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Archives for June 2023

DIARY: Weekend, June 30-July 2, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. A wealth of performances from lyric theater to chamber music to Bach’s complete Brandenburgs & the opening of the Blossom season

. Remembering Bang on a Can All Stars bassist Robert Black

. Almanac: three dates in music history featuring Salonen, Henze, Brunelle, W.F. Bach, Satie, Gluck, Rousseau, Brewster, Weinrich & Fennell

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Ohio Light Opera has four of its six shows playing in repertoire: this weekend, No, No, Nanette! (pictured, Saturday at 2), How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Friday & Sunday at 2), and Camelot (Saturday at 7:30).

ChamberFest Cleveland’s Friday’s concert at Dunham Tavern, Words Misunderstood, will feature György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique (for 100 metronomes), and Saturday’s Mixon Hall performance picks up the festival theme, Lightness of Being, with Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression, and works by Mozart and Mendelssohn, both concerts at 7:30. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: 
No, No, Nanette! (June 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When the Freedlander Theatre grand drape rose for the first No, No, Nanette! curtain call on Saturday afternoon in Wooster, it revealed only the tap dancing feet of the excellent Ohio Light Opera cast. That cleverly validated both stage director Steven A. Daigle’s characterization of the 1925 hit musical as “a dancing show” and choreographer Spencer Reese’s genius in getting an entire stage full of actors to tap and create a wonderful din with their feet during several production numbers.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Fidelity and Betrayal” (June 17)

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by Mike Telin

From the beginning, ChamberFest Cleveland’s artistic directors have turned to creative themes for their programming inspiration. This season the Festival’s guiding light has taken a literary slant with Lightness of Being — after Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. But don’t feel like you need to have read the novel to enjoy the concerts — Donald Rosenberg’s brilliantly written program notes will tell you what you need to know.

On Saturday, June 17 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, the program “Fidelity and Betrayal” included works from the standard repertoire, a never-performed work by a well-known composer, a piece inspired by Cuban and South American dances, and music that had never been heard before — anytime, anywhere.

 

[Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, June 29, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: OLO opens H.M.S. Pinafore, music from ChamberFest Cleveland, and a broadcast from CIPC for Young Artists

•Announcements: Assembly for the Arts discusses “Creative Income for Artists, Nonprofits, and Businesses”

•Almanac: a trio of American composers — Hale Smith, Leroy Anderson & Bernard Herrmann (pictured)

HAPPENING TODAY:

Ohio Light Opera presents the opening matinee of Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore at 2:00 pm at Freedlander Theatre in Wooster, ChamberFest Cleveland turns to music by Lera Auerbach, Beethoven, and Sergey Taneyev at 7:30 pm at CIM’s Mixon Hall, and at that same hour CIPC for Young Artists continues its First Round Broadcasts (there’s also a free watch party at 5:00 at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo). More details in our Concert Listings.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, June 28, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Youmans show continues with Wooster matinee, Divas on display at the V&A (pictured: Adelina Patti)

. Almanac remembers Henry VIII, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Joseph Joachim, Richard Rodgers

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera: No, No, Nanette. Book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. Lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach. Music by Vincent Youmans. Freedlander Theatre, 329 E. University St., Wooster. Tickets available online.

INTERESTING READ:

New Exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum

“Exploring the definition of diva-dom is the exhibition DIVA, just opened at the V&A, London. ‘The exhibition will show that there are many definitions and interpretations of a diva,’ lead curator Kate Bailey tells BBC Culture. [Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, June 27, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: OLO’s Camelot, the flutes of Idle Twittering, and new music ensemble The ____ Experiment

•Announcements: honors for an Oberlin student and a CIM alum

•Almanac: Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, including cantatas that received their U.K. premiere this past weekend, 300 years after being written

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2:00 pm, Ohio Light Opera continues its run of Camelot at Freedlander Theatre in Wooster. Tickets here.

At 7:00 at Cain Park’s Alma Theater, the Local 4 Music Fund presents Idle Twittering, a tribute to flute music through the ages on flutes of all shapes and sizes, featuring George Pope, Jane Berkner, Kyra Kester, and Linda White. It’s free.

Also at 7, Midwest-based ensemble The _____ Experiment (pronounced “The Blank Experiment”) visits Kaiser Gallery, bringing music by composers including David Heinick, Everette Michew, Andrew Reinkemeyer, Adam Kennaugh, and Cara Haxo. Tickets are available here.

More details in our Concert Listings.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, June 26, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Meet the Sonic Sphere

. Check out the rarities in Eric Charnofsky’s Monday playlist

. Birthday salute to the late Jacob Druckman

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, Eric Charnofsky, host. Richard Strauss’s Violin Concerto in d,, Charles Norman Mason’s Anthem of Despair and Hope (choir), Suzanne Farrin’s Undecim (string quartet), Frederick Delius’s Marche Caprice & A Song Before Sunrise (orchestra), Jacob Druckman’s Dark Upon the Harp (mezzo-soprano, brass quintet & percussion) & Franz Liszt’s Second Book of Songs for Solo Piano. Click here to listen to the internet feed: or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area.

INTERESTING READ:

“At the Shed in Manhattan, audience members can take in live, spatially designed music inside a suspended hall called the Sonic Sphere.” Click here to read the New York Times story, “Enter the 50-Ton Concert Hall That Hangs Like a Disco Ball.” [Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend, June 23-25, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. June concert series continue

. Oberlin BPI video of recently discovered flute music posted

. Announcements from the Akron & Canton Symphonies, the Music Settlement & The Cleveland Orchestra

. Almanac: milestones for John Finley Williamson, Hugo Distler, Terry Riley, George Philipp Telemann, William Grant Still’s choral ballad & Alberto Ginastera

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Ohio Light Opera has two of its six shows up and running on Saturday: No, No, Nanette at 2, and How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at 7:30.

ChamberFest Cleveland continues with Carnival of the Animals on Saturday at 7:30 in Kulas Hall at CIM, and Vortex on Sunday in Harkness Chapel at Case at 3.

Tri-C JazzFest takes over Playhouse Square through Saturday (check the long list of performances). [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Karenin’s Smile” (June 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

After the seriousness and communal pall brought on by the COVID pandemic, this year’s ChamberFest is asserting “Lightness of Being” as a theme, inspired by Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In the second concert of the Festival, titled “Karenin’s Smile,” works by Mozart, Janáček, and Saint-Saëns were appropriately buoyant and cheerful, thrilling those gathered at Cleveland’s St. Wendelin Church on June 16.

Mozart wrote two of his six so-called “viola quintets” in 1787 in close succession — one in C major, one in G minor. The C major, with its more amiable and optimistic disposition, was a fitting choice on Friday evening.

Cellist Jonathan Swensen opened with a puckish rising arpeggiated triad, which first violinist David Bowlin answered with equally cheeky delight. The wide-ranging motive hinted at the movement’s dimensions (a good fifteen minutes long), and the violin answer set the bantering pattern. Bowlin made a fine leader, acquitting himself in both Allegro movements with mirthful virtuosity.

[Read more…]

Michael Lynn acquires 18th-century book with unique flute music by Marin Marais, includes selections on BPI faculty concert

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute faculty concert on Tuesday afternoon, June 20 featured flutist Michael Lynn, harpsichordist Mark Edwards, and gambist Rebecca Reed in recently-discovered works by Marin Marais and Michel de la Barre.

The pieces were drawn from a large collection of dance suites offered for sale at a book auction earlier this year in Paris. Lynn learned about it in an email from the auctioneer, who wrote that there was “something related to the flute” in the collection being sold.

“As it turned out there was only a single music book in a very large library of books described as being from the Chateau de Champagne, but it is a superb collection of the earliest traverso solo and duo music written and published in France,” Lynn said during a recent conversation in the Special Collections room at the Oberlin Conservatory Library prior to Tuesday’s concert. “The composers, de la Barre, Hotteterre, and Marais, were all employed by Louis XIV and the music is all from his lifetime.”

[Read more…]

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