Archives for January 2022

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12:15 pm enjoy the McGaffin Carillon Concert & Live Stream with George Leggiero. The playlist includes a Telemann violin fantasia arranged for the bells, three Baroque dances from an 18th century carillon notebook, two Mozart waltzes and two traditional English folk songs dreaming of springtime. Parking is free in the lot in front of the tower on Euclid Avenue & on Bellflower Rd. behind the tower, or tune in to the live stream. The event is free.

At 7:00 pm CityMusic Cleveland presents “Tales and Scenes”. The program features Johann Sebastian Bach’s Piano Concerto in f with Elizabeth DeMio, Maurice Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye, Joaquín Turina’s Escena Andaluza, Manuel de Falla’s “Fire Dance” from El Amor Brujo, and Elena Ruehr’s World Premiere (commissioned by CityMusic Cleveland) Shrine Church of St Stanislaus, 3649 E 65th St, Cleveland, OH 44105. The concert is free.

IN THE NEWS: 

Because of concerns about the safety of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus (COYC, pictured) gathering and rehearsing amid the continued steady increase of Covid-19 cases, the Cleveland Orchestra has announced a program update and time change for the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s (COYO) concert on Sunday, February 20. The concert is now a matinee, beginning at 3:00 p.m. Trumpeter Dasara Beta, one of the winners of the ensemble’s annual concerto competition, will perform Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto, replacing the previously announced music by Beethoven and Mozart featuring COYC.  Contact the Ticket Office at 216-231-1111 for ticket information. Find Severance’s updated Health and Safety Policy regarding Covid-19 here.

Do you want to play the piano but aren’t sure where to start? Do you know how to play some piano and want to take your skills to the next level? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, The Music Settlement in partnership Piano Cleveland has a class for you. The Keys to Musicianship, a new ten-week course, will teach students the basics of keyboard technique while increasing their skills in notation, theory, and musical creativity. First session runs from March 10 through May 19 at the Settlement’s Ohio City Campus.

The  deadline to apply for Tuesday Musical’s 2022 Annual Scholarship Competition is January 31. Applications are accepted on-line HERE.

Musical America’s Susan Elliott writes: “since our last One to One with Afa Dworkin in July 2020, she has seen some progress in performing arts organizations’ efforts to diversify, but, as she now puts it, “not enough.” As president and artistic director of the Sphinx Organization, this month honoring its 25th year of “transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts,” Dworkin should know.

During the conversation Dworkin maintains that the only way to overcome “centuries of systemic, intentional, and implicit exclusion”  in the performing arts is for every member of an organization, be it one devoted to opera, theater, ballet, or classical music, to get on board. It’s not just a “top-down” issue, she tells Elliott, calling on conservatories to join the crusade, but perhaps more importantly, a “bottom-up” one. Click here to watch.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today we celebrate the births of a quartet of American composers. While they may not be household names, they have all had fruitful careers. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY (OR NOT):

This is the time of year when concerts thin out after the holidays, creating an annual lacuna complicated this time around by the recrudescence of COVID-19 and the first snow event of the season.

It’s also the time when people begin looking ahead to more agreeable times — when gardeners haul out the seed catalogues and classical music fans begin filling out their must-hear calendars with intriguing events to come.

Even the latter activity has become dicey this year, with events that pop up and just as quickly disappear as reality trumps planning. It’s difficult to keep track — and in our case, to keep the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings up to date.

For example, we just received word from The Cleveland Orchestra of a COVID-related change to its March 3-5 concerts that were to have featured the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in Mendelssohn’s “Reformation” Symphony and two Psalms by Alexander Zemlinsky. Those will be replaced by George Walker’s Lilacs featuring soprano Latonia Moore, and a suite from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier compiled by Franz Welser-Möst. Imagine the challenges of running a symphony orchestra these days!

Since there are no events to list for today, Wednesday, January 19, let’s flag a few things that are about to happen and burrow a bit deeper into plans for two of the major festivals of the summer in Northeast Ohio.

Coming up on Thursday: A Highland Lassie, the latest event in Les Délices’ Concert Series will become available on demand at 12:01 am. The program visits the fascinating world of Scottish traditional music that celebrates “the permeable borders between folk song and art song, between country dance and cotillion. Truly, the tunes crossed social boundaries — being sung and played by folks from every walk of life from the fields to the tavern to the well-heeled salon. With their haunting melodies, budding romanticism, and nostalgic sentimentality, these traditional Scots songs speak powerfully to us today.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

You’re reading this after noon on Friday, so the 12:15 pm McGaffin Carillon concert is already old news. But you can still enjoy George Leggiero’s performance (including a Beatles tune) via YouTube, on demand here.

The Cleveland Orchestra is on duty at Severance Music Center Friday at 7:30 and Saturday at 8 with two symphonic standards (Mozart’s No. 40 and Dvořák’s No. 8) separated by Bern Richard Deutsch’s Intensity. Franz Welser-Möst is at the helm.

On Saturday at 1, the MET Opera — who have yet to cancel a performance since the house reopened — bring you Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro over WCLV.

This is Martin Luther King Jr, weekend, but thanks to COVID-19, Saturday’s annual MLK Memorial Concert by musicians from the Music Settlement and The Cleveland Orchestra’s annual MLK Celebration Concert will be presented online. The Settlement event will be streamed live from the Bop Stop, while the Cleveland Orchestra will make its 2018 Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration concert available for free on Adella from January 17 through February 28. The Orchestra’s annual Community Day won’t happen this year. And Apollo’s Fire has created a six-video playlist to celebrate MLK Day.

At 4 pm Sunday, Cleveland Orchestra assistant concertmaster Stephen Tavani will be featured in the Brahms Concerto with the Youngstown Symphony. Guest conductor Miriam Burns will lead Bartók’s Roumanian Folk Dances and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 to fill out the program in the Ford Family Recital Hall at Youngstown’s DeYor Center.

Details in our Concert Listings.

COVID UPDATES:

Apollo’s Fire has decided to reschedule its cycle of “Lift Every Voice” concerts from February 4-6 to August 5-7. Ticket holders have been contacted with rebooking directions.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

Multiple sources report that Nuremburg instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner invented a new instrument called the clarinet on January 14, 1690 — a claim that recalls that Irish Archbishop’s assertion that God created the earth on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine o’clock in the morning. In fact, Denner essentially added two keys to the chalmeau,  launching one of the most versatile instrument families to be incorporated into the developing symphony orchestra, and making possible such pieces as Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.

Speaking of Mozart, a century and a decade later, Ludwig Köchel, who created the first chronological catalogue of Mozart’s works and assigned them KV (“Köchel Verzeichnis”) numbers, was born in Lower Austria on January 14, 1800. He was also a skilled botanist — not a bad hobby for someone who sorts musical works out into categories. [Read more…]

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 pm Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 (“Linz”), Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Intensity (2019-2020), and  Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 in the Mandel Concert Hall at Severance, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Performances run through Saturday. Tickets available online.

IN THE NEWS: 

Oberlin Opera Theater Professor Christopher Mirto remembers “The Puppy Episode” as one of the funniest TV moments of his life. Actually a two-part episode of Ellen DeGeneres’ eponymous sitcom that aired in spring 1997, “The Puppy Episode” marked—in hilarious fashion—the long-rumored coming out of the program’s central character as well as the comedian who portrayed her.

Now a new opera inspired by the watershed moment will receive its world premiere at Oberlin: The Puppy Episode, composed by Matthew Recio with libretto by Royce Vavrek, will be presented in two performances Wednesday and Thursday, February 16 and 17, in Warner Concert Hall. Each performance begins at 7:30 p.m. Click here to read Erich Burnett’s article.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

According to the website Angel Number, the number 13 represents the combined energy of the numbers 1 and 3. It is a number with very strong symbolism and has great power.

Number 1 has a vibration of new ideas, new beginnings, progress and individuality, while the number 3 symbolizes passion, motivation, optimism, self–expression, inspiration. Number 3 is also the number of the Ascended Masters.

The number 13 is a karmic number. If the power of this number is used for selfish reasons, this number can bring disaster and destruction to the person who misused its power, causing this person illness and disease. It is the fear of disaster and destruction that causes Triskaidekaphobia — the fear or avoidance of the number 13.

In honor of this date we’ve created a playlist of 13 works that contain the number 13 in the title.

1) J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp No. 13 from The Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1 performed by Sviatoslav Richter. [Read more…]