by Daniel Hathaway
If The Cleveland Orchestra’s recent performance of Gustav Mahler’s third symphony were a restaurant, it would deserve the maximum three stars in the Michelin Guide (“exceptional…worth a special journey”). Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra, two of its choruses, and mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor took a captivated audience on a 95-minute journey into Mahler’s magic world on Thursday evening, October 5, the first of a pair of performances that weekend at Severance Hall, and an experience audiences in Paris and Vienna can look forward to during the Orchestra’s October tour. [Read more…]
One of the most versatile early music ensembles in the country, Minneapolis-St. Paul’s Rose Ensemble offers touring programs that range from the life and deeds of St. Francis of Assisi, to an exploration of the roots of Bluegrass, to “Sibyls of the Rhine — Hildegard von Bingen and the Minstrel’s Song of Songs.” On Wednesday, September 30, Jordan Sramek brought his twelve singers to St. John’s Cathedral to perform “Slavic Wonders: Feasts and Saints in Early Russia, Poland, and Bohemia,” a wonderfully varied and superbly performed program. 
Officially raising the curtain on its new partnership with Italy’s International Piano Academy Lake Como, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music opened the 138th season of its Artist Recital Series on Sunday, September 27 in Finney Chapel with an impressive recital by Ran Jia, Alessandro Deljavan, and Marcos Madrigal, three artists who have recently been honing their skills to a fine edge at the institution founded by William Grant Naboré in 2002. 
Youngstown University’s Dana School of Music will collaborate with the University of Akron’s Kulas Concert Series to present a piano festival comprising seven events both in Youngstown and Akron between October 4 and 7.
English horn and organ make for a wonderfully sensuous combination, contrasting the mellow, almost mournful sound of the oboe’s big brother with the clarity of the organ’s tone. Oberlin Conservatory faculty members James David Christie, organ, and Robert Walters, English horn, (who is also a member of The Cleveland Orchestra) played a lovely recital on Sunday, September 27, at Immaculate Conception Church, on Superior Avenue just east of E. 40th Street in Cleveland. 
On Sunday October 4 at 3:00 pm in Pilgrim Congregational Church,