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To•Day

DIARY: Friday, December 8, 2023

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Happy Hanukkah!

Many events to list for Friday, December 8!

City Music (7:30 at Lakewood Congregational Church), Cyrus Chestnut & Friends: A Charlie Brown Christmas (7:30 at Severance Music Center), Akron Symphony & Choruses (7:30 at E.J. Thomas Hall), Procession of Advent Lessons & Carols (7:30 at Holy Trinity Lutheran, Akron and online), Accent a cappella (pictured, 7:30 at the Cleveland Museum of Art), Oberlin Collegium Musicum (7:30 in Fairchild Chapel and online), and Oberlin Orchestra (7:30 in Finney Chapel and online).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances,

INTERESTING READ:

James Gaffigan, former Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor (not the comedian), is the new Music Director of Berlin’s Komische Oper. In a rangy Van Magazine interview, Olivia Giovetti speaks with him about the art of anticipation, his hope for an overhaul of the symphonic concert format, and shoplifting Toscanini records from the Metropolitan Opera gift shop. [Read More…]

Pre•Views & Features

Apollo’s Fire: “Wassail! An Irish-Appalachian Christmas” — Tina Bergmann talks about the hammered dulcimer

by Mike Telin

Imagine that it’s Christmas night in Ireland, 1849. Families and friends gather for an evening of singing, storytelling, and due to the Potato Famine, tearful farewells. 

This setting serves as the inspiration for Apollo’s Fire’s “Wassail! An Irish-Appalachian Christmas.” Written and designed by artistic director Jeannette Sorrell, this theatrical concert follows the journey of the Irish immigrants who crossed the Atlantic to America through carols, reels, and stories.  

Led by Sorrell, the program features Irish singer Fiona Gillespie, vocalist Sam Kreindenweis, Kathie Stewart on wooden flutes, fiddlers Susanna Perry Gilmore, Emi Tanabe, and Caitlin Hedge, Tina Bergmann on hammered dulcimer, and Anna O’Connell on vocals and Celtic harp. Performances begin on Wednesday, December 6 at 7:30 at Bath Church UCC and run through December 17. Irish actress Derdriu Ring joins the company December 14-17. See our Concert Listings for times and locations. Tickets are available online.  

Bergmann, who is a regular on Apollo’s Fire crossover programs, first met Sorrell nearly 30 years ago while the conductor was looking for a hammered dulcimer player for an early American program. “She went to the Kent State Folk Festival, which is sort of my home festival, and came to one of the workshops where a good handful of hammered dulcimer players were presenting,” Bergmann recalled during a telephone conversation. “She approached me afterward and I invited her to my apartment. She had me play for her, and that’s how it started. I think it was in 1994, so it’s been an incredible journey.”

[Read on…]

No Exit & Zeitgeist delve into “The Unconscious”

by Mike Telin

No Exit continues their Year of Surreality this week with “The Unconscious.” The ensemble will be joined by longtime collaborators Zeitgeist for a program featuring four world premiere films — The Birdhouse, conceived and written by Timothy Beyer and filmed by James Praznik, breathing room by Luke Haaksmsa, In Fourteen Steps by James Praznik, and Between Here and There, a collaboration between Zeitgeist and composer and multimedia artist Philip Blackburn. The free, 7:00 pm performances will be held on Thursday, November 30 at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Recital Hall, Friday, December 1 at Waterloo Arts, and Saturday, December 2 at SPACES.

As part of “The Unconscious,” Cleveland-based artists Leila Khoury and Kristen Newell have created Revelations of the Unconscious Mind (a surrealist dreamscape), which will serve as an exhibit unto itself as well as a performance space. The exhibit is on display at SPACES through December 15.

[Read on…]

Jeremy Denk brings a celebration of women composers to Oberlin Artist Recital Series

by Mike Telin

Like many, Jeremy Denk’s time as an undergraduate at Oberlin was filled with emotion. “When I arrived I had so much growing up to do,” the celebrated pianist recalled. “So every place in Oberlin is kind of covered with those memories — emotional memories, discoveries, and stress, of course. I was trying to do a double degree — trying to be a pianist and a chemist, and in some ways I really wanted to be an English major. I wanted to be a lot of different things.”

As part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series, Jeremy Denk will perform a program that celebrates women composers from the 19th to 21st centuries along with works by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms on Thursday, November 30 at 7:30 pm in Finney Chapel. Tickets are available online.

[Read on…]

CelloBello Celebrates the Cleveland Quartet: a conversation with Paul Katz

by Mike Telin

Prior to embarking on a tour of the Soviet Union in 1988, the Cleveland Quartet — Donald Weilerstein and Peter Salaff (violins), James Dunham (viola), and Paul Katz (cello), received word from Goskino USSR, the State Committee on Cinematography, that they wanted to make documentary about the tour. “They wanted it to be an English-language film made for American television.” Paul Katz recalled during a Zoom conversation.

But with the abolishing of Goskino in November of 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of that year, the film, although in its final edits, was never released. “I don’t know exactly how it resurfaced, but I noticed there was a video of Barber’s Adagio with the Cleveland Quartet on YouTube. It is footage from the film, so I thought that it had to live somewhere.”

On November 29 at 7:30 pm at Reinberger Chamber Hall in Severance Music Center, Notes From Behind the Iron Curtain: Cleveland Quartet’s 1988 Soviet Tour will finally receive its premiere. Following the screening, attendees will have the unique opportunity to engage in a Q&A session with Cleveland Quartet members.

[Read on…]

See all previews

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