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To•Day

DIARY: Wednesday, May 6, 2026

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 noon, Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concerts presents Edward Vogel, baritone (pictured) with Jenny Parker, piano, in Palace in the Wild: Journeys in British Art Song.

At 7 pm, The Stars of Summer Masters presents Beyond the Notes: Two Sonatas, Seven Portraits, with violinist Emilio Llinas, and pianist Halida Dinova in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

And at 7:30, Timothy Weiss conducts the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in music by Steven Mackey, Brian Raphael Nabors, and Melinda Wagner and premieres of works by Soomin Kim, Isaac Santos, and Zola Saadi-Klein in Warner Concert Hall.

INTERESTING READ:

The recent uproar at the Boston Symphony over the non-renewal of music director Andris Nelsons’ contract has prompted a response from the editorial board of the Boston Globe. 

“If the BSO needs a role model, perhaps it should stop looking to LA, with its shiny new concert hall, plus its outdoor 17,000-seat Hollywood Bowl and a huge population center from which to draw patrons and donors. Instead it might look to Cleveland, which also ranks among the nation’s Big Five orchestras. [Read More…]

Pre•Views & Features

Cleveland Chamber Choir to present La Fleur de la Renaissance

by Daniel Hathaway

In an open letter to Cleveland Chamber Choir patrons, artistic director Gregory Ristow wrote:

“Our upcoming concert, La Fleur de la Renaissance, celebrates the new approach to harmony that emerged in the 1400s in the northern reaches of the French empire…To my ears, this is where Western classical choral singing as we know it began. To return to this music is to come back to the source, to explore consonance and dissonance in their purest forms, to delight in how these composers wrote glorious melodies for each part of the ensemble, while also allowing them to come together to form beautifully resonant sonorities.”

On Friday, May 8 at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland, and Saturday, May 9 at First Lutheran Church in Lorain, the Cleveland Chamber Choir will present “The Flower of the Renaissance,” a compendium of works by six composers in the form of a Roman Catholic Mass that explore this new style. Both performances begin at 7:30.

The program also demonstrates the popular practice among Renaissance composers of embedding pre-existing material in new pieces, something that would come to be regarded as plagiarism in modern times, but were meant as tributes back in the day. Ristow has constructed his imaginary mass from movements of the forty-some Renaissance works based on the mysterious secular song, L’Homme armé. [Read on…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: A conversation with Concerto Competition winner Grace Berendt

By Mike Telin

“When I was three years old my mom took me to a jazz concert. I saw the trombone, and I was immediately hooked,” Grace Berendt recalled. “From that day on, I knew I wanted to be a trombone player.”

On Sunday, May 10 at 3:00 pm at Severance Music Center, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition winner will step to the front of the Mandel Concert Hall stage to play Ferdinand David’s Concertino for Trombone and Orchestra.

Under the direction of James Feddeck the program also includes Aaron Copland’s Letter from Home, George Walker’s Icarus in Orbit, and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World.” Tickets are available online.

I caught up with the Aurora High School senior by phone and began our conversation by congratulating her on the Concerto competition win.

Grace Berendt: Thank you so much.

Mike Telin: I’m curious about why you selected the David? To be honest, it’s the only piece by him that I know. 

GB: It’s definitely his best piece. It’s actually one of the first trombone concertos I started learning, and I have to say that I have yet to find one that I like more. There’s so much to love about it — the heroic melodies, as well as the emotions conveyed through it. I think there’s really such a variety of styles and interpretations that can be taken with this piece. And it’s just so much fun to play.

[Read on…]

Marc-André Hamelin returns to Severance Music Center

by Mike Telin

“I’m looking forward to being back in Cleveland, It’s almost like a second home,” pianist Marc-André Hamelin said during a telephone conversation. “I believe my first visit was at the Art Museum. I played the complete Iberia — that was a little over 20 years ago.

“But it’s always a joy to be back in Severance. The combination of the atmosphere and acoustics — there’s hardly anything better. And I’ll be experiencing it for the first time as a solo recitalist, which I’m very excited about.”

On Tuesday, May 5 at 7:30 pm in Mandel Concert Hall, Marc-André Hamelin will present the final concert of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Recital Series with a program featuring music by Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Mieczysław Weinberg, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Tickets are available online.

[Read on…]

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