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Archives for June 2025

DIARY, Tuesday, June 24, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

7:30 pm – Oberlin Organ Academy. Faculty Recital by Mark Edwards, harpsichord. Kulas Recital Hall. Free.

8:00 pm – ChamberFest Cleveland. “High Voltage.” Danish cellist Jonathan Swensen (pictured) at The Hermit Club, one of America’s oldest private clubs devoted to the performing arts (1629 Dodge Court, Cleveland.)

For details, addresses, and ticket information, please visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

New Board Members for Tuesday Musical

Justin Chenault and Jeff Stenroos are joining the board of Tuesday Musical after being elected during the arts organization’s annual meeting on June 3 at Stan Hywet Hall

Beginning July 1, Chenault will serve as an at-large member and Stenroos will serve as co-chair of Tuesday Musical’s Brahms Allegro Junior Music Club for K-12 students. Read more here.

David Finckel & Wu Han end 25 years with Music @ Menlo

After more than two decades of visionary leadership, world-renowned musicians David Finckel and Wu Han have announced that they will step away from their roles as Founding Artistic Directors of the acclaimed Music@Menlo festival and institute, following the 2026 summer season. [Read more…]

DIARY, Monday, June 23, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

7:30 pm – Oberlin Organ Academy. Guest Recital. Kirk Rich, organ (pictured). Warner Concert Hall. Free.

For details, addresses, and ticket information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1887, American teacher and conductor John Finley Williamson was born in Canton. He died in Toledo in 1964 after an illustrious career that included the founding of the Westminster Choir School in Dayton. After a move to Princeton, NJ, the institution, renamed Westminster Choir College, became part of Ryder University. After merges and changes in ownership, its future is uncertain. [Read more…]

DIARY, Weekend, June 21-22, 2025

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HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

SATURDAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Freedlander Theatre, Wooster.

7:30 pm – ChamberFest Cleveland. “Starry Night.” Program includes Errollyn Wallen’s Dervish for Cello and Piano, and Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls.

SUNDAY:

Cancelled due to heat advisory: 3:30 pm – Canton Symphony Summer Serenades. Brass Quintet at Quail Hollow Park, Hartville.

4:00 pm – The Cleveland Opera. Gala concert featuring arias and duets in Saint Casimir Church.

7:30 pm – Oberlin Organ Academy. Guest Recital by Angela Kraft Cross in Finney Chapel.

For details, addresses, and ticket information, please visit our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

On June 21, 1899, Czech composer Pavel Haas was born in Brno, and died at the hands of the Nazis 45 years later at Auschwitz. [Read more…]

DIARY, Friday, June 20, 2025

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HAPPENING TODAY:

12:15 pm – Friends of the McGaffin Carillon. Lunchtime Carillon Concert by  Keiran Cantilina.

7:00 pm – Renovare Music. To Be Free: A Juneteenth Concert.

7:30 pm – ChamberFest Cleveland. Variations on Love and Loss, featuring the world premiere of Judith Markovich’s Oh, My Son…

7:30 pm – Solon Community Band. Summer Sounds: Songs That Make You Sing and Dance.

8:00 pm – Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. Faculty Recital (limited seating available).

For details, locations, and ticket information, consult our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

This feature has been delayed for technical reasons. Please check back later.

Fundraising Update: July 3, 2025

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Dear reader,

Thanks to the continuing support of our readers, we met and surpassed our $23,000 annual fund goal for this fiscal year.

If you would still like to pitch in with a gift at this time, either with a check or with a credit or debit card, visit our Donate page for details.

The vibrant classical musical scene we enjoy in Northeast Ohio cries out for quality journalism to promote and document its activities. We’ve been lucky to have assembled a fine team of writers for that purpose, and this is a good moment to acknowledge the contributions of Peter Feher, Stephanie Manning, Kevin McLaughlin, and executive editor Mike Telin, as well as myself, who collectively have produced and published some 300 previews and reviews, in addition to Daily Diary entries and concert listings this season.

Sincerely,

Daniel Hathaway

Founder & President

ChamberFest: a conversation with violist Kim Kashkashian

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by Mike Telin

There are certain musicians who you can’t believe have never been to ChamberFest Cleveland. Case in point: Kim Kashkashian.

“Diana Cohen has been asking me for years,” the celebrated violist said during a Zoom conversation. “We know each other from Marlboro, and when I was in the Baltimore area I knew her father Frank very well. So we’ve all been friends for decades.”

On Thursday, June 26 in Mixon Hall, Kaskashian will be featured in Brahms’ Two Songs for alto, viola, and piano. On Friday, June 27 in Harkness Chapel she’ll be part of the ensemble who will be playing Brett Dean’s viola quintet, Epitaphs. And on Saturday, June 28 in Reinberger Chamber Hall she’ll take part in Brahms’ Piano Quintet in f. Tickets for all performances are available online.

That third program will also include György Kurtág’s Signs, Games, and Messages for solo viola. Kashkashian said that she’s had a long association with the composer and his music.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland opening night: “Lost and Found” in Mixon Hall (June 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The thirteenth season of ChamberFest Cleveland began on an auspicious note with “Lost and Found,” a sold-out opening concert on Wednesday, June 11 at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall.

The Festival put a special mark on the occasion by fielding two of its largest ensembles for the opening and closing works, and by presenting the Cleveland premiere of a riveting work by one of CFC’s four composer-performers in between.

Pianists Michael Stephen Brown and Roman Rabinovich shared thousands of notes as soloists in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in C for two claviers, a product of the composer’s concerts in Zimmermann’s Leipzig Coffee House, when he increasingly turned his attention away from church duties and produced concerts with University musicians. The C-major concerto is apparently unique for not having been arranged from an earlier work. [Read more…]

Margi Griebling-Haigh’s The Higgler gets a curious, yet charming, world premiere (June 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

The Higgler is an opera about missed opportunities, mixed signals, and difficult decisions. So what awaits its regretful characters once the story ends? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

The ambiguous ending of Margi Griebling-Haigh’s opera is perhaps its biggest paradox. On one hand, when the lights went up not long after a key plot reveal, it left plenty of unanswered questions. On the other, it was hard not to be charmed by the world premiere production at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights, which I saw on June 8.

The quandary about the ending originates not from Griebling-Haigh’s libretto, but from the original text — A.E. Coppard’s short story “The Higgler,” which the composer follows almost to the letter. Narrator Joseph Hollings occasionally read out verbatim passages, describing certain scenes that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible with the limited set. But director Marla Berg ensured that all transitions were clear, and the rotating backdrops allowed up to three distinct locations to be represented onstage at one time. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Reflections” at Church of the Saviour (June 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The second program of ChamberFest Cleveland’s 2025 season, titled “Reflections,” offered a varied but carefully sequenced triptych, was presented on June 13 at Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights. Works by Arvo Pärt, Anton Arensky, and Camille Saint-Saëns captivated with a blend of suspended time, remembrance, and fervent sweep.

Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (“Mirror[s] in the Mirror”) was a remarkable opener, drawing violinist Gabrielle Després and pianist Michael Stephen Brown into a meditative dialogue and listeners into a quasi-hypnotic state. Després’s playing was austere and strangely luminous — testaments to her musical imagination and steady bow arm. She beautifully shaped each phrase — sharpening the listeners’ focus and slowing the collective pulse. Brown’s piano triads resonated with bell-like purity, so finely braided with Després’s lines that the effect was clairvoyant. As each violin note faded, the piano gently cued the next — gestures mirroring one another like eternal reflections in glass.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Thursday, June 19, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

On Wednesday, The Cleveland Orchestra announced four new appointments to its roster of musicians (pictured). “The Orchestra welcomed Second Violinist Gawon Kim last fall, and this summer will welcome three more members: Zubin Hathi as Principal Timpani and Brandon Mason as Section Bass in July, followed by Peter Nichols as Assistant Principal Timpani and Section Percussion in August. Now entering his 24th year as Music Director, Franz Welser-Möst has appointed more than half of the musicians currently performing with The Cleveland Orchestra.” Read more here.

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera raises the curtain on the second of its six summer shows, Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon, in Freedlander Theatre at The College of Wooster.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Today is Juneteenth — June 19, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. [Read more…]

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