.
On Sat 4/5, the FiveOne Experimental Orchestra, an unconventional musical ensemble, will play at an unconventional venue, the Lakewood Screw Factory, an old manufacturing building now filled with artist studios. The six-year-old Cleveland-based group consists of nine musician/composers whose genre boundaries are as fluid as their roles within the group.
The festival winds up on Sun 4/6 with the Cleveland Chamber symphony paying tribute to the finalists from its Young & Emerging Composers series. It will also features Ives’ Tone Roads No. 1, and Howie Smith’s Epilogue, featuring Smith on Sax. That will take place at Baldwin Wallace’s Gamble Auditorium at the Kulas Musical Arts Building.
All the concerts are free, with a suggested $10 donation. Seating is first come, first serve.
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