by Daniel Hathaway
How do musicians — who spend their lives giving concerts — go about raising funds for worthy causes? They give concerts, of course, as seventeen faculty members and students at the Cleveland Institute of Music will do on February 13 at 7:30 pm in CIM’s Mixon Hall to benefit the Cleveland Kosher Food Pantry.
The performance, co-sponsored by Music for Food and the CIM Student Government Association, will feature violin professor Jaime Laredo, cello professor Sharon Robinson, pianist Pin-Hsuan Huang, and student artists Minji Lee & Karisa Chiu, violin, Paolo Dara & Steven Song, viola, Cecelia Swanson, cello, Trey Floyd, tenor, and the Aeronaut Woodwind Quintet (Daniel Lopez, flute, Grayson Eichmeier, oboe, Shihao Hugh Zhu, clarinet, Brittney Delpey, bassoon & Liam McConlogue, horn).
The program will include Ernest Bloch’s “Nigun” from Baal Shem (1923), Valerie Coleman’s Tzigane for Wind Quintet (2011), Johannes Brahms’ String Sextet No. 2 in G, and a traditional spiritual arranged by Hall Johnson. [Read more…]
After an illness forced Klaus Mäkelä to withdraw from three of the four scheduled performances last week, the Finnish conductor will return to The Cleveland Orchestra podium on Thursday, February 9 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center. The program will include Unsuk Chin’s SPIRA – Concerto for Orchestra and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, and it will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available 
Forming a small vocal ensemble was something that Steven Plank had wanted to do for a long time. And when a surge in COVID cases forced him to reduce the number of singers in the choir at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the opportunity arose. “We began doing the liturgy with just eight singers,” Plank said during a telephone conversation. “We were having such a good time that one Thursday evening I asked if they would like to do some concerts. And they all said yes.”
At first glance, the sheer number of pieces on the program for “Our Song, Our Story” looked a little intimidating. The concert, which was presented by Tuesday Musical and traced the musical output of Black Americans, offered listeners all kinds of categories: spiritual songs, opera, and lieder, just to name a few. But on February 2, what was printed on the paper was more of a guide for the performers to pick-and-choose, letting them present their songs, their way.
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With a glint of polished silver and a showman’s flair, trumpet soloist Brian Neal highlighted the Youngstown Symphony’s Classical Exploration concert on January 29 at Stambaugh Auditorium with a stirring performance of Joseph Haydn’s 
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by Daniel Hathaway