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Archives for July 2025

DIARY, Monday, July 28, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

6:00 pm – Piano Cleveland’s Piano Days celebrates the recipients of its Piano Donation Program with a community event featuring pianists of all ages and skill levels at The Music Settlement in University Circle.

Details in our Concert Listings.

RECENT OBITUARIES:

Cleo Laine, 97

Chuck Mangione, 84

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On July 28, 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig at the age of 65, following two unsuccessful eye operations by the same discredited surgeon who would unsuccessfully treat George Frederic Handel a year later.

With some 1,128 surviving works, picking just a few to mark the composer’s passing is an exercise in futility. But here are two of them that bookend his career in fascinating ways. [Read more…]

Blind Injustice: six lives wrongly incarcerated, one story of hope and resilience (July 11) 

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by Daniel Hathaway

Opera can be a powerful medium for documenting social injustice, especially when the plot hits close to home. Case in point: the six wrongly convicted individuals in Northeast Ohio whose stories are told in David Cote’s and Scott Davenport Richards’ 80+-minute work, Blind Injustice. 

The opera, premiered by Cincinnati Opera in 2019 and subsequently produced in Colorado, New Jersey, and New York, was presented by Chagrin Arts on July 11 at the Outcalt Theatre in Playhouse Square.

The tightly-constructed, one-act music drama tells the real life stories of Rickey Jackson, Nancy Smith, Clarence Elkins, and the East Cleveland 3 — teenagers Laurese Glover, Eugene Johnson, and Derrick Wheatt — all imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. The opera follows each of them from their conviction to their eventual release through the work of the Innocence Project. [Read more…]

DIARY, Weekend Friday-Sunday, July 25-27, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Following the final round of the Cooper International Piano Competition on Thursday evening with Samy Rachid and The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Music Center, the jury awarded first prize to Anna Avramidou (17, Nicosia, Cyprus) who played Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto. Two Second Prizes were bestowed on Anwen Deng (16, Brisbane, Australia) and Sawako Harada (18, Tokyo, Japan), who had performed Robert Schumann’s Concerto and Prokofiev’s 3rd Concerto, respectively. 

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND

On Friday at 12:15 noon, Patrick Macoska plays music by John Courter on the McGaffin Carillon in University Circle, and Ohio Light Opera performs Noel Coward’s Bitter Sweet at 2 pm and Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience at 7:30.

On Saturday, Ohio Light Opera stages Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon at Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra plays its annual side-by-side concert with the Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra under guest conductor Jonathon Heyward (pictured) with saxophonist Jess Gillam, Renovare Music presents “A Hive’s Song” at Heights Theater at 7, and Piano Cleveland hosts Detroit-based neoclassical pianist BLKBOK at Dobama. [Read more…]

Cooper International Piano Competition: Concerto Round at Oberlin (July 22)

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by Daniel Hathaway

After two days of semi-final rounds in which 20 contestants each performed 40-minute recitals, the field of the Cooper International Piano Competition was narrowed to six. On Tuesday, July 22 in Oberlin Conservatory’s Warner Concert Hall those six pianists performed full concertos with piano accompaniment in afternoon and evening sessions. Here are our impressions.

Yangting Wang (13, China) led off with an ingratiating performance of Beethoven’s Concerto No. 1 in C. His well-shaped phrasing of its long lines and elegant, clean scale passages made this performance easy to listen to.

Wang’s relaxed tempo in the Largo movement allowed room for melodies to shine. His playful approach to the third movement Allegro was enhanced by his brisk tempo and well-chosen accents.

Overall, Wang took pains to keep the concerto cool and Apollonian. At the second Steinway, Dr. Annie Lin was a fine collaborator. [Read more…]

DIARY, Thursday, July 24, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

This busy Thursday comes with a heat advisory from 11am to 8pm — values up to 104 degrees are expected in parts of north central, northeast, and northwest Ohio.

It’s a good day for indoor activities — like Ohio Light Opera’s 2 pm performance of George and Ira Gershwin’s Tip-Toes (pictured) and 7:30 staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel at the College of Wooster, the Cooper International Piano Competition Final Round featuring Anwen Deng (16, Australia), Sawako Harada (18, Japan), and Anna Avramidou (17, Cyprus) performing concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance, and Piano Cleveland’s 7:30 Piano Days concert by Mirabelle Kajenjeri in Mixon Hall at CIM.

Details in our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland Jazz Orchestra will officially begin selling subscription tickets at 10 am on Monday, July 28 for its 2025-2026 season at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, but fans can purchase subscriptions early beginning on Friday, July 23 at 10 am, using the code EARLYSING25.

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will release a new spatial audio recording of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, featuring pianist Garrick Ohlsson, paired with the composer’s Symphony No. 29, on August 1. [Read more…]

Kotaro Fukuma makes long-awaited return to Cleveland for Piano Days

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by Stephanie Manning

Right after Kotaro Fukuma became the First Prize winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the then 20-year-old pianist went through a rollercoaster of emotions.

“ Of course, I was overjoyed,” he said in a recent interview, remembering how he called his parents to celebrate. But when he woke up the next morning, the review in The Plain Dealer told a different story. The first line: “Did the wrong pianist win the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition?”

“I was so shocked,” Fukuma said. “The night before I was congratulated by many, many people, and the next day I read this newspaper and think, ‘Oh my gosh, how can I leave my hotel?’”

More than 20 years later, the pianist views that experience as an important turning point. After that bittersweet victory, “I accepted all kinds of engagements and I forced myself to study harder. And I think that was the right attitude.”

Today, Fukuma has curated a healthy international career, splitting his time between Berlin, Leiden, and Tokyo. And on Thursday, July 31, he will return to Cleveland after a long absence to perform on Piano Cleveland’s 2025 Piano Days series. Tickets for the 7:30 pm performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music are available online. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet (July 17)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet was a grand hit in 1929, but its large cast, relatively complex plot, and throwback operetta format have kept it out of the regular repertoire in recent years.

Thank goodness for Ohio Light Opera’s polished new staging, seen on July 17 at The College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre. This elegant — and yes, bittersweet — tale of love, loss, and the passage of time was elevated by superb singing, splendid orchestral playing under Michael Borowitz’s baton, and all the wit, warmth, and visual splendor one hopes to find at the theater.

Structured as a memory play, Bitter Sweet is a deeply personal work. According to biographers, the love story — particularly as expressed through the character of Carl Linden — puts Coward’s romantic ideals on full display.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: Finnish conductor Rouvali dazzles in return performance (July 17)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Santtu-Matias Rouvali has only led the Cleveland Orchestra twice, but he’s already established a formula that works. The Finnish conductor skillfully matches his programs to his conducting style — whimsical, sparkling, and humorous, while remaining precise and rhythmic.

The approach meshes well with the orchestra, who easily responded to Rouvali, just as they did during his debut last fall. On Thursday, July 17, a trio of works by Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Ravel made for a lighthearted evening on the Summers at Severance series.

Nowhere was Rouvali’s magic more evident than in Igor Stravinsky’s Jeu de cartes. The wild card of the program in more ways than one, this lesser-known ballet by the Russian composer depicts an actual card game, where the mischievous Joker is eventually defeated at the end of three rounds. The conductor kept things moving briskly during the brass fanfare that opens each “Deal,” symbolizing the shuffling of the cards.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra performance Saturday at Blossom highlighted by debut of violinist Veronika Eberle (July 19)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Four fateful notes were knocking around in Beethoven’s head when he was composing many of his most famous works in his mid-30s.

This motif would, of course, find its supreme expression in his Fifth Symphony, premiered in 1808 and part of the popular imagination ever since. But just a few years before, Beethoven had tried out a variation on the idea — softer but no less suspenseful — at the beginning of his Violin Concerto.

The crowd at Blossom Music Center last night, Saturday July 19, was remarkably hushed, ready to hear the four faint quarter notes tapped out on timpani that begin the concerto. Over the next 45 minutes, violinist Veronika Eberle elaborated on the sequence in numerous flights of virtuosic fancy, floating high above the solid, sturdy accompaniment of the Cleveland Orchestra. Yet throughout, the performance remained grounded in the quiet clarity of that opening measure.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Wednesday, July 23, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

COOPER PIANO COMPETITION NEWS:

Following the Concerto Rounds on Tuesday in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall, Fifth place prizes were awarded to Qinyaoyao Ji (15, China) and Yangting Wang (13, China), and the Fourth prize was given to Yixen Shen (14, China).

On Thursday at 7:30 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Anwen Deng (16, Australia), Sawako Harada (18, Japan), and Anna Avramidou (17, Cyprus) will vie for the top three prizes by playing concertos by Robert Schumann, Sergei Prokofief, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky respectively with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Samy Rachid. 

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. Herman Haller and Eduard Künneke’s The Cousin from Batavia. Freedlander Theatre, 329 E. University St., Wooster. Tickets available online.

5:30 pm – Piano Cleveland. Wade Oval Wednesdays: A Celebration of Ukrainian Roots. Honoring her Ukrainian heritage, pianist Mirabelle Kajenjeri partners with faculty and students from Cleveland’s own bandura academy, Hryhory Kytasty Cleveland School of Bandura. Wade Oval, 10820 East Blvd., Cleveland. Free.

7:30 pm – City Stages. Las Karamba. Founded in Spain, this six-woman group of mestizas and migrants create danceable music influenced by traditional styles, rap, and a touch of samba and rumba. Transformer Station, 1460 W. 29th St., Cleveland. Free. [Read more…]

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