by Jarrett Hoffman
FIVE EVENTS TONIGHT:
Two at 7:30, three at 8.
First, Apollo’s Fire and violinist Alan Choo trace the path from Biber to Bach (preview here), and Opera Western Reserve shares a re-imagining of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.
Then the Cleveland Pops Orchestra performs a salute to John Williams (preview here), pianist Nicholas Underhill plays Ryan Charles Ramer’s Sonata No. 6 in the presence of art that was inspired by the music, and Oberlin Opera presents Handel’s Acis & Galatea (preview here).
Details in our Concert Listings.
NEW FACES!
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced six new appointments (pictured above). The beginning of this season saw bass section member Derek Zadinsky win the position of assistant principal bass, while Michael Ferraguto joined the ensemble as head librarian, and Amy Zoloto as bass clarinetist and clarinetist. As of this past week, the viola section features a new player in William Bender, to be joined in January by Gareth Zehngut (a COYO alum). And the start of the new year will also bring Charles Paul into the bass section.
Music director Franz Welser-Möst has now appointed nearly half of the current Cleveland Orchestra members.
“Selecting Cleveland Orchestra musicians is the biggest artistic investment we make,” he said in a press release. “In close consultation with a musician panel, I always look for absolutely the best fit, which includes an extremely high standard of musicality for a world-class ensemble. When we pick the best players for a top team, we are not allowed to make a compromise. I’ve heard hundreds of people audition in nineteen years and I am extremely proud of the collaboration with musicians who have advised me so well. When that special person shows up, we all know they are the right person.”
Another warm welcome is in order over at the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, where Kristopher Morron (above) has been named Music Director and Conductor. “This opportunity is like a dream come true,” Morron said in a press release. “I can’t wait to bring all my experience and infectious enthusiasm for music-making to the role.”
Morron comes to CYO with a broad background in music, from his start on the trombone, into the study of jazz at Tri-C and Bowling Green, and into an array of other genres (including funk, experimental folk, New Orleans-style brass, and afrobeat) as a member of several Cleveland-based groups, and as a composer and arranger.
“Our students will benefit from having a person at the podium who understands what it takes to create vastly different kinds of music, including the innovative repertoire we are performing,” said director of educational programming Ben Kipp.
Morron took up the baton beginning in 2004 teaching band and orchestra, received his master’s at Case Western in 2015, and served as a graduate conductor for the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony. “Music education is about a lot more than the music,” he said. “We’re creating a space where students can be themselves while pursuing excellence as musicians, citizens, and individuals.”
Where did Johann Sebastian Bach come from? What influenced the mature musical style of one of the greatest composers of the Baroque period? Or to put it as co-director and violin soloist Alan Choo does in his recorded introduction to Apollo’s Fire’s Violin Fantasy programs, “Who were Bach’s role models?”
HAPPENING TODAY:
Another newly-created work honoring veterans that is being screened nationwide this weekend is 
Like the exiles in The Book of Isaiah who returned rejoicing to Zion, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus jubilantly revisited Severance Music Center, the scene of many past triumphs, on Thursday evening, October 28. Chorus director Lisa Wong was on the podium, Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem was in singers’ hands and on their lips, a pair of Steinways manned by Carolyn Warner and Daniel Overly sat dovetailed at center-stage, and a near-capacity audience witnessed the homecoming.
Identical twins Christina and Michelle Naughton — the first piano duo to receive the Avery Fisher Career Grant — are known for their uncanny level of mind-melding in performance. Christina once told 
One challenge of concert previews is balancing a discussion of the music against a portrait of the artist. In the case of pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov, who will visit the Rocky River Chamber Music Society for a free concert on Monday, November 15 at 7:30 pm at Lakewood Congregational Church (masks required), those two worlds of content collided. The way he described his program — works by Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Johann Strauss, Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff — was very telling about the way he thinks about music.
“The hardest part of programming a John Williams concert is that there’s so much you have to leave out,” Cleveland Pops music director Carl Topilow said during a telephone conversation. “I’ve seen programs that focus on Spielberg movies, for example. But our idea was to present a cross-section of his music.”
In Book XIII of Ovid’s epic poem 
The opening of a concert season is always a festive occasion, and there’s a lot to celebrate this year for the Akron Symphony. “We’ve actually emerged from the pandemic stronger in a lot of ways than we went into it,” music director Christopher Wilkins said in a recent interview. On Saturday, November 13 at 8:00 pm, the orchestra will return to E.J. Thomas Hall with a program of works by Dvořák, Perry, Ellington, Price, and Beethoven.