Cleveland Orchestra plays string, pulls heart strings

The Cleveland Orchestra, listed by Time Magazine as one of the top five orchestras in the country, played at the IU Auditorium for a one-night concert Tuesday. The concert was part of the three-day residency the orchestra has with IU, which finishes today with a performance at 8 p.m. in Auer Hall.

“It’s great to expose students who can’t make it to Carnegie Hall or Severance Hall to the orchestra,” said concert violinist and orchestra member Eli Matthews. “This is some of the greatest music, which is considered the pinnacle of western civilization.”
While at IU, the Cleveland Orchestra taught classes to students at the Jacobs School of Music as well as elementary students of Fairview Elementary.

“It was really incredible to see the attentiveness third graders were giving to classical music,” said Auditorium Events Manager Maria Talbert. “One thing Jeanne Preucil Rose (Cleveland Orchestra violinist) explained to the students was that if they loved music, it was important to teach their kids about the music when they grew up so they could keep it alive.”

Rose’s teachings were ones that Talbert said she believed related to the mission of the IU Auditorium.

“This is what the Auditorium strives to do, to expose everybody, especially young people, to music,” Talbert said.

The Auditorium came closer to achieving this goal with the Cleveland Orchestra’s performance, as this was the first performance in three years from an orchestra of this caliber.

“I’m very excited about the concert,” said first-year Jacobs grad student Sarah Drake. “The information I learned in the classes were eye-opening. I have a lot to work on now.”

The audience of the orchestra was wide and varied, as there were students from the school of music, members of the community and non-music students.

“We had a wonderful crowd,” Talbert said. “Nearly 2,000 tickets were sold.”

The buzz and anticipation for Tuesday night’s concert was building as the crowds were making their way into the auditorium.

The concert consisted of the Overture to the opera “Tannhäuser” by Richard Wagner, “Piano Concerto No. 2” by Béla Bartók, featuring pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and “Ein Heldenleben” by Richard Strauss.

As the lights dimmed, the crowed fell silent, giving all of their attention to the orchestra. The room was filled with the sound of bows drawn over violins, and horns being checked for their pitch.

While the orchestra played there was no texting or e-mail checking. The audience was listening and waiting for the next note the orchestra had to play.

“This is amazing,” junior Will Dickinson said. “Cleveland is one of the best orchestras in the world, their precision is fantastic and that Wagner pulls right at your heart strings.”