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Archives for November 2024

Meridian Arts Ensemble cast a wide net at the Bop Stop (Nov. 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

The Meridian Arts Ensemble specialize in the avant garde, but they’re dextrous enough to flip between all kinds of genres. So, what was Joseph Haydn’s Feldpartie — written in 1780 — doing on the program next to George Lewis’ uber-contemporary Tightrope? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Presented by No Exit, the brass quintet’s November 8 concert at the Bop Stop had something to satisfy fans of modern and traditional music alike. The cheery Feldpartie, appearing just after intermission, balanced out some of the evening’s more thorny works.

Originally written for an outdoor band, this arrangement by trumpet player and group founder Jon Nelson allowed the five players to anchor themselves in a satisfying blend. Nelson, fellow trumpet player Matthew Onstad, horn player Daniel Grabois, trombonist Faustino Díaz Mendez, and tuba player Tom Curry treated the charming mini symphony with love and care. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, November 20, 2024

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by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12:00 noon, both of the usual Wednesday series: Music Near the Market features organist Linda Kempke in music of “Thanksgiving and praise,” while Trinity Cathedral’s Brownbag Concert Series presents the Cleveland State University Chorale and Chorus.

And at 7:30 pm: Ross Karre directs the Oberlin Percussion Group featuring Oberlin College Taiko in Warner Concert Hall, and Todd Phillis leads the CIM Orchestra in works by Caroline Shaw, Benjamin Britten, and Mozart at the Mentor High School Fine Arts Center.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

If you’re already dreaming of warmer weather, you can start planning — The Cleveland Orchestra has announced three of its concerts for the 2025 Blossom season. Multi-hyphenate singer and actress Cynthia Erivo (pictured) joins the Orchestra on July 27, and the group will play live-to-film scores for two movies: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on July 5 & 6, and The Lion King on August 29, 30, & 31.

Tickets go on sale today at 10:00 am for donors and subscribers — click here — and the general public can get tickets starting tomorrow, November 21, at 10:00 am. Read the full press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Daniel Hathaway

On November 20, pianist Ruth Laredo made her life debut in Detroit in 1937 as Ruth Meckler, and American composer Orianna Webb was born in Akron in 1974. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: James Thompson reflects on Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending

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by Mike Telin

Two personal interests of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams were poetry and the violin, both of which are magically entwined in his work for violin and orchestra, The Lark Ascending, inspired by George Meredith’s poem of the same name. The composer’s wife Ursula wrote that in the work Vaughan Williams had “taken a literary idea on which to build his musical thought…and had made the violin become both the bird’s song and its flight…”

On Saturday, November 23 at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Covenant, violinist James Thompson will join the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in Vaughan Williams’ethereal, single-movement work. Under the direction of Daniel Meyer, the English-themed program — Interlaced Brilliance and Love — also includes Gerald Finzi’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 (“London”). The program will also be presented on Friday the November 22 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. (Pay-what-you-wish format).

During a recent telephone conversation, Thompson, who is BlueWater’s guest concertmaster this season, said that he understood that the work was under consideration when he was asked to join the ensemble. “I know Daniel is excited to include it on the program, so in a lot of ways, mathematically and logistically, it fits the bill. And it’s actually going to be a first performance for both of us. I’ve not had the opportunity to play the piece either, so we’ll be discovering it together this week.”

[Read more…]

Les Délices explores music of the 14th Century Avant-garde

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by Mike Telin

“My heart always comes back to Medieval music — it’s just so beautiful,” Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy said during a telephone conversation. “This wonderful program is full of my favorite pieces from that repertoire.”

On Friday, November 22 at 7:30 pm at First Congregational Church in Hudson, Les Délices will present “14th Century Avant-garde.” The evening features music by Guillaume de Machaut, Jacob Senleches, and Johannes Suzoy performed by mezzo-soprano Sophie Michaux, tenor James Reese, Scott Metcalfe (vielle & gothic harp), and Debra Nagy (recorders, douçaines, harp, and voice).

The program will be repeated on Saturday, November 23 at 7:30pm at Inlet Dance Theater in Cleveland and Sunday, November 24 at 4:00pm at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, November 19, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, organist Kingsley Wood plays music by Marcel Dupré, Vincent Lübeck & J.S. Bach at the Church of the Covenant, and at 7:30, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, plays works by Jean-Phillipe Rameau, Philip Lasser, J.S. Bach, (his 15 Three-Part Inventions) & Keith Jarrett (Encore from Tokyo). on the Tuesday Musical series at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall.

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Two eminent composers left this life on November 19, due in both cases to microbes: German Johann Hermann Schein (of the plague) in 1630 in Leipzig, and Franz Peter Schubert (of typhus) in 1828 in Vienna.

Schein, a friend of Heinrich Schütz who was likewise influenced by early Italian Baroque music, preceded J.S. Bach at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, and wrote equal quantities of vocal and instrumental music. His instrumental suites, collected in the 1617 publication Banchetto musicale, were meant to be played during dinner, as the title suggests. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, November 18, 2024

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by Stephanie Manning

LOOKING AHEAD:

Coming up, groups are packing in their concerts before next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

Tomorrow, pianist Simone Dinnerstein visits Tuesday Musical; and from Thursday through Saturday, conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali (pictured) and violinist Stefan Jackiw visit The Cleveland Orchestra.

Other ensembles presenting this week include Les Délices, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, CUSP, Heights Chamber Orchestra, and more. For more information, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

Ahead of Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s debut with The Cleveland Orchestra this week, learn more about the Finnish conductor by revisiting this 2022 New York Times profile. Joshua Barone discusses not only Rouvali’s career at the podium, but also his history as a rock percussionist and his dedication to taking care of his farm in rural Finland.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

Today we celebrate the births of Carl Maria von Weber (1786), conductor Eugene Ormandy (1899), and violist/composer Lillian Fuchs (1901). As I scrolled through the list of other musical figures who were born on this day, I was curious to know who many of them were, or are. So today we celebrate the births of three people who were randomly selected from the list. [Read more…]

DIARY, Weekend, November 16-17, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday the Oberlin Conservatory continues a weekend of festivities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Flentrop organ in Warner Concert Hall. Today at 11, current students give a recital, followed by alumni at 4:30. Both events will be live streamed.

Oberlin viola professor Kirsten Docter and pianist Tatiana Lokhina perform at 4:30 in Kulas Recital Hall, Singers Companye celebrates its 25th anniversary (5 pm in Cuyahoga Falls), CIM Opera Theater opens Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile (pictured, 7 pm in Playhouse Square), Apollo’s Fire continues its run of “Hope and Solitude” (7:30 at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.), and the Lorain County Civic Orchestra plays at the same hour at the Stocker Center in Elyria.

And on Saturday at 8 pm, The Cleveland Orchestra continues its Beethoven Piano Cycle with Concertos Nos. 1 & 5 featuring Minsoo Sohn (First Concerto)  and Yunchan Lim (Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center).

On Sunday, cellists will be interested in a Cleveland Cello Society lecture recital by Liam Battle (2 pm at Judson Park Auditorium), and pianists in a Tri-C Classical Piano recital by Chelsea Guo (2 pm at Tri-C Metro Auditorium) as  well as in the final Cleveland Orchestra Beethoven Piano Cycle performance (3 pm at Severance Music Center). CIM Opera Theater performs Charbrier’s L’Étoile (2 pm in Playhouse Square), Apollo’s Fire ends its run of “Hope and Solitude” (4 pm at Rocky River Presbyterian), Erie Waters flute choir plays at 4 pm (St. Noel in Willoughby Hills), Music from the Western Reserve hosts violinist Haig Hovsepian and pianist Matias Nestor Cuevas (5 pm, Christ Church, Hudson), Singers Companye celebrates its 25th anniversary at 5 pm at Bath Church, and The Now Chorale sings premieres (7:30 at Sacred Heart Church in Oberlin).

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

DIARY, Friday, November 15, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7 pm, Brendan Caldwell leads the Baldwin Wallace Symphonic Band & Chamber Winds in Gamble Auditorium.

The final trio of concerts in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Piano Cycle continues on Friday at 7:30, when Yunchan Lim, winner of the 2023 Van Cliburn Competition, will solo in the Fifth Concerto, preceded by his New England Conservatory mentor, Minsoo Sohn, who will do the honors in Beethoven’s Concerto No. 1.

Apollo’s Fire continues its run of  “Hope and Solitude,” with countertenor Reginald Mobley, oboist Debra Nagy, and violinist Alan Choo performing music by Henry Purcell and J.S. Bach at 7:30 at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.

And the Oberin Conservatory has planned a weekend of festivities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Flentrop organ (pictured) in Warner Concert Hall. It begins with a faculty recital by Jonathan Moyer and Christa Rakich on Friday at 7:30 (J.S. Bach’s German Organ Mass, free and live streamed.)

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

Oberlin plans a weekend of events celebrating 50th anniversary of Warner Concert Hall organ

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by Daniel Hathaway

Fifty years ago, in November 1974, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music inaugurated a monumental new organ in Warner Concert Hall. Built by Flentrop Orgelbouw in Zaandam, the Netherlands, the instrument returned to principles of Dutch and North German organ building during the golden age of the organ in the early and mid-18th century.

Oberin has planned a weekend of festivities that include a faculty recital by Jonathan Moyer and Christa Rakich on Friday at 7:30 (J.S. Bach’s German Organ Mass), a current student recital on Saturday at 11 am, and an alumni recital on Saturday at 4:30 pm. All events are free to attend and will also be live streamed. [Read more…]

Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s season opener contemplates circles of life (Nov. 2)

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by Stephanie Manning

“This moment is full of wonders.” Composer Anna Clyne meditated on those words — written by Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh — as she wrote her orchestral work This Moment. That theme, of learning to cherish life more by reflecting on death, underscored most of the music chosen for the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s program on November 2.

The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Christian Church hosted the season-opening concert, titled “Reflection and Revelations.” The venue’s dry acoustic helped the textures remain clear in Clyne’s piece, a somber and meditative seven minutes. [Read more…]

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