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To•Day

DIARY: Tuesday, March 31, 2026

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12 Noon – Jonathan Moyer & Gabriel Ackerman, organ. Click here to view or download the program. Tuesday Organ Plus Series. Church of the Covenant, University Circle. Freewill offering.

For details of these and other classical events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

On Monday, The Canton Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Search Committee announced the finalists for the CSO’s Music Director Search. The five finalists are Austin Chanu, Jacob Joyce, Melisse Brunet, Wesley Schulz, and Yue Bao. Each candidate will come to Canton during the 2026-2027 season to conduct a MasterWorks concert and spend time in the community as the last part of the review process. The new Music Director will be announced in the spring of 2027. Read the press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Some of our readers have reminded us that Johann Sebastian Bach’s real birthday is today, not March 21, where it ended up with the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. [Read More…]

Pre•Views & Features

Cleveland Orchestra: Catching up with organist Paul Jacobs

By Mike Telin

For over a decade, organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs has been a frequent guest soloist on Cleveland Orchestra programs. Jacobs made his debut in February of 2015 when he had the Severance Hall stage all to himself when he opened for the Orchestra, playing music by Johannes Brahms and Johann Sebastian Bach on the 94-rank Norton Memorial Organ.

Jacobs returned in September of 2016 with Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony and in November of 2017 with Stephen Paulus’s Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra. In March of 2019 he gave the U.S. premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Okeanos for organ and orchestra. And in 2021 he was featured in Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani.

On Thursday, April 2 at 7:30 pm Paul Jacobs will return to the Mandel Concert Hall stage to revisit Poulenc’s concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra. Under the direction of Daniele Rustioni, the concert also includes Gabriel Fauré’s Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande, Alfredo Casella’s Italia, and Claude Debussy’s La Mer. The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

[Read on…]

CIM Opera Theater’s Hänsel and Gretel: a conversation with JJ Hudson

by Mike Telin

The first volume of children’s tales published in Germany by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 includes some of today’s most beloved stories — Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Rumpelstiltskin. That volume also includes the tale of Hänsel and Gretel in which two children cleverly outwit a witch.

On Friday, March 27 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, March 29 at 3:00 pm, Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, returns to the Kulas Hall stage at the Cleveland Institute of Music in performances by CIM Opera Theatre. JJ Hudson directs and Harry Davidson conducts the CIM Orchestra The production, which has a running time of two hours and twenty minutes with one intermission, will be sung in German with English supertitles. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with JJ Hudson by telephone and began our conversation by asking why they chose this particular title for the spring opera.

JJ: This year we will have produced two operas based on fairytales — Judith Weir’s Blonde Eckbert in late January and now Hänsel and Gretel. Both introduce our students to early German romanticism and its themes: mystery in the forest, witches, birds that speak, and otherworldly things.

[Read on…]

Third Coast Percussion celebrates its 20th anniversary at CIM

by Mike Telin

On Sunday, March 22 at 3:00 pm at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion — Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore — will present “Time Pieces: The New Classical.” The program celebrates two decades of genre-defying, award-winning music, including many of the ensemble’s 20th anniversary commissions. The concert is sold out.

I caught up with David Skidmore on Zoom and began by asking about the group’s 20th anniversary program.

David Skidmore: The first half is highlights from the past 20 years. And the second half is all pieces that we commissioned for our 20th anniversary, which is some of our favorite music to play right now.

[Read on…]

See all previews

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