by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S EVENTS:
No live performances to raise up today, but Eric Charnofsky will host an homage to Ukraine on his WRUW radio show Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music from 2 pm to 4 pm, and at 7:30 pm, Les Délices will revisit works by women composers across the centuries in “Women’s Herstory,” the latest episode in its SalonEra series. Details in our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
English composer Henry Purcell may have been born on this date in 1659 (records are sketchy, to say the least), and in his brief 36-year career distinguished himself in a large body of music written both for church and theater after the restoration of the monarchy.
One of Purcell’s most popular works is his Dido and Aeneas, with a libretto by Nahum Tate based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. [Read more…]
This weekend’s entries:
Over the years, audiences have had the privilege of hearing many outstanding performances by winners of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s annual concerto competition. But on Sunday, February 20, the sizable crowd at Severance Music Center witnessed nothing short of musical magic during Dasara Beta’s brilliant performance of Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto.
Time and time again, Les Délices has imbued a sense of creativity into the concert experience — particularly over the past two years, when pandemic restrictions called for some out-of-the-box thinking. On February 25 in Shaker Heights, their first in-person event since 2020 proved to be no exception, blending poetry and music for an engaging evening of storytelling.
Wu Wei, the Chinese-born, German-based virtuoso of the free reed instrument known as the 
In today’s issue:
IN THIS EDITION:
When you’re looking for neglected music to program, it’s helpful to have friends with wide-ranging tastes who are cleaning out overflowing collections of recordings. That’s how Quire Cleveland artistic director Jay White stumbled across a major work by the 17th-century Bohemian composer Christoph Demantius.
Cleveland Chamber Choir’s hosting of choruses from Kent State and Cleveland State Universities in a joint concert on February 27 in CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium might have been reminiscent of multi-choir powwows from one’s schooldays, but the quality of repertoire, the level of singing, and efficient stage management raised the event to impressive heights.