Various
venues
June
20 – 30
 |
| The festival is a family affair for Diana and Franklin Cohen. |
Just
a year after its outrageously successful debut, ChamberFest Cleveland
has grown quickly into adulthood. The festival has expanded from five
to eight concerts, moved into new venues, and opened up its
programming to give young artists exposure and audiences a chance to
meet and interact with composers and performers.
The
only thing lacking is an A-list of stars, the established groups and
soloists who normally headline chamber music concerts. But that
wouldn’t be in keeping with the spirit and mission of the festival.
“The
Cleveland Chamber Music Society already does a great job of bringing
in groups like the Emerson Quartet,” says Diana Cohen, ChamberFest
Cleveland’s executive and artistic director. “What we want to do
is create a familial atmosphere not only for the musicians, but for
the audience.”
The
model for this is Marlboro Music, a festival in Vermont where chamber
musicians have gathered every summer since 1951 to play together,
trade ideas, mentor young players and occasionally form groups.
Marlboro is an egalitarian setting where musicians not only come
together musically, but help out with cooking, cleaning and other
chores, and bring families along to join in social and recreational
activities.
“My
dad [Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen] and I
have both been to Marlboro, and it was a powerful experience for us,”
Cohen says. “The idea of a real community with a strong sense of
family was something that we wanted to re-create here.”
The
father-daughter combination, along with younger brother Alex, a
percussionist, lend ChamberFest Cleveland an obvious family face. But
the other players are also part of an extended family, all colleagues
and friends of the Cohens who have been invited to Cleveland to form
an admixture that proved to be more than the sum of its parts in the
festival’s inaugural outing.
“Last
year we brought in a bunch of people, some of whom knew each other,
but a lot who didn’t, and it was really kind of magical to see
relationships build throughout the festival,” Cohen says. “There
was some amazing chemistry. I remember how exhilarated we felt at the
first concert, seeing all these great musicians enjoying themselves.
In a way, it felt too good to be true.”
And
while the talent may not always be well-known, it is first-rate. This
year’s roster of performers includes violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley
and Amy Schwartz Moretti, cellists Julie Albers, Gabriel Cabezas and
Robert deMaine, violists Yura Lee and Dimitri Murrath and pianist
Orion Weiss, to name just a few. Two interesting composers are
bringing new work: Matan Porat (also a pianist), whose “Start-time”
opens the festival, and Andrew Norman, a 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist
for his “The Companion Guide to Rome,” which will be performed at
CIM’s Mixon Hall on June 26.
Those
pieces fit neatly into this year’s overall programming theme, an
exploration of time in both a technical and abstract sense. Works
like Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” (Mixon Hall, June
20) will take listeners on far-flung philosophical journeys, while
programs like “A Tempo” (Harkness Chapel, June 28), with
contrasting pieces by Schumann, Ravel and Messiaen, offer studies in
compositional techniques.
Pre-concert
talks, après-concert
socials and special events like a screening of Buster Keaton’s
silent classic The General with live musical accompaniment
will give festival-goers a chance to meet the performers, composers
and organizers, and become more than passive listeners and
bystanders.
“We
know there are already a lot of chamber music lovers in town, but we
hope to create a new culture,” says Cohen. “We want people to be
as excited as we are not only about the music, but the process of
making it, and to become part of the friendships that are made and
the energy that happens when people are making great music together.
“If
we can create a community around that, it will make us really happy.”
For
more on ChamberFest Cleveland, including a complete schedule and
ticket information: http://chamberfestcleveland.com/
For
more on Marlboro Music: http://www.marlboromusic.org/
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