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Archives for December 2023

Cleveland Orchestra kicks off 2023 holiday series with festive Severance concert (Dec. 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Originally posted on Cleveland.com

The Cleveland Orchestra will perform a series of heartwarming holiday concerts for the whole family through Dec. 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni). Roger Mastroianni

Dear Predictive Chatbot (or Siri, or Cortana, or other AI digital assistant),

How long should I wait before asking you to play me holiday music in December?

Dear Consumer,

It depends. It used to be proper to wait until the Thanksgiving dishes had been washed and put away (for the mercantile launch date, ask me about Black Friday). But for some chain stores, Christmas goods begin appearing soon after the Fourth of July, when letters to the editor decrying the commercialization of the holidays also begin to proliferate.

Now I see from my GPS that you’re writing from Cleveland. It’s a safe bet to hold off on the Noëls and Fa-la-la-la-las until The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus launch their Holiday Concerts. This year there are 14 of them, and my data suggest that these events are regarded by the local population as the true beginning of the Holiday season. Let the celebrations begin!

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra features Beethoven 5 at Severance (Nov. 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Sooner or later, every orchestra has to come to terms with the Most Famous Symphony of Them All — Beethoven’s Fifth — and for Daniel Reith and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, that moment arrived at Severance Music Center on Sunday afternoon, November 12.

The challenges begin right at the beginning with the famous four-note motive that sounds so straightforward, but getting a stage full of musicians to play it together with the precise stops and starts that the composer writes into the score is anything but easy. “Just make any gesture at the beginning,” one conductor counseled a student, advice that works like magic the first time around, but then things get complicated. [Read more…]

Les Délices: Noel, Noel from darkness into light

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by Mike Telin

With the Winter Solstice and the conclusion of Advent upon us, the days grow shorter in the Northern Hemisphere — a quiet time for meditation, reflection, and anticipation that brightness will soon arrive.

On Wednesday, December 20 at 7:30 pm at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Akron, Les Délices will present Noel, Noel, performed by Amanda Powell (soprano), Debra Nagy (recorder and direction), Julie Andrijeski and Allison Monroe (violins), Rebecca Landell (viola da gamba), Mark Edwards (organ), and Daniel Swenberg (theorbo and Baroque guitar). The program will be repeated on Thursday at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church and Friday at the Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church, both at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Accent at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Dec. 8)

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by Peter Feher

Accent’s holiday concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art on December 8 was a hometown affair, even if the six members of this all-male a cappella ensemble had collectively traveled thousands of miles to be there.

The audience in Gartner Auditorium on Friday night cheered on bass Evan Sanders, a South Euclid native who, as the group’s lowest voice, has grounded this far-flung collaboration for more than a decade now.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, December 14, 2023

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, Don Verkuijlen leads the Singers Club of Cleveland in“Holiday Twists” at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

At 7:30, Brett Mitchell leads The Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus in the second of its fourteen Holiday Concerts at Severance Music Center (pictured) featuring vocalist Capathia Jenkins. Our review of the opening performance will appear later this morning on Cleveland.com (the Plain Dealer).

Also tonight at 7:30, Apollo’s Fire brings “Wassail! An Irish-Appalachian Christmas” to Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these performances.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

On this date in 1788, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach passed away in Hamburg at age 74. That second surviving son of Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach is known for retaining the influence of his father’s music while charting a path of his own in the early Classical period. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, December 13, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Trinity’s “Messiah Sing” at noon, and The Cleveland Orchestra’s first holiday concert of the season

•Interesting reads: the history of Cleveland Orchestra holiday concerts, and cellist Zlatomir Fung’s new audio play The Elves and the Cello Maker

•Announcements: Detroit Symphony extends contract for Music Director Jader Bignamini, and Greater Cleveland Music Census extends its deadline 

•Almanac: violinist Samuel Dushkin, his collaborations with Stravinsky, and a work he did not premiere — and not by his own choosing

HAPPENING TODAY:

Head to Trinity Cathedral at noon to be part of the “Messiah Sing,” the final concert of the fall series. The Trinity Chamber Orchestra, soloists, and conductor Todd Wilson will present selections from Handel’s beloved oratorio with the audience as the chorus. A limited number of scores will be available on loan, but audience members are asked to bring one along if they have one at home. A freewill offering will be taken up. Note that the concert will also be livestreamed.

And The Cleveland Orchestra will kick off its run of holiday concerts at 7:30 pm at Severance. Brett Mitchell conducts, and vocalist Carpathia Jenkins is the soloist. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra:
Bychkov, Labèques, and a premiere (Dec. 7)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Maybe it was the time of year, the familial ties of the visiting conductor and pianists, the anticipation of a new work, or maybe all of it, but somehow a rosy glow enveloped the Cleveland Orchestra concert on Thursday, December 7.

Semyon Bychkov’s appearance on the podium, the U.S. premiere of Julian Anderson’s Symphony No. 2, the return to Cleveland by the Labèque sisters — even Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy (normally a two-hankie affair) — all warmed the heart on this winter’s night.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir: 
“Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula”

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by Mike Telin

“I can’t count the number of holiday programs I have conducted in my life,” Greg Ristow said during a telephone conversation. “But I think I’m more excited about this one than any I’ve ever conducted because the music is all so fun — there’s no other way to put it.”

On Friday, December 15 at 8:00 pm in Oberlin’s Fairchild Chapel, Ristow will lead the Cleveland Chamber Choir in “Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula.” The program includes works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Matteo Flecha el Viejo, Vicente Lusitano, and Salamone Rossi, as well as music from the Sephardic Jewish tradition. The free program will be repeated on Saturday the 16th at 7:00 pm at First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland.

While the concert will feature many audience favorites, Ristow noted that it also includes a number of long-hidden gems, including Flecha’s La Bomba, which opens the program. “He wrote in a genre we call ensalada, the Spanish word for salad, because it is as if you take snippets of madrigals, snippets of church polyphony, and snippets of Renaissance dance, and put them all together in a giant salad bowl and shake them up. And the result is this delightful, constantly changing mix of styles.”

[Read more…]

Cyrus Chestnut offers a night of holiday comfort food for the soul. (Dec. 8)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Originally published on Cleveland.com

Cyrus Chestnut is good company for the holidays. On Friday, December 8 he seemed genuinely delighted, even a little surprised, to have so many people in attendance in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center to hear him play.

“Wow,” he said, walking onstage with his trio, “So many people!” And, though he didn’t actually say it, he probably thought, “Well, as long as you’re here, do you know the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack? It goes like this…”

Chestnut is an endearing presence onstage. His shyness and slightly awkward patter are kept out of the squeamish zone by the grand virtuosity of his piano playing. The minute after telling the story about his fame in high school for his ability to play the Charlie Brown song (Linus and Lucy) and then forgetting the next song on his setlist, he promptly whirled around to summon magnificence from the keyboard.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, December 12, 2023

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At Noon, organist Jonathan W. Moyer plays music by Dupré, Franck, Bruhns & Johann Sebastian Bach at the Church of the Covenant, and at 7:30, Timothy Weiss leads faculty baritone Timothy Lefebvre and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble & Oberlin Sinfonietta in the first performance of Jesse Jones’ Song Cycle (composer pictured) in Finney Chapel. Both free concerts will be webcast.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these performances.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

French president Emmanuel Macron has confirmed a new opening date for the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and plans for a new museum in Paris. Read a story in The Art Newspaper here.

The Cleveland Institute of Music has received a gift of $1 million toward the projected $21 million renovation of Kulas Hall from a generous previous donor who remains anonymous. Read a press release here. [Read more…]

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