Cleveland Heights Musicians Embark on Classical Journey

A trip this weekend to the Ohio Philharmonic Orchestra's concert would seem like nothing more than an activity you'll tell friends about on Monday.

The group's leadership says its presentation, is a bit more than that.

"If you haven't heard it before, you'll be taken on an adventure," Tiffany Laufer, creative director of the OPO, said of the show. "If you have, it will bring you back, probably, to some memories that you didn't realize you had."

Conducted by Domenico Boyagian, the orchestra will perform the show twice — at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday, both at the Gartner Auditorium at The Cleveland Museum of Art. The program features suites that pay homage to popular works by Maurice Ravel and Edvard Grieg.

Tiffany's father, Bill Laufer, the group's executive director, beams when asked what people can expect from the show.

"Live music with 45 to 60 musicians," he said of the group that began performing in 2008 as the St. Ann Chamber Orchestra. "It's just an incredible experience."

The centerpiece of the show is Grieg's "Piano Concerto." It will also feature Grieg's "Holberg Suite" and Ravel's "Le Tombeau De Couperin." Antonio Pompa-Baldi, a Cleveland Heights-based concert pianist and professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, will perform the Concerto, a piece he says has lived on for good reason.

"('Piano Concerto' is) full of beautiful melodies, powerful sonorities, lyrical moments, magical atmosphere and dance-like passages," Pompa-Baldi wrote in an email. "It is an immortal masterpiece, which (Sergei) Rachmaninoff defined as the best concerto ever written, and one that continues to generate enthusiastic responses from audiences worldwide."

Laufer, also a Cleveland Heights resident, said the OPO consists of many CIM graduates who he helped handpick with friends in the CIM community. Laufer said bringing classical music and inspiration to a younger audience was his initial goal for the orchestra. He hopes the upcoming weekend of shows will be a landmark in reaching that accomplishment.

"This area is so rich, from a music standpoint," he said. "We've got orchestras, and in the immediate area we have an incredible amount of music groups. The Ohio Philharmonic exists to employ these most excellent musicians.

"Our musicians are some of the finest in the United States."