Cleveland Classical

DIARY: WEEKEND, Friday-Sunday October 9-11, 2026

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

SATURDAY — Oberlin Faculty & Guest Recital, Emily Cornelius & Ross Karre, violin and percussion duo (pictured), 2 pm, Allen Memorial Art Museum | Studio Espressivo Studio Series, Secret Masterpieces. 3 pm and 8 pm, 2026 Murray Hill Road #111, Cleveland | Joseph Min, carillon, 4 pm, McGaffin Carillon, University Circle | Oberlin Faculty Recital, Autumn: Masterworks Written at the End of Composers’ Lives, 4 pm, Kulas Recital Hall | Canton Symphony, Maurice Cohn, conductor, Hanzhi Wang, bandoneón. 7:30 pm in Umstattd Hall | The Resonance Project, Ten Kings of Hell with Anna Rathbun, soprano, Irwin Shung, piano, and Qin Ying Tan, harpsichord, 7:30 pm, Forest Hill Church.

SUNDAY — Tri-C Classical Piano Series, Duo-pianists Antonio Pompa-Baldi & Emanuela Friscioni play both of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Suites, 2 pm in Tri-C Metro Auditorium | Parma Symphony, Randolph Laycock, conducting, 4 pm at Valley Forge High School, Parma Heights | Studio Espressivo Studio Series, 3 pm at 2026 Murray Hill Road #111, Cleveland | Heights Chamber Orchestra, Travis Jürgens, conducting, with Emily Cornelius, violin, and Ross Karre, percussion, 3:30 pm, St. Paul’s Episcopal, Cleveland Hts. | Barbara O’Brien & Julie Gough, flute duets, 4 pm, St. Sebastian Church, Akron | CIM New Music Ensemble. Keith Fitch, director, with Sheila Browne, viola, 4 pm in Mixon Hall | Trinity Cathedral Chamber Choir & Covenant Chancel Choir, 4 pm, Church of the Covenant | Medina Concert Series Autumn Impressions & Dances, 4 pm in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina.

IN EUROPE THIS WEEKEND, The Cleveland Orchestra will play the fifth and sixth concerts in their 15-performance international tour in Reduta Hall, Bratislava, Slovakia (Saturday at 7:30, Liszt, Martinu & Brahms) and in the Brucknerhaus, in Linz, Austria (Sunday at 3, Mozart, Deutsch & R. Strauss)

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Camille Saint-Saëns was born on October 9, 1835 in Paris. [Read More…]

Escher Quartet to make Chamber Music Society debut

by Mike Telin

Formed in 2005, the Escher String Quartet is no stranger to Northeast Ohio. The ensemble has made numerous appearances on Akron’s Tuesday Musical series and has served as the quartet for chamber music rounds of the Cleveland International Piano Competition.

One series the Escher has not yet performed on is that of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society.

On Tuesday, October 13 at 7:30 pm at the Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church, The Escher Quartet — Adam Barnett-Hart & Bryan Lee, violins, Pierre Lapointe, viola, and Brook Speltz, cello — will make their long-awaited CCMS debut. Tickets are available online.

“We’re thrilled to be making our debut on one of the great chamber music series in America,” cellist Brook Speltz said during a recent telephone conversation. “We were happy when the date came through because we thought, ‘You know what? We’re overdue to play on that series.’”

[Read on…]

Cornelius & Karre violin and percussion duo feature in 3 concerts this weekend

by Mike Telin

If you have never heard a recital by a violin and percussion duo, you have three opportunities this weekend.

On Saturday, October 10 at 2:00 pm in Oberlin’s Allen Memorial Art Museum, violinist Emily Cornelius and percussionist Ross Karre will perform Arvo Pärt’s iconic Fratres along with works by Aaron Helgeson, Salina Fisher Jesse Jones, Cara Haxo, and Leilehua Lanzilotti. The free concert is part of the College and Conservatory’s Homecoming weekend.

Then on Sunday, October 11 at 3:30 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, the Duo will repeat Pärt’s Fratres with the Heights Chamber Orchestra — for which Cornelius serves as concertmaster. Under the direction of Travis Jürgens, the program will also include Amy Marcy Cheney Beach’s Summer Dreams, Margaret Brouwer’s Century’s Song, and Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 in E-flat. The concert is free.

[Read on…]

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Verona Quartet: American dialects at Federated Church (Oct. 3)

by Kevin McLaughlin

In a program titled “American,” the Verona Quartet — Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro, violins, Abigail Rojansky, viola, and Jonathan Dormand, cello — spent much of their concert at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls on Saturday, October 3 moving among American musical dialects: Philip Glass’s minimalism, Samuel Barber’s lyricism, along with early jazz and popular song.

Antonín Dvořák was the outlier, though his American years supplied a plausible connection, and his final quartet gave each member of the ensemble (who are quartet-in-residence at the Oberlin Conservatory) more room to speak.

Philip Glass’s Company began as four musical interludes for a stage adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s prose work. Glass later wrote that he chose the string quartet for its ability to be both “introspective and passionate.” The Verona treated repetition as something active rather than static. [Read on…]

Relic journeys with Venus and Adonis in “The Blood of the Rose” (Sept. 30)

by Stephanie Manning

For the New York-based Baroque chamber orchestra Relic, a program themed around an opera requires a deliberately operatic presentation.

Although there were no singers, sets, or costumes present in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on September 30, Relic combined an intriguing collection of music with a suggestion of scenes and characters, topped off with a few dramatic readings. This curated experience told a short, cohesive story in a little over an hour.

“The Blood of the Rose,” the ensemble’s latest program, is based on La púrpura de la rosa by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco. The first opera ever to be performed in the Americas, it tells the mythological story of Venus and Adonis, whose romance ends in a tragic demise engineered by Mars. [Read on…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir makes pilgrimage along the “Path of Miracles” (Sept. 26)

by Stephanie Manning

In the hands (and voices) of the Cleveland Chamber Choir, Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles became both a piece about a pilgrimage and a piece that felt like one.

As it happens, those two activities — concert and pilgrimage — share more common qualities than not. Even without a religious element, each provides an opportunity for people to participate in a shared experience, go on a journey (physical and/or emotional), and arrive at a destination before going their separate ways.

The specific pilgrimage that inspired Talbot was the Camino Frances, part of a network of pilgrimages called the Camino de Santiago, which lead travelers to the city Santiago de Compostela in western Spain. The choir’s September 26 performance brought the composer’s hour-long work to Trinity Cathedral, perhaps the perfect venue to hear this music. [Read on…]

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Musicians, patrons unite for Cleveland Orchestra concert (Sept. 24)

by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A strange vibe hung in the air at Severance Music Center on Thursday evening, September 24, as The Cleveland Orchestra and its audience gathered for the second program of the new season. Contract talks had broken down shortly before the performance and a midnight strike was looming.

Aside from a string trio playing welcoming music inside the entrance, orchestra members greeting arriving patrons, and someone shouting “Give our musicians what they want” when concertmaster Joel Link came onstage to tune, there was little hint of a labor dispute to sully the evening.

[Read on…]

Arts Renaissance Tremont ventures into “UnchARTed Territory” (Sept. 19)

by Stephanie Manning

Arts Renaissance Tremont keeps things fresh — after all, the ‘R’ in ART stands not just for “renaissance,” but also “reimagined.” The organization’s embrace of experimentation and creativity keeps their programming memorable among Cleveland’s many arts offerings.

It’s inevitable that taking those risks means they might not always pay off. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth it.

“UnchARTed Territory,” the first concert of ART’s 35th season, exemplified this idea. On September 19, the audience arrived eagerly and early to Pilgrim Congregational Church in Tremont, prepared to watch a group of five jazz musicians work together for the first time. Each player had composed a short piece (or two) for the occasion, and those of us gathered would watch them rehearse and then perform the music. An intriguing premise. [Read on…]

Franz Welser-Möst returns to Severance to begin 25th and final season in Cleveland (Sept. 17)

by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Richard Strauss somehow got lost on his way to the 20th century, but his detour was a beautiful one. Still composing — though at a slower pace — into his eighties, he crafted some of the most expressive and memorable Romantic music in the repertory shortly before his death in 1949.

Among those works are the cycle that has come to be called “The Four Last Songs,” inspired by three Hermann Hesse poems in an anthology gifted to the composer, plus an earlier setting of words by Joseph von Eichendorff. All of the poetry is infused with the “autumnal” qualities also to be found in Johannes Brahms.

[Read on…]

Pianist Lang Lang brings boyish exuberance, introspection to Severance recital (Sept. 12)

by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Lang Lang returned to Severance Music Center on Saturday, September 12 to open the fourth season of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Recital Series, two years after playing Saint-Saëns’s Second Piano Concerto with the Orchestra. This time he had Mandel Concert Hall all to himself, with a program of Mozart, Beethoven, Albéniz, Granados, and Liszt.

At 44, the pianist has lost little of his boyish exuberance. He can still amaze with bursts of extraordinary velocity and smile while doing it. But some of the evening’s best playing came when virtuosity meant something quieter and more reflective. The program itself encouraged such contrast, moving from early Mozart and late-Beethoven introspection toward Spanish color and Lisztian display.

[Read on…]

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To•Day

DIARY: WEEKEND, Friday-Sunday October 9-11, 2026

Pre•Views & Features

Escher Quartet to make Chamber Music Society debut

Cornelius & Karre violin and percussion duo feature in 3 concerts this weekend

To•Day

Pre•Views & Features

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