ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Archives for May 2025

CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra at Fairmount Presbyterian (May 15)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

In a 1902 interview, Gabriel Fauré, who spent much of his career as an organist, said his goal in writing his Requiem was to stray from the established path, “after all those years accompanying funerals.” So, rather than ending with the horror of a Dies irae, he chose In Paradisum instead.

On Thursday, May 15, at Fairmount Presbyterian Church, CityMusic Cleveland delivered both heaven and earth over the course of a diverse program. Responding to conductor Lorenzo Lopez’s assured direction, the ensemble gave sympathetic readings of William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas, then ascended to a higher place in Fauré’s Requiem, aided by superb singing from soprano Chabrelle Williams, baritone Edward Vogel, and the CityMusic Community Choir.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra Opera and Humanities Festival: “Vox Humana”

by

by Mike Telin

We have all been there — sitting near someone who is having a telephone conversation. We don’t know who is on the other end of the call, but we do know the person near you is not pleased — their tone of voice and body language makes that clear.

It’s a similar one-sided telephone conversation that serves as the basis for Francis Poulenc’s forty-minute-long, one-act opera, La voix humaine. This week at Severance Music Center, French soprano Sarah Aristidou will make her Cleveland Orchestra debut in Poulenc’s mono-drama under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst.

The performances — Friday, May 23 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, May 24 at 8:00 pm — are presented as part of The Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Wednesday, May 21, 2025

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:00 Noon – Brownbag Concert. Trobár, (pictured), a small band of voices and instruments, is dedicated to bringing medieval music to modern audiences. Free at Trinity Cathedral.

INTERESTING READ:

The Strad writes about The Cleveland Orchestra’s appointment of Dover Quartet primo violinist Joel Link as concertmaster of the Orchestra. “However, the quartet plans to stay together in its current configuration.” Read the article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today we’ll raise a virtual glass to celebrate two European soloists born on the 21st of May: French trumpeter Maurice André who greeted the world in 1933 in Alès in the Cévennes, and Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger, who followed him six years later in Langenthal. [Read more…]

Les Délices delights with “The Mermaid” in Rocky River (Apr. 27)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

As their name implies, the rarefied music of the French baroque is the pain quotidien of Cleveland’s period instrument ensemble Les Délices, but artistic director Debra Nagy occasionally points her excellent and variable group in other directions.

The latest crossing of genres at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday afternoon, April 27,  took Nagy and her colleagues out of the salons of Paris across the Channel to the docks of Portsmouth.

Wielding her baroque oboe and recorder, Nagy joined soprano Elena Mullins Bailey, violinist Allison Monroe, cellist Rebecca Landell, percussionist Anthony Taddeo, and special guest Sean Dagher, shantyman and Irish bouzouki artist, in slightly more than an hour’s worth of rollicking sea shanties, plus oceanic tunes by Henry Purcell, Joseph Haydn, and Maurice Green.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, May 20, 2025

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at 12 noon, the Church of the Covenant in University Circle presents organist Ralph Holtzhauser in music by Denis Bedard, Brenda Portman, Charles Tournemire, Simon Preston, and Mark Miller.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Canton Symphony has released details of its 2025-2026 season. Its classical series will include performances led by guest conductors Wesley Schulz, JoAnn Falletta, Tito Muñoz, Roger Kalia, Jeri Lynne Johnson, Mélisse Brunet, and Francesco Lecce-Chong. Featured soloists and ensembles will include Meg Su, guitar, Nikki Choi, violin, Mark Kosower, cello, Averi Ellis, narrator, Jessica Leigh Payne, soprano, Sunghoon Han, bass-baritone, the Canton Symphony Chorus, and Zhan Shu, violin. Tickets for these and other series events will be available on July 1. Read the announcement here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1896, Clara Wieck Schumann died in Frankfurt am Main. The pianist, teacher, and wife of Robert Schumann was known principally as a concert pianist, a career she pursued for more than six decades — four of them after Robert’s death in 1856. [Read more…]

DIARY, Monday, May 19, 2025

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 6 pm in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Music Center, the Mandel Festival presents The Women of Chicago’s Black Renaissance featuring pianist Michelle Cann, who will perform works by Nora Holt, Betty Jackson King, Florence Price, Irene Britton Smith, and Margaret Bonds.

Tune in tonight at 8:00 pm or point your web browser to Ideastream Public Media’s Listen Online page to hear two ChamberFest Cleveland blockbusters from past festivals:

César Franck’s Piano Trio No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1 No. 1, with Juho Pohjonen (piano), Stephen Waarts (violin), and Jonathan Swensen (cello), and Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, with Alexi Kenney & Nathan Meltzer (violins), Hsin-Yun Huang (viola), and Nicholas Canellakis (cello).

ChamberFest Cleveland 2025 will run this year from June 11-28 in several venues around the city. Subscriptions and single tickets are now on sale here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1954, the iconoclastic American composer Charles Ives died in New York. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Jenůfa, an opera about reconciliation

by

by Mike Telin

The 2025 edition of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival has adopted “Reconciliation” as its theme.

No opera treats the power of forgiveness and reconciliation better than Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa. Set in a rural Moravian village, its intense drama centers around Jenůfa, who gives birth to an illegitimate child, and her stepmother the Kostelnička (the church sacristan), who kills the baby in order to protect Jenůfa’s honor and, more importantly, her future.

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:00 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Janáček’s 1904 opera based on Gabriela Preissová’s play Její pastorkyňa (Her Stepdaughter).

The cast features sopranos Latonia Moore (Jenůfa) and Nina Stemme (Kostelnička) and tenors Samuel Levine (Laca) and Miles Mykkanen (Števa). The production will be repeated on Thursday, May 22 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, May 25 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

DIARY Weekend, May 16-18, 2025

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Friday: Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival begins at Transformer Station | The Mandel Festival presents The Moth Mainstage at Severance | CityMusic Chamber Orchestra moves to St. Noel in Willoughby Hills.

Saturday: The Mandel Festival presents United in Song at Severance | Master Singers Chorale perform at The Bath Church | Federated Church hosts Sammy DeLeon y su Orquestra in Chagrin Falls | The Cleveland Orchestra stages its first performance of Leoš Janáček’s opera Jenůfa at Severance | BlueWater Chamber Orchestra (pictured) and Cleveland Chamber Choir collaborate at Trinity Cathedral | the Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival continues at Transformer Station | CityMusic Chamber Orchestra calls in at St. Stanislaus.

Sunday: Cleveland Composers Guild holds its 33rd annual junior concert at the Music Settlement | Suburban Symphony features violinist Aika Birch and pianist James Carson at Beachwood H.S. | members of the Jenůfa cast light on Janáček’s opera at Severance | CityMusic Chamber Orchestra ends its season in Rocky River | Music at Bath presents Alla Boara in Italian folk music | Chucho Valdés and his Royal Quartet play Afro-Cuban jazz at Severance.

HEADLINES:

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst appoint Joel Link as Concertmaster (Cleveland Orchestra Press Release)

American Classical Musicians Publish Letter Criticizing Trump Administration’s Threats to Free Speech (The Violin Channel)

Canceled CSO recital signals bigger brewing visa crisis for musicians in Trump era (WBEZ, Chicago)

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Let us now praise famous musicians who arrived or departed on May 18. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir celebrates tenth birthday

by

by Mike Telin

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm in Trinity Cathedral, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith,” with conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Katherine Jolly. The program includes Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available at the door and online.

The concert also marks the culmination of the tenth anniversary season for Cleveland Chamber Choir. We spoke to CCC’s president, Melissa Vandergriff, who helped found the Choir in 2015 along with the ensemble’s first artistic director, Scott MacPherson. We also spoke to ensemble member and executive director Kira McGirr as well as Gregory Ristow, who became the group’s second artistic director in August 2023. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra turns fifteen! (Part 2)

by

by Mike Telin

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm in Trinity Cathedral, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith,” with conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Katherine Jolly. The program includes Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available at the door and online.

The concert also marks the culmination of the fifteenth anniversary season for BlueWater Chamber Orchestra. We spoke to BlueWater founding member and administrator Nancy Patterson and music director Daniel Meyer.

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us