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To•Day

DIARY: Monday, May 11, 2026

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Rocky River Chamber Music Society ends its season by presenting baritone Edward Vogel (pictured) with pianist Jenny Parker in A Palace in the Wild: Journeys in British Art Song (7:30 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church).

For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

CLEVELANDCLASSICAL.COM SETS END-OF-YEAR ANNUAL FUND GOAL:

On Saturday, founder and editor Daniel Hathaway wrote in an email, “Thanks to the continuing support of our readers, we have once again set our annual fund goal at $23,000 for this fiscal year.

“That leaves us with only $6,500 to raise before June 30. We hope you will want to pitch in with a gift at this time, either with a check or with a credit or debit card. Visit the Donate page on our website for details.”

TODAY’S  HEADLINES:

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra announces 2026–27 season, celebrating 40th anniversary (Press release.) James Feddeck will lead three concerts, all of which will be free in celebration of the anniversary.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1849, German composer Otto Nicolai died of a stroke at the age of 38, Russian composer Anatoly Liadov was born in St. Petersburg in 1855, American songsmith Irving Berlin was born (as Israel Belin) in Russia in 1888, American choreographer Martha Graham was born in Pittsburgh in 1894, African American composer William Grant Still was born in Mississippi in 1895 (some sources say 1898), and German composer Max Reger died in Leipzig in 1916 (of a heart attack at the age of 43). [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. [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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