Archives for September 2025

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon in the Ames Family Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Great Lakes Theater will present A Sondheim Showcase featuring Jillian Kates and Alex Syiek in a selection of solos and duets from Sunday in the Park with George, accompanied by musical director Matthew Webb. Photo credit: Roger Mastroianni.

INTERESTING READ:

Wanted: classical music influencers

“Expert, well-dressed, wisecracking reviewers once delivered first-night juice” by Norman Lebrecht in The Critic (“Britain’s most civilised magazine”). Read the article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today marks the anniversaries of the births of Irish composer and organist Charles Villiers Stanford (1852) and Russian violinist David Oistrakh (1908), and the death of American composer and music critic Virgil Thomson (1989). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

The Witcher in Concert: Tonight at 7:30 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, a live orchestra will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the open-world RPG (Role-Playing Game) with a performance of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.  The evening will feature a special performance by the Polish folk metal band Percival (pictured), the original co-composers of the game’s soundtrack.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There are only a handful of obscure candidates for tributes today, so let’s focus on another aspect of September 29: Michaelmas, or the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, falls on this date each year, and marks the beginning of autumn in many Christian cultures.

It lends its name to the fall term in British universities, and gives rise to a number of folk customs, including making Michaelmas Bannock on the eve of the Feast of Saint Michael from equal parts of barley, oats, and rye without employing any metal implements. And Michaelmas draws the line after which you should stop picking blackberries. That last piece of advice derives from the legend that when the Archangel Michael expelled the rebellious Lucifer from heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush (ouch!), which he cursed and defiled in a special way. Don’t eat the berries. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

PERFORMING THIS WEEKEND:

FRIDAY: The Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra plays Tchaikovsky & a premiere by faculty composer Carolyn Borcherding | The Cleveland Orchestra opens its season with Franz Welser-Möst (pictured) on the podium for the U.S. Premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Urworte, Richard Strauss’ “Dance of the Seven Veils” from Salome, and Maurice Ravel’s Boléro | Timothy Weiss conducts the Oberlin Sinfonietta with faculty clarinetist Richard Hawkins, in Michel van der Aa’s Hysteresis, Dorothy Chang’s Three Windows, Sofia Gubaidulina’s Concordanza, and a new work by Aaron Nichols | and CUSP hosts Matthew Ryals and the piano, harp, and electronics trio of Grace Harper, Stephan Haluska, and Boris Oicherman at Gallery 33.

SATURDAY: M.U.S.I.C. Stars in the Classics hosts a Classical Cabaret at Praxis Gallery | The Cleveland Orchestra repeats Friday’s program | Cleveland Jazz Orchestra presents “Totally Trumpet with Terell Stafford at the Maltz | and Cleveland Silent Film Festival screens F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926) with a live heavy metal score by The Silent Light at the CIA’s Cinematheque.

SUNDAY: The Cleveland Orchestra repeats its weekend program | Music at Bath presents The Zerbo Brothers performing on West African Instruments | And Music from the Western Reserve hosts pianist Theron Brown at Christ Church, Hudson.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Two American musical scholars and a pair of contemporary composers share birthdates on September 28, and a British musical humorist bade adieu to the world of classical music, leaving it a bit less serious about itself than before. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 at the Auricle, the Canton Symphony Divergent Sounds Series presents Kid Tigrrr, the ethereal solo project of Cleveland-based singer-songwriter Jenna Fournier that “blends dream pop, indie folk, and art rock to explore themes of identity and healing through lush, self-produced soundscapes.”

And at 7:30 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel, Raphael Jiménez will conduct the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in Antonín Dvořák’s Concerto in B minor with cellist Nathaniel Abreu (pictured), as well as in Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Rissolty Rossolty, and William Grant Still’s Wood Notes.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On September 25, 1927, English conductor Colin Davis was born in Weybridge, Surrey. Sir Colin returned to conduct The Cleveland Orchestra in April, 2009, after a hiatus of 25 years. As reported in a Plain Dealer preview, his reappearance came at the urging of pianist Mitsuko Uchida. “She told me, ‘You’ve got to get back,’” recalled Davis, 82, by phone from his home in London, where Uchida also resides. “And I thought, ‘If she told me to do it, I’d better do it.’” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Institute of Music presents pianist Ilya Itin in Alexander Scriabin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 11 and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 10 Preludes from Op. 3, 23, & 32 in Mixon Hall. It’s free, but tickets are required.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland Chamber Choir has added two items to its current season: an adaptation of Handel’s Messiah with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Ballet at the Keybank State Theatre in Playhouse Square from March 20-22, and a “docu-concert” featuring scenes and all the songs from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel in collaboration with the Musical Theater Project on June 14 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Gregory Ristow will conduct. More information here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

British conductor and musical scholar Christopher Hogwood died of a brain tumor in Cambridge on this date in 2014. [Read more…]