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Archives for November 2025

Cleveland Orchestra at Severance with Yo-Yo Ma delights (Nov. 6)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Yo-Yo Ma was the picture of cello perfection on Thursday evening, Nov. 6 at Severance Music Center, performing with The Cleveland Orchestra as if for the thousandth time — or the first.

Relaxed, head tilted in his familiar way, he seemed tuned to some private channel of truth and beauty. When not playing, he listened with delight, urging on the musicians around him.

Ma offered Dvořák’s Cello Concerto at the end of “An Evening with Yo-Yo-Ma,” beautifully wrapped like an early holiday gift. He strode onstage with purpose, revealing a heart as large as the hall, making his entrance not as a soloist demanding attention, but as a voice rising from within. He answered the horn heroics with warmth, then crooned the second theme like a benediction.

[Read more…]

DIARY,  Wednesday, November 12, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

Baldwin-Wallace Establishes Kiteley Memorial Scholarship Fund

In an email, BW writes: “The Strongsville Community Band and the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of the Performing Arts celebrated the life and career of musician George Kiteley at a Sunday, November 9 concert that featured the announcement of a new Baldwin Wallace University scholarship in his name. Created by an anonymous donor, The George L. Kiteley Memorial Scholarship will assist percussion students at BW with demonstrated financial need in perpetuity.

“Kiteley, who passed away on September 10, became the first full-time professor of percussion at Baldwin-Wallace College in 1971 and remained in this position until his retirement in 2000. He also directed the Jazz Band for 20 years and founded Battu, a BW ensemble-in-residence focusing on world music.” Read an obituary here.

Oberlin Alums Among 2025 Grammy Nominees

Oberlin’s Campus Digest reports today that “The 2026 Grammy nominations have been announced, and Oberlin is well represented across multiple genres and categories. [Read more…]

Robert Walters to give U.S. premiere of Geoffrey Gordon’s Mad Song

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by Mike Telin

“This is a great piece of music that just happens to be an English horn concerto,” Robert Walters said during an interview. “I’m excited about playing it because I think the audience will like it as much as I do.”

On Thursday, November 13 at ​​7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Robert Walters, Cleveland Orchestra solo English horn, will give the U.S premiere of Geoffrey Gordon’s Mad Song. Under the direction of Tugan Sokhiev, the concert also includes Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 7:30. Tickets are available online.

Written in 2020, Gordon’s Mad Song was commissioned for Dimitri Mestdag, the solo English horn of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra. When the composer contacted Walters about giving the U.S. premiere of the concerto, Walters paused. “I’d heard Geoffrey Gordon’s name — he’s the guy who writes a lot of concertos. He told me that everyone says that I’m the guy to talk to about that. And I said, I’m flattered. I’ll give it a listen.”

[Read more…]

Singer-songwriter Becca Stevens at Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Max Newman

“As somebody who’s used to touring with a band, this was kind of a big move for me, but I was like, ‘No, it feels right,’” Becca Stevens said during a recent interview.

On Wednesday, November 12, at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, the multi-genre singer-songwriter will meet the challenge of going solo in a concert that will feature songs from her recent release, Maple to Paper. Tickets are available online.

Stevens’ musical journey has been a long one. She grew up in a musical family, and was performing in her family’s band by the age of two. She said that her upbringing “definitely dealt me a full deck that I could choose whether or not I wanted to use, but it wasn’t until I was 16 or 17 that I really committed to going full throttle in the musical direction. But once I applied my focus there, it just felt very grounding. I was like, oh gosh, this feels like home to me. It really feels like a language that I’ve always known, and a language that has always been encouraged and accepted.”

[Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, November 11, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at Noon, harpist Juan Riveros and violist Danny Jordan play works by Franz Schubert and Arnold Bax on the Tuesday series at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

This afternoon at 5, Senegalese master drummer Papa Assane M’baye plays a Rush Hour concert at Fairmount Presbyterian in Cleveland Heights.

Tonight at 7:30, Cleveland Chamber Music Society hosts one of its perennial favorites, the Takács Quartet (pictured, Edward Dusinberre & Harumi Rhodes, violins, Richard O’Neill, viola, and András Fejér, cello) in a program of works by Joseph Haydn, Béla Bartók, and Antonín Dvořák at Disciples Christian Church.

And marking Veterans’ Day, tonight at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, the Cinematic Symphony Orchestra and Choir will play selections from iconic and heroic film scores featuring members of the 101st Airborne Division US Army Band.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Never to be forgotten, “The Great War” (to end all wars) ended rather messily with the signing of an armistice at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, having “claimed the lives of 116,000 Americans, through combat, disease and other causes, and killed millions more people around the world.” [Read more…]

DIARY,  Monday, November 10, 20

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society presents the Phaeton Piano Trio (Friedemann Eichhorn, violin, Peter Hörr, cello, and Florian Uhlig, piano) at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church (live stream available)

JEAN GEIS STELL, 99:

We’ve just been informed of the July 25th death of Jean Geis Stell, 99, the concert pianist who founded the Rocky River Chamber Music Society in 1958 with five other professional musicians. A memorial service was held on November 8. Read an obituary here

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1483, German theologian, religious reformer and composer Martin Luther was born in Eisleben. Author of more than 30 hymns in the German vernacular, Luther joined composer Johann Walther to publish the first protestant hymn book in 1524. [Read more…]

DIARY, WEEKEND, Friday-Sunday, November 7-9, 2005

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by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

We have operas at CIM and Oberlin and an Apollo’s Fire world premiere to recommend to you this weekend. All of them open on Friday and some get repeated.

Apollo’s Fire presents Mozart’s Requiem and Eric Gould’s 1791: Requiem for the Ancestors (World Premiere), directed by Jeannette Sorrell, with Sonya Headlam, sopranos, Guadalupe Paz, mezzo-soprano, Jacob Perry, tenor, Kevin Deas, bass-baritone, Apollo’s Musettes treble youth choir, and Apollo’s Singers professional chamber chorus. 7:30 pm at at St. Bernard Catholic Church, 44 University Ave., Akron, repeated on Saturday at 7:30 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Ave., Cleveland.

CIM Opera Theater presents Puccini’s one-acts Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. Dean Southern, director, and Harry Davidson, conductor. 7:30 in Kulas Hall, 11021 East Blvd., Cleveland. Repeated on Sunday at 3.

Oberlin Opera Theater presents L’amant anonyme by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George. Fenlon Lamb, director, and Kelly Kuo, conductor. Premiered in 1780, this two-act opéra comique is the only Bologne opera to survive to the present day. 8 pm in Hall Auditorium, 67 N. Main St., Oberlin. Tickets available online. Repeated Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 2.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Houston Grand Opera announced on Thursday that James Gaffigan will serve as the fifth music director in its 70-year history. He replaces Patrick Summers, who announced last year that he would step down as artistic and music director at the end of the 2025-26 season. Although HGO doesn’t mention it in its press notice, Gaffigan has served as assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst. [Read more…]

VOCES8’s Oberlin debut: a delightful 20th anniversary program (Oct. 28)

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by Stephanie Manning

VOCES8’s 20th anniversary called for plenty of celebration and plenty of humor.

When the British a cappella group visited the Oberlin Artist Recital Series on October 28, they brought a program of audience favorites that delighted the sold-out crowd in Finney Chapel. Known for their ethereal voices and crystal clear harmonies, the octet demonstrated all that and more as they bridged the sacred and secular in “Songs From 20 Years.”

This two-decade milestone gave good reason to celebrate not only the singers, but also their longtime arranger-in-residence, Jim Clements. Responsible for some of the group’s most requested pieces, Clements is like “the secret burger sauce in the Big Mac,” joked tenor Blake Morgan.

[Read more…]

Guitarist Leonela Alejandro makes engaging Cleveland debut at CCGS (Oct. 25)

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by Stephanie Manning

When an artist is on tour for months at a time, it can be hard not to feel homesick. Leonela Alejandro knows that experience well. Her current cross-country tour — celebrating her win at the 2024 Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition — began in September and continues through next May.

That’s a lot of time away from Puerto Rico, where the 25-year-old guitarist grew up and began her musical education. So, as she explained to the audience at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on October 25, her Cleveland program brought a little bit of her home country with her. Presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, Alejandro’s local debut brought out her most engaging abilities as a performer, making the case that she is a young artist to watch. [Read more…]

No Exit opens season with “American Descent” at Praxis Fiber Workshop (Oct. 25)

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by Mike Telin

There was not an open seat to be had at Praxis Fiber Workshop on Saturday, October 25 when the adventurous new music ensemble No Exit began their 17th season with a program of four thoroughly engaging works.

As a prelude to the program, James Rhodes presented two movements from Garth Knox’s Viola Spaces, a collection of eight etudes each of which focus on an extended technique.  

No. 2, “Ghosts,” examines the technique of sul tasto — on the fingerboard. Beginning with a pitchless bowing on the strings, Rhodes brilliantly produced spooky, breathy, brushing sounds.  In No. 6, “Harmonic Horizons,” Rhodes took listeners on a tour of the instrument’s harmonic series. Here he produced an interesting mix of straight-tones, double-stops, trills, and slides in every register of the viola.

[Read more…]

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