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To•Day

DIARY: Thursday, February 19, 2026

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, conductor-composer John Adams and pianist Aaron Diehl join The Cleveland Orchestra for Adams’ Frenzy: a short symphony and his arrangements of Astor Piazzolla tangos, Charles Ives’ From Greenland’s Icy Mountains, and Timo Andres’ Made of Tunes. (Repeated on Friday at 11 & Saturday at 7:30.)

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One of the few items to pop up on a search for events that took place on this day in classical music history was the death of Italian madrigalist Orazio Vecchi in 1605 at the age of 54 in Modena. That got me thinking about alternative ways of observing some historic milestones.

Normally, we recommend recordings as tributes to those who have begun and ended careers on the date in question, but Vecchi suggests a more interactive approach. How about a madrigal sing-along? [Read More…]

Pre•Views & Features

Soprano Estelí Gomez and composer Gilda Lyons collaborate on Les Délices’ “La Diosa”

by Stephanie Manning

The Venn diagram of performers who love early music and those who love new music is closer to a circle than one might think. Take soprano Estelí Gomez, who is as likely to appear on a Baroque program as she is on a contemporary one.

“One of the reasons people love doing both is that the composer has a lot of excitement for and trust in the performer,” Gomez said in a recent interview.

From the composer’s perspective, that idea of artistic freedom is “wonderfully liberating,” Gilda Lyons said in that same Zoom call. While research is important, “I’m never going to know as much as the performers do about their specific instrument. So I’m going to leave space for them to be the artists that they are.”

[Read on…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition (CIPC) Semi-Finalist Jonathan Mamora in residency at The University of Akron

by Mike Telin

When the Cleveland International Piano Competition set out to plan its 50th anniversary in 2024, CIPC president Yaron Kohlberg knew that some changes needed to be made.

“A lot has changed in the classical music world during the past 50 years,” Kohlberg said in an interview prior to that year’s competition. He added that the changes that were made were designed to create more and better ways for CIPC to serve the contestants, the audience, and the community at large.

One of the many alterations that Kohlberg and his team implemented was in the Competition’s prize structure, which featured a new artist development program that was open to all contestants. The program offers mentorship opportunities with leading pianists, faculty, and innovators in the classical music world, and short courses in personal branding and social media, fundraising, artist finances, and similar topics, offered in partnership with Young Concert Artists. It also included residencies at Northeast Ohio universities.

From February 18 through 28, pianist Jonathan Mamora will serve as artist-in-residence at The University of Akron School of Performing Arts. During his residency, he will present workshops, deliver lectures, and give a free public recital. These events are made possible through a partnership with Piano Cleveland and The Kulas Foundation.

[Read on…]

American Brass Quintet visits Oberlin Artist Recital Series

by Stephanie Manning

With more than 65 years as an ensemble under their belt and a commitment to commissioning new works, the American Brass Quintet has a lot of repertoire to choose from. “We’ve got such an extraordinary wealth of music,” bass trombonist John Rojak said. For at least the past 15 years, “every piece that has been coming in is one we want to keep playing.”

Several of those works appear on the group’s current program, which they are set to bring to the Oberlin Artist Recital Series on February 20. Trumpeters Brandon Ridenour and Tiago Linck, hornist Eric Reed, trombonist Hillary Simms, and Rojak will take to the Finney Chapel stage to present works by Anthony Barfield, Philip Lasser, Jennifer Higdon, Osvaldo Lacerda, and David Biedenbender. Tickets are available online.

Although the majority of the evening’s works are less than a decade old, the concert first finds its footing in the 16th century, with John Dowland’s Earl of Essex Galliard & Can She Excuse My Wrongs. Rojak described how Brandon Ridenour combined the two pieces into his own, “really cool” edition. [Read on…]

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