The Kronos Quartet in Memorial Hall. Photo thanks to J.P. Leong
At 53, the Kronos Quartet has a vast catalog of music of our time. On Tuesday (Sept. 29), the Kronos opened the Chamber Music Cincinnati season with a thought-provoking, compelling and sometimes humorous program in Memorial Hall. Each piece on their substantial program of 10 works (and two encores) was written or arranged for the quartet.
The summit of the evening was Philip Glass’ String Quartet No. 5, written in 1991 for the Kronos, a nod to the close relationship the quartet has had with Glass, now in his 90th birthday season.
Founding violinist David Harrington was joined by his new colleagues Gabriela Díaz (violin), Ayane Kozasa (viola) and Paul Wiancko (cello). Memorial Hall was packed with longtime fans of the quartet, as well as students, some of whom had studied with Kozasa at CCM. True to their commitment to education and mentoring, they had spent time working with young musicians at Walnut Hills High School.
As is usual in the quartet’s groundbreaking programs, selections were enhanced by video and sound, performed by Brian H. Scott (lighting designer) and Scott Fraser (sound designer). Several pieces were accompanied by historical footage or black-and-white newsreels. Their instruments were amplified, which enabled the musicians to create ethereal soundscapes.Read More »
The Israeli Chamber Project with violinist Antje Weithaas played Chamber Music Cincinnati this week.
Imagine being a touring musician while your country is at war. Clarinetist Tibi Cziger and his wife cellist Michal Korman were in a safe room with their three children in Tel Aviv when their home was hit and damaged by a bomb from Iran. The couple, members of the Israeli Chamber Project, were on the brink of their North American tour. They quickly decided that Korman would stay home with their traumatized children, while Cziger would travel to the U.S.
So began an odyssey just to get here. Cziger, who is founder and artistic director of the Israeli Chamber Project, and flutist Guy Eshed, principal flutist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, flew from Tel Aviv to Athens to Zurich to Chicago. (The others were coming from New York, Georgia and Germany.) From Chicago, the musicians were unable to get a flight to Cincinnati. The group, based in Israel and New York, had already been forced to make changes with some substitute players for their first two tour performances due to their travel woes. They decided to drive.
The fact that they arrived on time for their Chamber Music Cincinnati performance on March 24 in Memorial Hall was nothing short of a miracle. Their performance was not only a feat of superb artistry and virtuosity, but also of grit, determination and even courage. The audience stood for lengthy ovations at its conclusion.
For the tour, the ensemble joined with the distinguished violinist Antje Weithaas, now a professor at Berlin’s Hochschule fur Musik, and named “Instrumentalist of the Year” at Germany’s 2025 Opus Klassic. Besides Cziger and Eshed, the ensemble was rounded out by violinist Itamar Zorman (winner of the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition); violist Guy Ben-Ziony (currently visiting professor at the Robert Schumann University of Music and Media in Düsseldorf); and pianist Assaff Weisman, a graduate of The Juilliard School where he now teaches. Cellist James Kim admirably stepped in at the last minute to play for Michal Korman for the whole tour. He is on the faculty of University of Georgia’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music and cellist of the Lysander Piano Trio.
They opened with Bernard Hermann’s “Souvenir de Voyage” for clarinet and string quartet. The first movement’s theme, a haunting tune set against lush strings, was ideal for the rich timbre of Cziger’s clarinet. Clarinet and violin traded themes much of the time, and their phrases were were tinged with nostalgia in the slow movement, Berceuse. The evocative finale was inspired by J.M. W. Turner’s Venetian watercolors, and began in the two violins, almost like a Kreisler miniature. Hermann, of course, is revered for his film scores, and these souvenirs were like small cinematic gems, and a wonderful discovery.Read More »
I had great intentions to go to many more holiday concerts this month before I was laid flat by the Virus that hit Cincinnati. So, here are a few impressions from December:
Pianist Jeremy Denk visited Chamber Music Cincinnati early in the month for a full recital. An overflow crowd crammed into Werner Recital Hall — it’s too bad it wasn’t in the much larger Corbett Auditorium.
Jeremy Denk enthralled a capacity crowd at Chamber Music Cincinnati this month.
Denk recently won the MacArthur Genius fellowship, and small wonder. To give an example of his genius, his performance came fresh off of a Carnegie Hall performance of Steven Stucky’s comic opera, “The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts),” for which Denk wrote the libretto. He is Musical America’s 2014 Instrumentalist of the Year. You can read more of why he’s a Renaissance man here.
His Cincinnati program was both genius and a bit curious.Read More »
