McGegan Back on Stage with The Cleveland Orchestra This December

Nicholas McGegan conducts The Cleveland Orchestra from the harpsichord. Photo credit: Roger Mastroianni

After a tumultuous year for so many in the performing arts, it is with astonishing gratitude that The Cleveland Orchestra launched a world-class streaming service, Adella, and engaged Nic to conduct again on stage at Severance Hall. While the episode was recorded at the end of November, the performance premiered on the orchestra’s new streaming platform, Adella, and is available until March 10, 2021. View it now!

The program also included Nic performing on the harpsichord featuring Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Corelli’s “Christmas Concerto”.

Two excellent reviews came in after the video premiere from both The Plain Dealer and Cleveland Classical.

"Boy, though, does it sound authentic. This may be Severance Hall in late 2020, but under the spry, insightful watch of Nicholas McGegan, the orchestra in this program sounds like the resident ensemble of some European palace in the 1700s.” Read the full review on cleveland.com.

“Not one to completely rearrange the furniture when he guest conducts, McGegan allows his players to retain their robust sonorities — and a certain amount of vibrato — while infusing his performances with Baroque contrapuntal clarity.” Read the review on Cleveland Classical.

Cleveland Classical also previewed the concert in a special interview with Nic. It’s a particularly insightful piece as it relates the experience of conducting digital orchestral concerts in this new world.

“The conductor said that streamed concerts are a wonderful way for orchestras to engage people from around the world. ‘I know for the last concert I did in Houston, people were buying tickets from the UK. And providing on-demand access to links — people in Australia who have never heard The Cleveland Orchestra can buy a ticket and hear it in their own time zone. It’s splendid how, out of necessity, people have come up with all of these inventive things to do. And thank heavens for the internet. Can you imagine how lonely we’d all be if we only had the phone, but now we can have Zoomathons.’” Read the full interview at Cleveland Classical.