Celebrate Heights Arts' 20th and Beethoven's 250th

Current CH Poet Laureate Damien McClendon performing at Ekphrastacy event

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Heights Arts continues its yearlong 20th-anniversary celebration with a month of events showcasing the wonderful talent of local artists, musicians and poets. The ambitious schedule features concerts, poetry readings and visual art exhibitions.

On Feb. 13 at 7 p.m., Heights Arts and Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Damien McClendon collaborate to present Ekphrastacy: Artists Speak + Poets Respond, an event for art enthusiasts and poetry lovers alike. Artists from the current Point-Line-Pattern-Plane exhibition will speak about the inspiration and process behind the creation of their work. Poets Damien McClendon, Ray McNiece, John Burroughs and Carson Evans will join the artists to recite original poems inspired by pieces in the show. Cleveland is home to a bustling community of authors and poets who garner regional and national recognition, and Heights Arts Ekphrastacy series provides a unique opportunity for these talented writers to express their work.

Heights Arts has a busy concert season, featuring free gallery concerts with local ensembles as well as its popular Close Encounters chamber music series held in interesting venues throughout Cleveland. The upcoming gallery concert on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., features the Shibagaki Shung Duo, with pianists Natsumi Shibagaki and Dr. Irwin Shung. The eclectic program will feature four-hand piano works by Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Schubert and Gershwin.

On March 1, 3 p.m., at a Shaker Heights mansion, Heights Arts will present world-class musicians in performance in Heights Arts and Beethoven Birthday Bonn-anza, the third concert of its annual Close Encounters series. The series provides an up-close and personal experience for hearing world-class Cleveland Orchestra members perform in beautiful, intimate settings.

Isabel Trautwein, artistic director of the Close Encounters concert series, said, “You can’t miss Beethoven’s 250th and Heights Arts’ 20th birthday concert. Richard King, our Heights neighbor and one of the top horn players in the world, performs a rarely heard horn sonata by the young Ludwig, followed by the famous Ghost-trio, named for its haunting slow movement, plus a late work, his Cello Sonata C-major, with the elegant cellist Tanya Ell.” Performers are Patti Wolf (University of Texas, Austin), piano; Isabel Trautwein (the Cleveland Orchestra), violin; Tanya Ell (the Cleveland Orchestra), cello; and Richard King (the Cleveland Orchestra), French horn.

“This program will illuminate Beethoven’s path from gifted young composer to the rule-breaking Genius,” said Trautwein, “and gives an opportunity to reflect on a true Heights community accomplishment: two decades of serving and supporting artists in our region through a vibrant nonprofit we love: Heights Arts.”

For more information on Heights Arts’ community programs and events, including artist calls, concert tickets, gallery performances and outreach, visit www.heightsarts.org.