Archives for August 2021

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BITS:

There’s a podium change for The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert at Blossom on Saturday, August 28: the ensemble’s associate conductor, Vinay Parameswaren, will replace Elim Chan, who has experienced travel complications. The program, featuring pianist Jonathan Biss, remains the same.

The Akron Symphony will hold auditions for chorus members and paid section leaders at Faith Lutheran Church in Fairlawn on August 28 by appointment, beginning at 4:00 pm. Chris Albanese directs the chorus, which will perform Haydn’s The Creation and other works with the Orchestra this season. To schedule an audition, contact Brenda Justice, Coordinator of Choral Programs, by email.

The Canton Youth Symphonies have issued a last call for auditions for its three ensembles, led by music director Matthew Jenkins-Jaroszewicz and made up of students from six counties in Northeast Ohio. The sessions will take place from August 29 to September 1. Click here for details and signup information.

ONE YEAR LATER:

It’s informative to revisit the Diary for August 24, 2020, when the classical music world found itself heading into a new season with many unanswered questions. Even with the widespread availability of vaccines one year later, many of those questions remain as we approach 2021-2022. Here’s what we recommended as Interesting Reads then:

As some organizations begin taking exploratory steps to offer live performances once again, New York Times critic Anthony Tomassini writes about the difference between live and virtual concerts with reference to recitals of both types by pianist Conrad Tao. And his colleagues Joshua Barone and Zachary Woolfe reflect on their experience attending the same in-person concert after being deprived for nearly half a year: they heard the JACK Quartet playing in a New Jersey parking lot.

And as performing arts schools begin their fall semesters virtually or in-person, three Washington Post arts writers survey a number of officials — including Oberlin Conservatory Dean William Quillen — about the challenges ahead.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On August 24, 1924, American pianist Louis Teicher, one-half of the famous duo piano team of Ferrante and Teicher, was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The two musicians met at Juilliard, began playing together, and embarked on a very successful career playing lighter music for two pianists. Early adopters of the prepared piano, they introduced a variety of insertions and techniques that resulted in such dazzling performances as their version of this Mambo tune.

And on this date in 1985, American composer Paul Creston died at the age of 78 in a suburb of San Diego. Born in New York City in 1906 to Sicilian parents (his birth name was Giuseppe Guttoveggio), the largely self-taught composer wrote a sizeable catalogue of music including six symphonies as well as treatises on rhythm, meter, and harmony.

Click here to enjoy Creston’s Fantasy for Trombone and Piano played by the Cleveland Orchestra’s Rick Stout with pianist Christina Dahl, and here to watch Joseph Gramley and Clive Driskill-Smith, the percussion/organ duo who perform as Organized Rhythm, play his Meditation for Marimba and Organ in Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan.

And for today’s silly season, non-musical story, we turn back to August 24, 1967, when the Youth International Party, led by Abbie Hoffman, interrupted trading at the New York Stock Exchange by tossing dollar bills from the viewing gallery to the trading floor, where brokers stopped what they were doing and scrambled to grab them. Read about Hoffman’s initial foray into guerrilla theater here in the Smithsonian Magazine.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday at 7:30 pm, Jedidiah Rellihan leads the Oberlin College Singers in arrangements and original works by Moses Hogan, William Grant Still, Eric Whitacre (with violinist Jasmine Tan), Alice Parker, and Eric William Barnum in Fairchild Chapel (you can attend free or catch a live stream).

On Sunday at Blossom, conductor Jahja Ling (pictured) extends his 35-year relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra to 36 in an all-Brahms concert featuring violinist Sayaka Shoji, who has soloed with CityMusic Cleveland. Mike Telin had interesting conversations with both of them earlier this week — read the previews here (Ling) and here (Shoji).

And on Sunday at 7:30 pm, you can spend a night at the movies with Gerhardt Zimmerman and the Canton Symphony in Massilon’s Jackson Amphitheater.

For details of all events, visit our Concert Listings.

R.I.P. MICHAEL MORGAN, 63

Oakland East Bay Symphony conductor Michael Morgan, who led the California ensemble beginning in 1991 and was an impassioned advocate for classical music, died at an Oakland hospital on August 20 from complications of a kidney transplant he received on May 30. Morgan studied composition at the Oberlin Conservatory but never took a degree. He worked with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood, and became apprentice conductor with the Buffalo Philharmonic in 1979, followed by posts as assistant to Leonard Slatkin in St. Louis in 1982, and to Sir George Solti in Chicago in 1986. Read an obituary by Tim Page in The Washington Post.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

This is a busy weekend in music history at both ends of the life cycle. First, the births:

On August 21, 1893, French composer Juliette Marie Olga Lili Boulanger was born in Paris, American soprano Queena Mario (née Queena Tillotson) made her first vocalizations in Akron in 1896, English mezzo-soprano Janet Baker debuted in 1933 in Hatfield, Yorkshire, and two celebrated choral conductors first saw the light of day — English-born Hugh Ross in Langport in 1898 and American Gregg Smith in Chicago in 1931 — a third, Walter Schumann, took leave of his profession in Minneapolis in 1958. Add to that list American composer Lansing D. McLoskey, who arrived more recently — in 1964 in Cupertino California.

Turning the calendar page to August 22, birthdays include French composer Achille-Claude Debussy in St. Germaine-en-Laye in 1862, English composer and longtime York Minster organist Edward Cuthbert Bairstow in Haddersfield in 1874, German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen near Köln in 1928, and German tenor-turned-pop star Peter Hofmann in 1944 in Marienbad.

Let’s raise a glass to two of the more complex figures in this weekend’s honors list — those whose careers can’t be encapsulated in a phrase or two.

Like Queena Mario, a lyric soprano who sang with the Metropolitan Opera Company from 1922 to 1938 and passed to her reward in New York City in 1951 at the age of 54. As her obituary in the New York Times notes, she began her career in New York as a writer, penning columns for several daily newspapers, which earned her enough cash to take singing lessons. Despite two unsuccessful auditions at the Metropolitan Opera, after singing with the San Carlo company and San Francisco Opera, she made her debut at the Met on Thanksgiving Day, 1922 as Micaela in Carmen, later becoming famous for her portrayal of Gretel in the Humperdinck classic. On the side, while teaching at Curtis and Juilliard, she reintroduced herself as a writer with three murder mysteries, Murder at the Opera House, Murder Meets Mephisto, and Death Drops Delilah. Something about opera companies seems to inspire homicide… [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

We jumped the gun last Friday and announced two al fresco events a week early. Let’s try that again.

If the weather gods are smiling, at 6:30 pm today, Idle Twittering: a flock of flutes, will perform outdoors at the Streeter Arboretum in Wooster. George Pope, Jane Berkner, Kyra Kester, and Linda White, will bring along a collection of flutes of all shapes and sizes for an event sponsored by Ohio Regional Music Arts and Cultural Outreach (ORMACO). It’s free, but registration is recommended. There are rain plans in case the gods are being uncooperative.

And the Church of the Western Reserve will present a free outdoor concert by the a cappella group Zero to Sixty tonight at 7. Details in our Concert Listings.

Add to that today’s noontime Carillon Concert by Patrick Makoska in University Circle — “Ragtime Old and New” — and a 5:30 pm Patio Concert by folksinger and guitarist Sarah Goslee Reed and friends, live streamed from her home in Mount Vernon. Both of these events will be live streamed.

For details of all events, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READS:

On the eve of his 80th birthday on July 28, conductor Riccardo Muti spoke at length on a variety of topics with Aldo Cazzullo of Milan’s daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera. Read some highlights here (continued here).

And The Guardian recently caught up with German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff, who retired from singing classical music at the height of his career in 2012. He’s back, singing jazz. Read the article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

A year ago today, Jarrett Hoffman profiled Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, “the most well-known composer in Spain during the 1500s, and considered one of the greatest composers of the 16th century as a whole — who died on this day in 1611 in Madrid.

“There’s been a revival of interest in Victoria’s work over the past hundred years, and his name is no stranger to the program booklets — and YouTube channels — of Northeast Ohio’s ensembles.

“His Christmas motet O magnum mysterium is quite popular: check out this live performance from Quire Cleveland at Trinity Cathedral in 2009, or this duo version from Mignarda’s 2016 album of Advent and Christmas music for lute and voice.

“The Requiem Mass Officium Defunctorum is considered by many to be Victoria’s masterpiece. Hear Contrapunctus Early Music sing that work’s “Taedet animam meam” during a live performance at Mary Queen of Peace in 2015.

And on this date in 1958, American composer, pianist, and multi-faceted musician Jean Hasse was born in Cleveland. After graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory in 1981 and pursuing graduate studies at Cleveland State University, she embarked on a career that seems emblematic of entrepreneurial 21st-century artists. In addition to composing for films, silent films, videos and special events, and new concert music pieces, she has managed and served as representative for music publishing houses and formed her own company, Visible Music, in 1987. She moved to England in 1994.

Hasse’s career and accomplishments can’t be summed up in a few sentences. Read her own account here, and click here to listen to a 2013 performance from the University of Bristol (where she has taught film composition and scoring) of her new score for the 1928 silent short The Fall of the House of Usher, based on Poe’s classic story.

And click here to hear how Hasse reacted musically to Ernst Servaes’ 1912 film Artheme Swallows his Clarinet (when a piano lands on his head), premiered at the Luton Library Theater in 2017.

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:00 pm, the Fine Arts Association Faculty Artist Recital Series will present the Fine Arts Chamber Orchestra, Michael Lund Ziegler, conducting, and the Muse Trio (Jenny Cluggish, violin, Melissa Lund Ziegler, viola and Daniel Pereira, cello). The inaugural performance by the orchestra includes Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, Ernst von Dohnáni’s Serenade in C, Op. 10 (Muse Trio), and the premiere of Gamer Troll Loses Control, a new work by Matthew Saunders inspired by Fine Arts Student Artwork by Gabe Elliot, Rosalynd Gruden, Callie Roberts and Sophie Shaposka. Fine Arts Association, 38660 Mentor Ave. Willoughby. Click here for tickets. Read our preview article here.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Lorain County Community College Signature Series, curated by composer Jeffrey Mumford, will present four concerts during the coming season. Oberlin cello professor Darrett Adkins will play the Annual Eva Hornyak Memorial Concert on September 28, Duo Anime (percussionists Andrew Pongracz and Mell Csicsila) will premiere a new work by LCCC’s Gerald Evans on February 8, the Longleash Piano Trio, (Pala Garcia, violin, John Popham, cello & Renate Rohlfing, piano) will perform on March 29, and the CIM New Music Ensemble, Keith Fitch, director, will close out the season on April 19. Concerts are free on Tuesdays at 7:30 pm in the Cirigliano Studio Theatre at the Stocker Center for the Arts in Elyria (except for the CIM Ensemble, who will perform in Cinema Hall).

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Today we celebrate the birth of composer ​​George Enescu, but we’ll begin by marking the passing of Russian art critic, patron, and ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev (pictured above, center, with Igor Stravinsky, left, and dancer Serge Lifar, right), who died in Venice, Italy on August 19, 1929 at the age of 57.

Although Diaghilev composed his first work at age 15 and later studied music with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, it was his passion for promoting Russian art that would lead to his founding of The Ballets Russes. From 1909 to 1929 the Paris-based company toured across Europe as well as North and South America. Interestingly, the company never performed in Russia. Still, because of its innovative collaborations with important choreographers, composers, designers, and dancers, The Ballets Russes is heralded as the most important company of the 20th century.

Together with the Company’s artistic director Léon Bakst, Diaghilev spawned a new style of ballet designed to be appealing to a general audience, rather than just the upper class. Of the company’s unique style, fashion designer Coco Chanel is reported to have famously said that “Diaghilev invented Russia for foreigners.”

During the company’s history, Diaghilev staged many works by Rimsky-Korsakov and commissioned ballet scores from a who’s-who list of composers including Nikolai Tcherepnin, Claude Debussy (Jeux, 1913), Maurice Ravel (Daphnis et Chloé, 1912), Erik Satie (Parade, 1917), Manuel de Falla (El Sombrero de Tres Picos, 1917), Richard Strauss (Josephslegende, 1914), Sergei Prokofiev (Le pas d’acier, 1926 and The Prodigal Son, 1929), Ottorino Respighi (La Boutique fantasque, 1919), and Francis Poulenc (Les biches, 1923).

Diaghilev’s most celebrated collaborations were with Igor Stravinsky, from whom he commissioned ballet scores for The Firebird and Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). Diaghilev and Stravinsky also collaborated on Les noces (1923) and Pulcinella (1920), for which Pablo Picasso designed the sets and costumes. [Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

ON TONIGHT:

At 8:00 pm, WCLV’s Ovations features Les Délices’ 2019 program “The Elements,” which celebrated the conclusion of the ensemble’s first decade of existence. The playlist depicts “the chaos of creation” and the elements of earth, air, water, and fire through music by Jean-Féry Rebel and Jean-Philippe Rameau, as well as in a commission from Theo Chandler.

Listen locally at 104.9 FM, or tune in from around the globe via MP3 stream or mobile player. To give yourself a full preview of the concert, dig into our recent archives for Mike Telin’s conversations with Chandler and Les Délices director Debra Nagy here.

On another Les Délices-related note, subscriptions recently went on sale for the ensemble’s 2021-22 season. Check out your options here.

FOR THOSE WE CONTINUE LOSING:

One of the final episodes of The Cleveland Orchestra’s pre-recorded In Focus series this past season featured a musical tribute to victims of the pandemic in the form of Aaron Jay Kernis’s Elegy . . . for those we lost, written in May 2020. Originally for orchestra, on this occasion the piece was heard in a new version for harp and trumpet, arranged for and performed by Yolanda Kondonassis and Michael Sachs.

This was in June 2021. In fact, the duo had already recorded it a month earlier, setting the stage for its upcoming release on September 17 as a digital single from Azica Records.

“I strived to create music to counterpoint the terrible pandemic and honor the dead — to try to give some measure of solace to families by sharing a personal expression of grief,” Kernis writes.

Still, painfully, relevant.

LEADERSHIP & CHANGE:

The latest episode of the Canton Symphony’s Orchestrating Change podcast brings the series’ second season to a close, but also marks the end of the ensemble’s first Orchestrating Change Leadership Program. OCLP brought together nine college students via Zoom for activities that included discussing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and creating an educational program dedicated to combating issues of accessibility and inequality in Canton.

Three OCLP participants — Samaria Hill, Valerie Mathis, and Irene Guggenheim-Triana — joined hosts Rachel Hagemeier and Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz to discuss the program. Watch “The Next Generation” here.

GUITAR ENSEMBLE, ANYONE?

The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society is welcoming new members to the Cleveland Guitar Orchestra, which begins rehearsing in October (register here). Or, if you’re not quite ready for that advanced ensemble, another option is the Cleveland Youth Guitar Orchestra, or the Community Guitar Orchestra, both of which regroup in early 2022.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On the one hand, Amadeus obscured the legacy of Italian composer and conductor Antonio Salieri, who turns 271 today. That 1979 play and its 1984 film version were deliberately loose with history, painting Salieri as an archrival of Mozart, and to great effect — in addition to its financial and critical success, the movie won a slew of Oscars, and is considered a classic. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

LIVE AND OUTSIDE TODAY:

Head to the Evans Amphitheater in Cain Park in Cleveland Heights tonight at 8 to hear Duo Anime, the percussion duo of Andrew Pongracz and Mell Csicsila play a range of music from J.S. Bach to Margaret Brouwer, sponsored by Local 4 Music Fund.

ONLINE TODAY:

At 3 pm, the Harris Theater in downtown Chicago’s Millennium Park presents  multi-genre musical artist and social justice advocate Adrian Dunn, the Chicago Philharmonic, and the Adrian Dunn Singers in Redemption, “a new collection of spirituals and gospel songs that reimagine and modernize the genre’s historical roots, celebrate African American history, and honor victims of systemic injustice.” The Singers, an all-Black professional vocal ensemble, was established in 2018. View here for free.

AFGHANISTAN EIGHT YEARS AGO:

In 2013, ClevelandClassical.com conducted three video interviews with Colin Davin from Kabul, where the classical guitarist was serving as guest teacher at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. Watch his conversations with Mike Telin here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Two deaths and two births to take note of on August 17. We’ll mention the former in passing — harp guru Carlos Salzedo in Waterville, ME, and lyricist Ira Gershwin in Beverly Hills, CA — and dedicate two performances to their memory.

Click here to watch the Salzedo Harp Duo — Nancy Lendrim and Jody Guinn — play the composer’s “Steel” from Suite Pentacle on a Brownbag Concert at Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral in April of 2018.

And watch Who Could Ask for Anything More? A Celebration of Ira Gershwin at London’s Royal Albert Hall in November, 1996, marking the centenary of his birth.

On this date in 1828, church musician and hymn composer George William Warren was born in Albany, New York. While serving from 1870 to 1900 at St. Thomas Episcopal Church — the third building on Fifth Avenue that was destroyed by fire in 1905 — he wrote the music for Daniel C. Roberts’ hymn “God of our Fathers” for the centenary of the U.S. Constitution. It’s been suggested as a candidate to replace the current national anthem. Click here to hear the Choir of St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York sing it in procession at the beginning of an Independence Day service in 2011. Former Clevelander William Trafka is at the organ.

Exactly one hundred years later, American composer Thomas Jefferson (T.J.) Anderson was born in Coatesville, PA. His catalogue of works includes operas, symphonies, chamber music and music for wind ensemble, some of them commissioned by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Cantata Singers and Ensemble.

Anderson taught at a number of colleges and universities, most notably at Tufts from 1972 to 1990, and served for three seasons as composer in residence for the Atlanta Symphony, when he orchestrated Scott Joplin’s 2011 opera Treemonisha for its first full stage production in 1972.

Click here to watch a performance of Anderson’s 1988 Chamber Concerto (Remembrances) as performed by Timothy Weiss and the Oberlin Conservatory Contemporary Music Ensemble last March, and here to hear members of the Atlanta Symphony perform his Variations on a Theme by M.B. Tolson with mezzo-soprano Jan De Gaetani, led by Arthur Weisberg.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Heights Chamber Orchestra will hold auditions for string players tonight from 7:30 to 9:30. Click here for excerpts for violins, violas, cellos & basses. Choose a time slot here and the location will be sent in an email.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Akron Symphony, Christopher Wilkins, music director (pictured), has announced its forthcoming season at E.J. Thomas Hall. The opening concert on November 15 will pair music by Black American composers (Perry, Ellington & Florence Price) with music by Dvořák and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The January 15 performance features Clint Needham’s Tuba Concerto along with Baroque and neo-Baroque works by J.S. Bach, Handel, Aldemaro Romero, and Stravinsky. The latest edition of Gospel Meets Symphony is scheduled for February 12.

The March 5 event will be a collaboration with guest artist Jon Sonnneberg and EarthQuakerDevices (music by Haydn, Beethoven, Sonnenberg and Walsh, with William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony), while the April 2 performance will feature flamenco dancer Alice Blumenfeld and Korean Three Drum Dancers in works by Anna Clyne, Florence Price, Kyle Newmaster and Brooke Jee-In, as well as Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. The season ends on April 30 with Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, preceded by Mabel Daniels’ Deep Forest. Details here.

Caroline Oltmanns, piano professor at Youngstown State University, has just published an E-book, Playing the Unplayable, which takes its title from her popular blog post about tackling Liszt’s arrangement of Schubert’s Erlkönig.

She writes, “The book is for anyone who loves the piano. It is a collection of bite size chapters about being a pianist, about practicing, concerts and performing.” That includes tips for recording, structuring your time, how to keep focused at the piano, and what to wear onstage (“a question not many performers talk about”). Click here for details.

Oberlin’s faculty notes reports: “Recently appointed Associate Professor of French Horn Jeff Scott will have a newly commissioned orchestral work, Paradise Valley Serenade, premiered by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Jader Bignamini, Music Director, over a three-concert series November 12-14. The work musically depicts the glorious histories of Paradise Valley and Black Bottom, Detroit. These cities were known for their significant African American entrepreneurialism and thriving cultural scene, including an unrivaled Jazz club district. By the 1960’s all but a few edifices were razed to make way for highway projects and ‘urban renewal.’”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Two births and an auspicious premiere appear in today’s dates to remember. [Read more…]