by Mike Telin
On Saturday, April 11 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society will present the final concert of this season’s International Series with a performance by Vladimir Gorbach. “I’m really looking forward to the concert and getting to know Cleveland,” the Russian-born guitarist said during a telephone conversation from Los Angeles. “After winning the 2011 Guitar Foundation of America competition, I did perform in Ohio as part of the winner’s tour, but this will be my first time in Cleveland.” Gorbach’s debut performance will feature works by Miguel Llobet, Domenico Scarlatti, J.S. Bach, Dionisio Aguado, Ástor Piazzolla, and Alberto Ginastera. A special pre-concert performance by students from CCGS’s education program will begin at 6:50.
Although it’s eight times younger than Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, the Summit Choral Society will give a nod to its elder counterpart, founded in 1815, with a 25th anniversary spring concert of music by George Frideric Handel and Joseph Haydn on Sunday, April 12 at 3:00 pm at the historic Greystone Hall in downtown Akron.
Eastman School of Music organ professor David Higgs inaugurated the restored 1926 E.M. Skinner organ in Youngstown’s Stambaugh Auditorium on September 18, 2011, when he appeared as soloist in the Poulenc Concerto and in the Saint-Saëns ‘Organ’ Symphony with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. This Sunday, April 12 at 4:00 pm, Higgs will return to Youngstown to play an eclectic recital on what has come to be recognized as one of the most distinguished organ restorations in the country, a project undertaken by the A. Thompson-Allen Company of New Haven, Connecticut.
With so many outstanding conservatories and schools of music located in Northeast Ohio, it was only a matter of time before the area became a new hotbed for contemporary classical music. And why shouldn’t it be? On Sunday, April 12 at 6:00 pm, the most recent addition to this increasingly vibrant scene, The Syndicate for the New Arts, will make its debut with a Launch Party at the BOP STOP. The evening will feature works by Jeffrey Mumford, John Sokol, Geoffrey King, Peter Kramer, Andrew Stock, John Burnett, Jessie Downs and Joshua Rosner. In celebration of the event, the BOP STOP chefs (Scene Magazine award winners for best food truck) will prepare a special menu to accompany the concert. 
Since performing its inaugural concert in 2013, the Cleveland-based new music ensemble Ars Futura has quickly established itself as a dynamic force in the area’s burgeoning contemporary classical music scene. Judging from their engaging BOP STOP performance on Monday, March 23rd as part of NEOSonicFest, the ensemble is not only a collective of six accomplished players, but flutist Madeline Lucas Tolliver, clarinetist Drew Sullivan, violinist Tara Lynn Ramsey, cellist Daniel Pereira, pianist Shuai Wang and percussionist Luke Rinderknecht also know how to present the music in a way that leaves you wanting more. 
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series continues on Wednesday, April 8th at 7:30 pm with a concert by pipa virtuoso Wu Man in Gartner Auditorium. “I’m sure that people who are coming to the concert are prepared to listen to something they are not familiar with,” Wu Man said during a telephone conversation from Knoxville, Tennessee, where she was performing at the Big Ears Festival along with her longtime collaborators, the Kronos Quartet.
I’m fairly sure that from its inception, the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s much-anticipated Beethoven Festival that commenced on March 28 & 29 posed some challenging program questions. Which works could best celebrate the composer’s genius while sating the appetites of his most ardent aficionados? Should the festival, spread across four concerts, be built upon only the symphonies?