ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad

Archives for February 2024

Susanna Mälkki Returns to lead The Cleveland Orchestra

by

 by Mike Telin

“I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work with The Cleveland Orchestra — I think it’s a crown jewel,” Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki said during a recent telephone conversation from her hotel in Cleveland. “I’m very happy to be here and I’m really looking forward to these concerts.”

On Thursday, February 29 at 7:30 pm Mälkki will return to Severance Music Center to lead The Orchestra in performances of Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony and Anton Webern’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s “Ricercar” from the Musical Offering, along with Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the young British pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason  as soloist. The program will be repeated on Friday, March 1 at 11:00 am (no Webern) and Saturday, March 2 at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

I began our conversation by asking about her previous visits to Cleveland. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, February 29, 2024

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, Trobár Medieval presents “I Sing a New Song, The Epic Journey of a Traveling Musician in the Middle Ages,” and at 7:30 Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki leads pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and The Cleveland Orchestra in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony at Severance Music Center.

Meanwhile, at Oberlin, tenor Joshua Blue will be featured with the Oberlin Sinfonietta in a program of music by Olly Wilson, Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Frazier & Wendell Logan led by Tim Weiss (webcast available).

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

On Thursday evening, Cuyahoga Community College released the lineup for its 45th Tri-C JazzFest, scheduled for June 20-22, 2024. View or download the press release here.

Ursuline College will honor Apollo’s Fire founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell as the 2024 recipient of its Women Who Light the Way Award “for her contributions to the world of music and her inspiration to women everywhere to pursue their dreams.” [Read more…]

No Exit to host Aether Eos

by

by Mike Telin

This weekend No Exit will take a short break from performing and put on their presenter hat when they host Aether Eos — the duo of violinist/composer/visual artist Leah Asher and pianist/composer Christopher Goddard — on Sunday, March 3 at 3:00 pm at Heights Arts and Monday the 4th at 7:30 pm at Kent State University’s Ludwig Recital Hall. Both performances are free.

Their varied program will explore a kaleidoscope of expressive states in Tonia Ko’s plush earth in four pieces, Carrie Frey’s Seagrass/Reed, Giacinto Scelsi’s Chemin du Coeur, Linda Caitlin Smith’s Unbroken, and Michael Hersch’s the wreckage of flowers.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir — “Choral Splendor: Old and New”

by

by Mike Telin

“On some level, all music is in dialogue with the art that came before it,” Cleveland Chamber Choir artistic director Greg Ristow writes in his artistic statement for the ensemble’s upcoming program. “But, when a composer pays direct homage to an older piece, it creates a loop that draws these works together in a conversation that’s possible only in non-linear time, and that reflects our own experience as listeners hearing music of many eras in the context of our modern times.”

On Saturday, March 2 at 7:00 pm in First Lutheran Church of Lorain and on Sunday, March 3 at 4:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ristow will lead the ensemble in “Choral Splendor: Old and New.”

The program creates six “time loops” of older pieces and newer responses performed side by side: Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus will be paired with Claudia Hinsdale’s Joy: A Variation on Allegri’s Miserere, Sebastien de Vivanco’s In Manus Tuas with Andrew Rindfleisch’s In Manus Tuas: A Parody Motet, and Dietrich Buxtehude’s “Ad manus” from 
Membra Jesu Nostri with Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Zidur Guitar Duo (Feb. 24)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

Hermelindo Ruiz and Samuel Diz, constituents of the Zidur Guitar Duo, made their Cleveland debut on Saturday, February 24, endearing themselves to the crowd at the Maltz Performing Arts Center with an attractive program and winning personalities — two young virtuosos from out of town you’d like to meet afterwards over tapas and beer.

Ruiz, a native Puerto Rican, and Diz, Spanish-born, delighted in sharing music from their respective countries, including works by Egúrbida, Gottschalk, Rodrigo, Vide, and Acosta, plus two by Ruiz himself. While other guitarists might have been inclined to flashier repertoire, Ruiz and Diz chose milder stuff, perhaps ambassadors of a gentler sort.

[Read more…]

David Hurd to play David Boe Memorial Concert at Oberlin

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin Conservatory alumnus David Hurd has been tapped to play a David Boe Memorial Concert on the Fisk organ in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel on Sunday, March 3 at 4:30 pm. His program comprises some two decades of his own compositions.

Boe was a beloved professor of organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1962 to 2008 who also served as the ninth dean of the Conservatory.

David Hurd is among the most celebrated church musicians and concert organists in the United States. He received the American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer award in 2010, and currently serves as organist and choirmaster of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City.

I reached Hurd at home in New York via Zoom to talk about his career, his experiences at Oberlin, and his program on Sunday. I began by asking him about his relationship to Boe as a student. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, February 28, 2024

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Brahms chamber music with violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson at Oberlin

•Announcements: Cleveland Orchestra to perform with John Legend (pictured), the agenda for the 2024 Arts Impact Ohio conference, and a lecture on arts and AI at Ohio State and on Zoom

•Almanac: Osmo Vänskä on Kalevala Day

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm in Kulas Recital Hall, an Oberlin faculty recital will feature violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson performing with Conservatory string and piano students in two works by Brahms: the B-Major Piano Trio and the G-Major String Sextet. It’s free.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, February 27, 2024

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At Noon, organist Natalie Mealey plays music by Storace, J.S. Bach, Buxtehude & Frescobaldi at the Church of the Covenant, and at 5:30, Jim Riggs and Tyler Young offer a 50-minute rush hour program of music for organ and saxophone at Fairmount Presbyterian Church.

Tonight at 7:30, Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents cellist Steven Isserlis & pianist Connie Shih at Disciples Church, and the CIM Orchestra  pays a visit to Severance Music Center with guest conductor Leonard Slatkin.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

INTERESTING READS:

British Cellist Steven Isserlis returns to Northeast Ohio tonight, where he studied with Richard Kapuscinski at the Oberlin Conservatory from 1976 to 1978, to play a recital on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series with pianist Connie Shih.

This is a good time to have a look at the multi-talented musician’s biography and involvements, richly detailed on his website. Among them, his writings. Click on “Steven’s Books” to read about Why Handel Waggled His Wig, the sequel to Why Beethoven Threw the Stew. [Read more…]

BW Opera: Taking Up Serpents (Feb. 2 & 4)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater became only the fourth company — and the first collegiate one — to stage Kamala Sankaram and Jerre Dye’s provocative Taking Up Serpents when the show opened at the Kleist Center for Theater and Drama in Berea on February 2.

Masterfully directed by Scott Skiba with a talented student cast and a 13-piece professional chamber ensemble tightly conducted by Dean Buck, the one-act, 80-minute piece commissioned by Washington National Opera centers around 25-year-old Kayla, the daughter of a Holiness preacher in the Deep South.

A “lost soul and a wanderer,” Kayla’s on a quest to establish her own relationship with God outside the smothering confines of a patriarchal church that handles snakes, speaks in tongues, and indulges in other questionable practices invented by Christian charismatics. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, February 26, 2024

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Canton Symphony principal keyboard Dean Zhang (pictured) solos in Rhapsody in Blue with Canton Youth Symphony, CSU presents Hsin-Ni Liu and Shuai Wang in “Music for One and Two Pianos,” and Les Délices revisits the Orpheus myth in SalonEra

•Announcements: Apollo’s Fire seeks a Managing Director, and a CSO children’s concert combines music and nutrition

•Interesting read: Cincinnati Opera announces The Black Opera Project

•Almanac: Howard Hanson and Marie-Claire Alain

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:00 at Umstattd Hall, the Canton Youth Symphony Advanced Orchestra will feature Canton Symphony principal keyboard Dean Zhang as soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The program also contains music by Williams, Borodin, and Albert. Tickets are available here.

At 7:30 at Drinko Recital Hall, the Cleveland State University School of Music presents “Music for One and Two Pianos.” Pianists Hsin-Ni Liu and Shuai Wang collaborate in a program including Mao-Shuen Chen’s Ballade, Greg D’Alessio’s Elements, Keith Fitch’s Le Tango Maudit, Corey K. Rubin’s  Sweet Pea, and Andrew Rindfleisch’s Mirages. It’s free.

Also at 7:30, the latest episode of Les Délices’ SalonEra series drops on YouTube — and the audio version is already available as of this morning. “Orpheus Revisited” centers around French Baroque portrayals of the Orpheus myth, and includes performances of music by Rameau, Courbois, and Jonathan Woody from Les Délices’ digital catalog, paired with new interviews. Click here to watch or listen.

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us