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Archives for January 2024

DIARY: Friday, January 12, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Back in town, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the second of three concerts featuring Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3 (arranged for string orchestra) and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin (repeated on Saturday).

Also on Friday, CityMusic Cleveland will take you (via the Praxis Fiber Workshop) on an excursion to sunny Italy, where Pytor Tchaikovsky escaped the Moscow winter to compose his Souvenir of Florence.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Most will retire in 2027 after his 25th year on the job. “That’s one year longer than George Szell, who made the Cleveland Orchestra famous, reports Zachary Lewis. ‘I never thought I would stay this long. It’s important now for the institution to get some fresh ideas,’” the conductor said. Read the cleveland.com story here.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire — “Wassail! an Irish Appalachian Christmas” at CMA (Dec. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Apollo’s Fire’s 2023 Christmas Show, “Wassail! an Irish Appalachian Christmas,” was a reworking of its earlier crossover shows, “Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain” and “Sugarloaf Mountain: an Appalachian Gathering” — attractive programs of folk music wrapped around the narrative of immigrants from the British Isles who brought their tunes with them to the New World. I saw the most recent version in its final performance in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday, December 17.

The narrative, delivered by Derdriu Ring (also credited with theatrical direction) opens in an Irish village on Christmas Eve of 1849 during the Great Famine, then fast forwards to immigrants’ new homes in Appalachia on Christmas Day of the following year. A Wassailing segment captures the tradition of boozy, door-to-door caroling, followed by Winter by the Hearth, a celebration of coziness in the face of winter, then a segue into a telling of the Christmas story and preparations for the sea journey to America. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, January 11, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

BREAKING NEWS: Franz Welser-Möst announces the conclusion of his tenure as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra in 2027. Read the press release here.

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra raise the curtain on their winter season with Ernst Krenek’s Kleine Symphonie, Gustav Mahler’s Adagio from Symphony No. 10, and a double dose of Béla Bartók  — his String Quartet No. 3 arranged for string orchestra, and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin. Tickets available online.

IN MEMORIAM:

In an obituary tribute in today’s print edition, the New York Times writes:

Alice Parker, whose arrangements of hymns, folk songs, and spirituals were used in concert halls and churches across America, and who composed 11 song cycles and four operas, died on Dec. 24 at her home in Hawley, Mass. She was 98. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, January 10, 2024

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Joshua Redman Group with vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa (pictured) at CMA

•Announcements: Tuesday Musical Scholarship Competition, Early Music America Young Performers Festival, Early Music Month Mini-Grants, and Ohio Light Opera box office opening

•Interesting read: a profile of Wayne Brown, the recently retired president and chief executive of Detroit Opera

•Almanac: Sherrill Milnes and Frank Bridge

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm at Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum of Art will feature the Joshua Redman Group, featuring vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa. The ensemble features Redman on saxophone, Paul Cornish on piano, Philip Norris on bass, and Nazir Ebo on drums. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra MLK Celebration Concert: a conversation with violinist Amaryn Olmeda

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by Mike Telin

It’s always fun to ask someone how it feels to be making their debut performance with The Cleveland Orchestra. And while all the responses come with excitement, there was a bit of extra enthusiasm in the voice of Amaryn Olmeda.

“I can’t wait,” the 15-year-old violinist said during a recent interview. “It’s just so crazy to me because I grew up listening to all their recordings — putting them on my playlist and playing along with them. Then all of a sudden I’m performing with them. So I’m very excited for this opportunity and I’m very honored that they chose me to play with them at their Martin Luther King concert.”

On Sunday, January 14 at 7:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Daniel Reith and William Henry Caldwell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and The Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Chorus in a program that commemorates 60 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, sex, or national origin. The concert will feature works by J. Rosamond Johnson, Adolphus Hailstork, Jame P. Johnson, and the Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, Allison Loggins-Hull. Click here for free tickets.

The program will also include Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane with soloist Amaryn Olmeda, winner of first prize and the audience choice award at the 24th Annual Sphinx Competition. I reached the violinist by phone and began by asking her how she came to choose the piece.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, January 9, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

There’s nothing on the concert calendar for today, but while waiting for Northeast Ohio’s classical concerts to rouse themselves from a well-deserved, post-holiday nap, here’s an interesting listen to recommend.

Les Délices has re-released its SalonEra second season program Phoenix of Mexico as an audio-only podcast. “Bassoonist Catalina Guevara Víquez Klein, violinist Karin Cuellar Rendon, and mezzo-soprano Raquel Winnica Young (pictured) explore personal connections to Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), the 17th Century Mexican nun who was a visionary poet, intellectual, and proto feminist. Our guests explore her legacy in music by Jose Marin, Antonio Durán de la Mota, Rafael de Castellanos, and others.” Listen here.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

January 9 marks the birthdays of American professor and composer John Knowles Paine (1839, in Portland, Maine, pictured) and of longtime Metropolitan Opera administrator Rudolph Bing (1902, in Vienna). [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, January 8, 2024

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by Jarrett Hoffman

FOUR MUSIC MAJORS TO BE CUT, DANA SCHOOL OF MUSIC TO UNDERGO “IMMEDIATE REORGANIZATION”:

As Youngstown State University shared in a statement on its Facebook page yesterday:

Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music is NOT closing, contrary to social media posts.

Four consistently low-enrolled majors, which have had approximately 12 graduates in the past five years, will be sunset this academic year. These majors include Bachelor of Arts in Music, Bachelor of Music in Composition, Master of Music in Composition and Master of Music in Jazz Studies. Students currently enrolled in these four majors will be able to graduate from their designated major. This step in Taking Charge of Our Future aligns with the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s review of duplicative and low-enrolled programs. 

The Dana School of Music will undergo an immediate reorganization to enhance and rejuvenate the school to better serve students and improve the marketability of graduates. This reorganization allows the university to re-envision and differentiate the undergraduate and graduate programs in Music Education and Music Performance as well as continue to support Music Recording and community initiatives, including the YSU Youth Orchestra.

YSU continues to value the Dana School of Music and the impact it has on the university and the surrounding community.

According to an article by Denise Dick in The Business Journal, over the weekend a petition began to circulate online urging people to “Save the Dana School of Music” and to attend a peaceful protest outside YSU’s Tod Hall on Wednesday, January 10 at 4:00 pm.

The petition also links to the website save-Dana.com, where the enrollment figures cited by the University are disputed and the findings of the analytics firm hired by the University are questioned.

[Read more…]

Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival at Trinity Cathedral (Dec. 30)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Goats and donkeys and camels — oh my. Add Elizabethan music, costumes, the noble company of Beefeaters and attendants processing under the magnificent arches of Trinity Cathedral, and you have yourself a merry little Christmas pageant.

A celebration that dates to the Roman Empire and Norman times in England, the Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival has been a Cleveland tradition since 1960. The festival is typically held on December 30th, as it was this year, with shows at 2:00 and 4:30 pm — I saw the latter —  and the promise of a ham-and-mincemeat feast after the second performance.

The principal task of the volunteer cast of troubadours, shepherds, and sprites, besides singing, parading, and cavorting, was to present the titular giant boar’s head and lighting of the yule log — offering symbolic import for the Christian, and theatrical whimsy for everyone. Soloists, choirs, and audience sing-alongs were accompanied by Todd Wilson at the organ.

[Read more…]

Les Délices: Noel, Noel at Holy Trinity, Akron (Dec. 20)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Giving hope and joy at the darkest time of the year is one reason, maybe the reason, for the timing of holiday celebrations in December, and music and poetry are good ways to ward off the cold and gloom.

Les Délices’ Christmas-themed program, this year titled “Noel, Noel,” offered many glimmers of cheer on Wednesday evening, December 20 at Holy Trinity Lutheran in Akron. But on their journey from the contemplative toward the celebratory, this serious band seemed more comfortable with the former than the latter.

The program grouped beloved carols, seasonal hymns, and seventeenth century instrumental variations into six sets, like stages on a Christmas journey, from “Darkness” through “Hope,” “Peace,” “Joy” and “Love,”  to “Light,” with poetry readings in between. But the musicians’ devotion to skill and restraint came through the loudest.

[Read more…]

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