The Diary will return on Tuesday, May 28.
Archives for May 2024
DIARY: Friday, May 24, 2024
by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: Cleveland Orchestra plays The Magic Flute, No Exit concludes its Year of Surreality season with “Breaking the World,” Oberlin presents “The Grand Piano Extravaganza,” and M.U.S.i.C. puts on “Two Pianos and More”
•In the news: “an antiquated system in bad need of repair” — a look into the orchestral tenure process, including accusations that race played a role in the dismissal of former Kansas City Symphony principal percussion Josh Jones (pictured)
•Almanac: the strange story of Bridgetower, Beethoven, and the “Kreutzer” Sonata
Kira McGirr to solo with Cleveland Repertory Orchestra
by Mike Telin
If you were to ask any mezzo-soprano which piece they would love to perform, the answer might very well be Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures. “It is true that we all want to sing it,” Kira McGirr said during a telephone conversation. “I think it’s because it fits the mezzo voice so perfectly. And there’s something about it that just grabs you.”
On Saturday, May 25 at 7:00 pm at Rocky River Presbyterian Church, McGirr will join conductor Matthew Salvaggio and the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra in Elgar’s five-movement song cycle for mezzo-soprano and large orchestra. The program also includes Jessie Montgomery’s Overture and Barbara Harbach’s Symphony No. 10 (“Symphony for Ferguson”).
Harbach’s work pays tribute to the tenth anniversary of the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after the killing of Michael Brown during the summer of 2014. In an email Salvaggio said, “Harbach was living and teaching in St. Louis at the time, and the piece takes music familiar to people living in Ferguson (like Wade in the Water and Chester) and transforms them into a powerful reflection on the events of that summer from the perspective of someone living in that community.” The concert is free. Click here for advance registration.
Back to the Elgar, McGirr and I continued our conversation by delving further into the piece, beginning with the poems that make up its text.
Kira McGirr: There are five different poets, but I see the poems following a journey as opposed to being just five different poems. I will give acknowledgement to the wonderful Elgar scholar Charles McGuire, who presents the idea that there’s a narrative through the five poems. [Read more…]
DIARY: Thursday, May 23, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7, No Exit New Music wraps up its Year of Surreality: Breaking the World at Heights Arts, and at 7:30 Leila Josefowicz joins The Cleveland Orchestra for Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. Franz Welser-Möst fills out the program with Mozart’s Serenade No. 10, “Gran Partita,” and the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On May 23, 1885, Paraguayan composer Agustín Barrios Mangoré was born in San Bautista de las Misiones. The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society presented Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas in a 2020 online concert devoted to his music, including special guests Paquito D’Rivera (clarinet), Milagros Caliva (bandoneon), and Marcelo Enrique Barrios (the composer’s great-grandson). [Read more…]
Making its Cleveland debut, Verona Quartet closes Arts Renaissance Tremont season (May 5)
by Daniel Hathaway
The original plan for the season finale of Arts Renaissance Tremont called for the Cavani Quartet — joint artistic directors of the series at St. Wendelin Church — to join the Verona Quartet, Oberlin Conservatory’s resident string quartet, to form an octet. But when a member of the Cavani became indisposed, the Verona agreed to play the whole program on Sunday afternoon, May 5.
Although the audience at St. Wendelin might have been surprised by the change in plans, nobody could possibly have been disappointed. Violinists Jonathon Ong and Dorothy Ro, violist Abigail Rojansky, and cellist Jonathan Dormand gave revelatory accounts of Mendelssohn’s first and Beethoven’s fifteenth quartets. And they very likely introduced all but a few cognoscenti in the audience to the fascinating music of Grażyna Bacewicz with the Fourth Quartet by the Lithuanian-Polish violinist and composer, who lived from 1909 to 1969.
No Exit concludes Year of Surreality with “Breaking the World”
by Mike Telin
For the past eight months No Exit has been celebrating their 15th anniversary with their most ambitious project to date: Surreality. “We hope people will enjoy exploring the irrational, illogical, inexplicable, strange, and utterly fantastical world that is Surrealism,” artistic director Timothy Beyer told us in October.
On Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 pm at Heights Arts, No Exit will conclude their Year of Surreality with “Breaking the World.” The free program will feature new works by Jerome Begin, Lauren Pearl, Stephen Haluska, and James Praznik, as well as Marcel Duchamp’s Erratum Musical, and a simultaneous poem recited by Gunnar-Owen Hirthe, James Praznik, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on both Friday (at Praxis Fiber Arts) and Saturday (at SPACES Gallery).
In a recent telephone conversation Beyer said that this week’s program is a culmination of the ensemble’s season-long exploration of Surrealist techniques and topics, including games and thought exercises, state of consciousness, and dada, which is not technically Surrealism, but is related.
DIARY: Wednesday, May 22, 2024
by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: free concerts from Piano Cleveland (Chu-Fang Huang in “Piano at the Pub”) and Singers Companye
•Announcements: grant programs from Arts Midwest and South Arts, and the Canton Symphony outdoors with Summer Serenades
•Featured video: saxophonist Gary Bartz on NPR Tiny Desk series
•Almanac: Verdi’s Requiem and Wagner
DIARY: Wednesday, May 22, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 6 pm this evening, the Cleveland International Piano Competition presents its 2005 First Prize winner Chu-Fang Huang in CIPC Piano at the Pub at Forest City Brewing.
And at 7:30, Samuel Gordon leads Singers Companye (pictured left at the Maltz) in its program Jubilate Deo at First Methodist in Cuyahoga Falls.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On May 22 in 1874, Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem was first performed at the church of San Marco in Milan, ending a long requiem saga for the composer, who had originally proposed a collaborative work by several Italian composers to honor Gioachino Rossini after his death in 1868. [Read more…]
Conrad Tao shows power, influence of Rachmaninoff in dazzling performance at Severance Music Center (May 17)
By Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — When the Italian harpsichord maker Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano in 1720, did he have any idea what his innovation might lead to 300 years later?
Did he imagine a future full of Mozart concertos, Schubert Lieder, Beethoven sonatas, or Liszt tone poems? Could he have believed that in 2024, a large audience would turn out in Reinberger recital hall at Severance Music Center to hear a concert of piano works by a famous Russian emigré interleaved with popular songs inspired by his tunes?
All of that has come to pass — and more. The Friday performance on May 17 featured the extraordinary Conrad Tao, who expertly curated and stunningly played a program of solo piano music by Sergei Rachmaninoff and composers who Tao said were influenced by his music.
Leila Josefowicz to join The Cleveland Orchestra in Berg’s Violin Concerto
by Mike Telin
Whenever the adventurous violinist Leila Josefowicz and The Cleveland Orchestra join forces, Northeast Ohio audiences are sure to be treated to a captivating performance of a contemporary masterpiece. Since 2010 Josefowicz and The Orchestra have teamed up for concertos by Thomas Adès, Oliver Knussen, Igor Stravinsky, and two by John Adams.
“It really is an honor to have had so many beautiful opportunities to perform with that incredible orchestra,” Josefowicz said during a Zoom conversation. “There’s a great pride in the quality of what they do and I’m always super excited to be there and play my very best.”
On Thursday, May 23 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Josefowicz will join Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra in Alban Berg’s haunting Violin Concerto. The program also includes Mozart’s Serenade No. 10, “Gran Partita,” and the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
The program, which will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm, is part of The Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival. Click here to see the full schedule of the Festival. Tickets are available online.