Since its explosion onto the scene in 2004, CityMusic Cleveland has won cheering audiences with its beautiful music, brilliantly performed, in friendly, familiar neighborhood settings. Free concerts with free art exhibits -- and free childcare -- make CityMusic concerts accessible to everyone! Performing all over northeast Ohio, CityMusic Cleveland holds the conviction that musicians and artists play an important role in creating and transforming communities. We work closely with community leaders and organizations to improve neighborhood pride, stewardship of place, economic development, transmission of cultural values and history, public safety, and bridge cultural/ethnic/racial boundaries.
From Slavic Village, St. Clair/Superior, Willoughby, Willoughby Hills, Elyria, Rocky River, Westlake, and Cleveland Heights, our 2007-08 season presents 23 concerts. You and your friends and relations are cordially invited!
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BROUWER. STRAVINSKY. MOZART
Steven E. Ritter, Fanfare Magazine, May/June 2008
CityMusic Cleveland is a 31-member chamber group whose admirable mission is to get music to the masses (or places where it is not so easily come by, and they are based in six different cities) and all at a reasonable -- mostly free -- price. Who can argue with such a concept as this? I have, in the past, come across similar ventures, all quite praiseworthy in intention, but alas, not so great hearing final results inexorably silvered to disc. This is one I almost passed over for review, but as fate would have it, in it went, and out came some very worthy and wonderfully played music, much to my surprise (and chagrin, actually, as I thought my reviewing chores were done).
I know that by looking at the heading you are wondering as I did, how a local group, a small chamber group, playing for free, dares to put out a recording with Mozart Symphony No. 39 as perhaps the featured work. What nerve! As it turns out, I probably would not purchase this disc for that alone,but this well-thought-out program has much more to recommend it; and the idiomatic and wonderfully played No. 39 (which is, by the way, fully competitive with any number of "name" recordings) is icing on an especially spicy cake. I kid you not -- this is a breathtaking reading of Mozart's third-to-the-end symphony by Gaffigan, and the chamber group, full and robust in sound.
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