Thu 6/16-Sun 7/3
Chamberfest Cleveland is back for its 10th season, and as in previous years, it’s presenting various combinations of musicians and different sizes of ensembles playing music at venues around town, some conventional (lots of events at the Cleveland Institute of Music), some not, over three weekends.
“For our 10th season,” they say, “we celebrate the X factor, the unnamable, that certain je ne sais quoi that touches our souls and connects us as human beings.” And luckily this year again, they can touch more people live and in person.
The schedule includes ticketed concerts on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and “encore” concerts on Sundays that are free and open to the public (reservations required).
It kicks off with a concert appropriately entitled “Exquisite Beginnings” taking place at CIM Thursday June 16 @ 7:30pm, with music by Mozart, Brahms, Edvard Grieg and Black American composer George Walker (1922-2018).
On Friday June 17 @ 7:30 at the Cultural Arts Center Disciples Church, “Spirited Away” features nine musicians and vocal quartet Kings Return, doing instrumental and vocal works by George Gershwin, contemporary Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian, George Walker, Antonín Dvořák, and spirituals and folk songs by Kings Return.
On Saturday June 18 @ 7:30pm, Chamberfest returns to CIM for “Human Existence,” with Claude Debussy’s Violin Sonata, 20th-century Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya’s Clarinet Trio and Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 1. Among the seven musicians are the festival’s three directors: the Cleveland Orchestra’s retired principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen, his violinist daughter Diana Cohen, concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic, and her husband, pianist Roman Rabinovich.
Chamberfest Cleveland wraps up its first week with Encore #1 at the Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield Village on Sunday June 19 @ 6:30pm. This concert is outdoors so bring your chair or blanket and a picnic. It’s weather permitting. Make reservations here.
Get tickets at all Chamberfest Cleveland concerts here.