Cleveland Classical | Mike Telin

ChamberFest Cleveland wrapped up its seventh season with an excellent concert on Saturday, June 30 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. “Dawn of a Revolution” included works by Claude Debussy, a world premiere by Sebastian Chang, and a musical tapestry woven with inspired new choreography by David Shimotakahara.

The performance of Debussy’s sublime Violin Sonata by Noah Bendix-Balgley and pianist Roman Rabinovich was, in a word, stunning. Playing with a smooth, liquid tone, Bendix-Balgley made the intricate lines of the opening Allegro vivo sound easy. He brought clarity to the recurring, downward triadic motif that ties the movement together. Rabinovich matched that clarity with his light touch. The duo made everything so effortless it was easy to forget how complicated Debussy’s writing is. The Intermède: Fantasque et léger was highlighted by refined, well-shaped lines and nuanced articulations, while the Finale: Très animé exuded thoughtful energy, bringing this gripping performance to a brilliant close.

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Cleveland Classical | Nicholas Stevens

In the fifth concert of this year’s ChamberFest Cleveland season, programming took “A Turn in the Road” amid the festival’s theme of searching for freedom. Three trios played works by Alban Berg, George Crumb, and Antonín Dvořák, each of whom sought liberation from aesthetic constraints in some way. The resulting musical experience on June 21 in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall had remarkable stylistic and sonic range.

Spoken commentary prefaced the performance by Diana Cohen, Franklin Cohen, and Roman Rabinovich of Berg’s Adagio for violin, clarinet, and piano. Rabinovich pointed out some of the compositional intricacies that lace the score, and even played one of Berg’s themes in a harmonization more reminiscent of Richard Strauss, a contemporary. That the Cohens and Rabinovich viewed Berg’s work as a modernist alternative to Straussian sensuality became clear in performance.

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Cleveland Classical | Alice Koeninger

Rick Maron and Judy Eigenfeld’s Glass Box was filled with people celebrating a special Father’s Day brunch complete with chamber music on
Sunday, June 17. The title of the third ChamberFest Cleveland concert, Let Them Loose, felt applicable as the musicians performed in front of windows looking out across the city towards the lake.

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ChamberFest Cleveland, the celebrated summer music festival, will embark upon its first Winter Mini Festival this December showcasing world-renowned pianist and ChamberFest fan favorite, Roman Rabinovich. Rabinovich will perform a series of three piano recitals, each dedicated to the solo sonatas of Franz Josef Haydn. The concerts will take place Sunday, December 11th at the Music Settlement at 3:30pm, the Tuesday the 13th at the home of Franklin Cohen at 7:30pm, and Friday the 16th at The Dunham Tavern Museum at 7:30pm. Light refreshments will be available at each concert.

Roman Rabinovich’s musical affinity for Haydn is the centerpiece of his 16-17 season “Haydn Project.” Rabinovich is dedicated to fulfilling his dream of playing all of Haydn’s 45 piano sonatas and is halfway through them. He will perform 15 of the Haydn piano sonatas at the ChamberFest Cleveland Winter Concert Series. He has performed this year at the Lammermuir Festival in Scotland and at the Tel Aviv Conservatory in Israel, along with upcoming debut appearances with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (November 2017), and the Calgary Philharmonic (May 2017). In 2018 he will play all of the sonatas in fifteen days at the Bath Festival in the UK.

Praised by the New York Times for his “uncommon sensitivity and feeling,” the eloquent young Rabinovich is the winner of the 2008 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition. Of Haydn, Rabinovich has said, “He is like a magician who sets up expectations, and when you start following him he completely defies them.”

ChamberFest Cleveland, founded by Franklin Cohen, principal clarinetist emeritus of The Cleveland Orchestra, and his daughter, Diana Cohen, concertmaster of The Calgary Philharmonic, has been gaining high praise as part of the Cleveland arts scene since it began in 2012.

Tickets for the Winter Mini Festival are $35 general admission, $25 for young professionals ages 25 to 35, $12 for students, and $5 for children 12 and under. A subscription to all three concerts is $90. To order in advance call (216) 471-8887. Online tickets sales will begin on October 14th at chamberfestcleveland.com. To learn more about featured soloist Roman Rabinovich and the “Haydn Project,” visit http://www.romanrabinovich.net/.