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Archives for April 2023

Canton Symphony pays tribute to Wm. Blair III (Apr. 2)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In a moving tribute to the recently deceased Canton Symphony board member and Northeast Ohio arts advocate William Blair III, Gerhardt Zimmermann and the Canton Symphony offered a varied program on Sunday, April 2, an evening full of musical depths and satisfying performances. Organist Heather Cooper, the Orchestra’s near constant companion onstage, sparkled as soloist.

The presence of organ at this concert was in honor of Blair, an organist himself, but it also brought a wonderful expansion to the orchestral palette. Cooper was featured, whether as soloist or as added texture, in nearly every piece. Her playing was consistently first rate. The only downside may have been a decreasing sense of the instrument’s specialness as the concert progressed. [Read more…]

McGill, Huang & Perroni sing at Cleveland Chamber Music Society (March 28)

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by Peter Feher

Clarinetist Anthony McGill brought star power to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society on March 28. In a concert that was all about singing — that, in fact, included two pieces with soprano — McGill stood out as the most prominent voice.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the clarinetist, who, since taking the principal chair with the New York Philharmonic in 2014, has cultivated the kind of celebrity career more often reserved for singers, string players, and pianists. McGill’s penchant for vocal music is no secret either. He previously served as principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the style and sound he picked up in the pit are still present in his playing today.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, April 11, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Oberlin voice and organ students play music by Mendelssohn at Church of the Covenant

•Announcements: Keith Fitch receives a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the U.S. Department of Education announces a call for student performing artists

•Almanac: Czech conductor and Holocaust survivor Karel Ančerl

HAPPENING TODAY:

This week’s Tuesday Noon Organ Plus concert at Church of the Covenant is a collaboration with Oberlin Conservatory voice and organ students. The program is composed entirely of works by Felix Mendelssohn, including selections from the cantata Psalm 42 and from the oratorios St. Paul and Elijah — program details and livestream link here.

[Read more…]

JoAnn Falletta Returns to CIM

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When she was appointed Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, JoAnn Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. On Wednesday, April 12 at 7:30 pm Falletta will lead the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra in music by Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, and Hailstork at  Severance Music Center. Admission is free but reservations are required.

Falletta also serves as Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center. The multiple GRAMMY-winner was recently named one of the “Fifty Great Conductors,” past and present, by Gramophone Magazine. I caught up with her by phone and began our conversation by asking about her frequent appearances as guest conductor at CIM. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, April 10, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. WRUW fundraiser

. Terrence Blanchard’s Champion at The Met

. Almanac: Pulitzer and the music prizes, first performances & births

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today’s edition of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, hosted by Eric Charnofsky, is the special annual telethon edition fundraiser for WRUW. Featured music: Gabriel Fauré’s Ouverture from Masques et Bergamasques, Gabriel Pierné’s Fantaisie-Ballet (piano and orchestra), Teresa Carreño’s String Quartet in b, Arnold Bax’s The Happy Forest (tone poem for orchestra), Dolores White’s Crystal Gazing (orchestra), Roberto Sierra’s Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano & Lukas Foss’s American Landscapes (excerpt, for guitar). Click here to listen to the internet feed from 2 pm to 4pm or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area.

INTERESTING READ:

Terrence Blanchard’s Champion, an opera in jazz opens today at the Metropolitan Opera for nine performances. Click here to read Mike Silverman’s story in AP News about adapting the piece for The Met following its debut at Opera St Louis. An excerpt: [Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend, April 7-9, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. A short but eclectic mix of musical offerings

. Almanac: historical links with a weekend Cleveland Orchestra concert

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

APRIL 7 – FRIDAY

7:30 pm – Québecois trio É.T.É brings a mix of Gaelic jazz, folk, and step dancing, performances on fiddle, cello, and bouzouki, and vocal harmonies. Maltz Center for the Performing Arts,1855 Ansel Rd, Cleveland. Click here for tickets.

7:30 pm – Apollo’s Fire: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Rediscovered, Jeannette Sorrell, direction & harpsichord, featuring Francisco Fullana & Alan Choo & Emi Tanabe, violins. Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Concerto for Two Cellos & La Folia. West Shore Unitarian Universalist, 20401 Hilliard Blvd, Rocky River, 44116. The program will be repeated on Saturday at the Federated Church, 76 Bell St., Chagrin Falls. Tickets available online.

7:30 am – Trinity Good Friday Concert: Trinity Cathedral Choir, Todd Wilson, conducting, Elizabeth DeMio & Anne Wilson, pianists, Jacqueline Josten, soprano, Edward Vogel, baritone. Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsche Requiem with accompaniment for piano four hands arranged by the composer. 6:45 pre-concert talk by Charles McGuire, Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, April 6, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Cleveland Orchestra & Oberlin Orchestra 

•Interesting reads: Rachmaninoff at 150

•Job listings: Senior Strategist (Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy) at City Hall, and Conservatory Event Publicity and Marketing Specialist at Oberlin

•Honors for a CWRU composer

•Almanac: Carlos Salzedo, André Previn, Igor Stravinsky, Ray Charles

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Rafael Payare (pictured) leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and Bernstein’s Second (“The Age of Anxiety”), which features pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet as soloist. Tickets are available here.

And at that same hour at Finney Chapel, pianist Annie Qin, one of the winners of Oberlin Conservatory’s Concerto Competition, will play Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto with the Oberlin Orchestra, led by Raphael Jiménez. The program also includes Pierre Jalbert’s Passage and the world premiere of Michael Frazier’s la flor nopal. It’s free, and you can catch the stream here.

[Read more…]

Composers Guild & Cleveland Chamber Choir join forces (Apr. 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When the Cleveland Composers Guild added the requirement of writing a vocal piece to its collegiate composition contest in 2019 and generated only a single entry — impressive as that piece was — the idea was born for dedicating an entire year to vocal music.

The choral side of that theme came to fruition on Sunday, April 2 in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, when the Guild collaborated with Cleveland Chamber Choir in a program designed and led by CCC acting director Gregory Ristow that successfully combined new pieces by Northeast Ohio composers with existing works, and in one case brought a new wrinkle to a well-known choral cycle.

[Read more…]

No Exit to present April Series

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For their April series, No Exit will present a collection of diverse new works from some remarkable artists. Featured on the program will be world premiere pieces by Victoria Cheah, Jeremy Siskind (a “shining example of chamber music”– Downbeat), Robert Honstein ( “smart, appealing works”—The New Yorker) and Cleveland-based composer Chris Neiner.

The program will also feature two extraordinary special guests, pianist Shuai Wang (“her musicality flowed effortlessly, undaunted by any of the dense technical work”—Cleveland Classical) and vocalist Lauren Pearl (“Soulful and engrossing depth of tone”—The Philadelphia Inquirer).

The program will be presented on Friday, April 7 at 8:00 pm at SPACES, Friday, April 14 at 7:00 pm at Heights Arts, and on Saturday, April 15 at 7:30 pm at Kent State University School of Music. All performances are free. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, April 5, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. More music for these Jewish and Christian Holy Days

. Remembering Louis Spohr & Sébastien Érard

MUSIC FOR THESE HOLY DAYS:

With no live performances to note, today, let’s renew the search we began on Monday for interesting recordings of music for Passover and Holy Week.

The central event in Jewish history is Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt, which established the observance of Passover and is celebrated in Psalm 113 (or 114 depending on your numbering system), which has come over into the Christian tradition as well.

Apollo’s Fire presented the debut of Jeannette Sorrell’s edition of Handel’s oratorio, Israel in Egypt last year, which trimmed the piece to a more concise length but preserves the colorful representations of the plagues and the escape through the Red Sea for which the composer is famous. The video is available on Vimeo. Directions here.

There are YouTube videos of performances of Psalm 114 (“In exitu Israel”) by Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie), by Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (Ensemble Inégal & Prague Baroque Soloists under the direction of Adam Viktora), and by English composer Samuel Wesley (double choir motet, Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, conducted by Barry Rose, from a live BBC broadcast). [Read more…]

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