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Archives for February 2026

Barbara Hannigan goes all-American with The Cleveland Orchestra (Feb. 12)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Conductor Barbara Hannigan brought an unusual playlist to her appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra on Thursday evening February 12: music by four American composers who rarely share a stage, and who have very different ideas about what American music sounds like.

The Severance Music Center program was a sequence of sharply defined pieces, each showing a different side of American music — experimental, modernist, lyrical, and theatrical. And in Hannigan’s expressive hands, those contrasts felt intentional and well placed.

[Read more…]

Imani Winds & Boston Brass at Tuesday Musical (Feb. 10)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On the cold Tuesday evening of February 10, two venerable ensembles — the Imani Winds and Boston Brass —  were brought together by Akron’s Tuesday Musical in E.J. Thomas Hall. The large audience was ready for something lively, and the players obliged, spending the better part of two hours passing enthralling music back and forth.

Outfitted in blue jackets, Boston Brass — José Sibaja and Jeff Conner (trumpets), Chris Castellanos (horn), Domingo Pagliuca (trombone), and William Russell (tuba) — introduced pieces and corrected each other’s pronunciation with good humor. “You may be wondering how guys in those jackets get work,” Conner quipped. José Sibaja, who grew up in Puerto Rico, took particular care with Spanish names, and was playfully merciless when his colleagues missed a vowel.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Galop, one of the composer’s theater pieces from the 1930s, was up first. Articulation stayed clean even at the fast tempo, and the group reveled in the music’s dry humor. Sibaja and Conner impressed with their technical ease, while Pagliuca and Russell kept things grounded.

[Read more…]

Resonance Project rings in the Lunar New Year with “Qin and Strings” (Feb. 7)

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by Stephanie Manning

Gazing at Chinese paintings in the shān shuǐ (山水) style, whose artists use ink and a brush to create beautiful landscapes, you might notice two patterns. First, any people depicted are often dwarfed by the enormous scenery. Second, the painters don’t need to cover every inch of canvas — sometimes they let the blank space do the talking.

This appreciation of nature and the use of space influenced Irwin Shung and his piece Seven Chinese Characters, as the pianist and composer explained at the Resonance Project concert on February 7. That work opened the evening’s program, “Qin and Strings,” presented at Forest Hill Church in Cleveland Heights. The group timed this celebration of Chinese music to the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations.

Using the projector screen on the side of the stage, Shung clicked through a carousel of images to give historical and cultural context to the program — a fusion of performance and pre-concert talk that worked very smoothly. Eventually he sat down at the piano to perform Seven Chinese Characters, a flowing and meditative journey that also draws inspiration from Li Bai’s poem “Quiet Night Thought” and a traditional melody called “Jasmine.”

[Read more…]

Soprano Estelí Gomez and composer Gilda Lyons collaborate on Les Délices’ “La Diosa”

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by Stephanie Manning

The Venn diagram of performers who love early music and those who love new music is closer to a circle than one might think. Take soprano Estelí Gomez, who is as likely to appear on a Baroque program as she is on a contemporary one.

“One of the reasons people love doing both is that the composer has a lot of excitement for and trust in the performer,” Gomez said in a recent interview.

From the composer’s perspective, that idea of artistic freedom is “wonderfully liberating,” Gilda Lyons said in that same Zoom call. While research is important, “I’m never going to know as much as the performers do about their specific instrument. So I’m going to leave space for them to be the artists that they are.”

[Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, February 18, 2026

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the forty days of Lent for Western Christian communities. Click here to watch a service of Choral Evensong from Atlantic Canada (including the famous setting of Psalm 51 by Gregorio Allegri) sung by the University of King’s College Chapel Choir, directed by Paul Halley, in the Cathedral Church of All Saints, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Today at 12 Noon, Trinity Cathedral’s Brownbag Concert Series hosts the Cleveland Celtic Ensemble in Trinity Cathedral Hall.

This evening at 6 pm, The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Chamber Music in the Atrium Series presents Oberlin’s annual Danenberg Honors Recital honorees, and at 7:30 in Gartner Auditorium, its Performing Arts Series presents Makaya McCraven, drums, Junius Paul, bass, and Marquis Hill, trumpet, in Jazz-rooted 21st-century folk music from Chicago.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos was born on this date in 1896 in Athens.

The young Dimitri exhibited musical talents at an early age and by his early teens hosted Saturday afternoon concerts at his home. [Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition (CIPC) Semi-Finalist Jonathan Mamora in residency at The University of Akron

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by Mike Telin

When the Cleveland International Piano Competition set out to plan its 50th anniversary in 2024, CIPC president Yaron Kohlberg knew that some changes needed to be made.

“A lot has changed in the classical music world during the past 50 years,” Kohlberg said in an interview prior to that year’s competition. He added that the changes that were made were designed to create more and better ways for CIPC to serve the contestants, the audience, and the community at large.

One of the many alterations that Kohlberg and his team implemented was in the Competition’s prize structure, which featured a new artist development program that was open to all contestants. The program offers mentorship opportunities with leading pianists, faculty, and innovators in the classical music world, and short courses in personal branding and social media, fundraising, artist finances, and similar topics, offered in partnership with Young Concert Artists. It also included residencies at Northeast Ohio universities.

From February 18 through 28, pianist Jonathan Mamora will serve as artist-in-residence at The University of Akron School of Performing Arts. During his residency, he will present workshops, deliver lectures, and give a free public recital. These events are made possible through a partnership with Piano Cleveland and The Kulas Foundation.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, February 17, 2026

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12 Noon – Tuesdays at the Covenant: organist Steven Plank (pictured) plays Gaspard Corrette’s movements from Messe du 8e Ton, Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck’s Fantasia cromatica & Four variations on “Onder een Linde groen,” & Jan Bender’s Six Variations on a Theme by Hugo Distler, “Dedicated to Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, who spoiled Hitler’s victorious entrance at Vienna.” Church of the Covenant, University Circle.

7:30 pm – Mao Fujita in Recital. The Japanese pianist plays works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Berg, and Wagner. Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

7:30 pm – CIM Insiders. Andrew Hosler, saxophone, Daniel Pereira, cello, Eric Charnofsky, piano, and Dylan Findley, electronics. Music by Pierre Boulez, Sami Seif, Jennifer Conner, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, and John Mackey. Mixon Hall, 11021 East Blvd., Cleveland.

ANNOUNCEMENTS;

Cleveland Chamber Music Society will sponsor an Art of Ensemble Chamber Music workshop led by Mary K. Robinson on February 22 at 3 pm at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, February 16, 2026

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today is Presidents Day, a federal holiday that began as a celebration of the birthday of George Washington, to which Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was later added by Congress. TIME magazine sums up the history of presidential birthday celebrations here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: The Music Settlement will offer a wide variety of summer classes and camps this year. Registration is now open. Read more here.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

Helmuth Rilling, Who Recorded Huge Swaths of Bach, Dies at 92 (NY Times)

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1938, American composer John Corigliano was born in New York City, the son of John Sr., who served for 23 years as concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Although he came late to composition, Corigliano was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, the Grawemeyer Award, and an Oscar. [Read more…]

DIARY: WEEKEND, Friday-Sunday, February 13-15, 2026

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by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

FRIDAY

No Exit Presents pianist Jenny Lin & electronic artist Draka Andersen performing a new score to the 1984 restoration of Fritz Lang’s movie Metropolis (7 pm at Heights Arts) • the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series presents Siglo de Oro (pictured), the adventurous, London based early music vocal ensemble (7:30 at Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist).

SATURDAY

M.U.S.i.C Stars in the Classics features love songs, dances and Romantic music (7:30, Church of the Western Reserve) • Wit’s Folly plays Serenades for Flute and Strings (7 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop, repeated Sunday at 4 at St. Noel, Willoughby Hills) • The Cleveland Orchestra plays an American music program including Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 conducted by Barbara Hannigan, with Johanna Wallroth, soprano (7;30 at Severance Music Center, repeated Sunday at 3).

SUNDAY

Tri-C Classical Piano Series hosts the Genova and Dimitrov Piano Duo (2 pm in Tri-C Metropolitan Campus Auditorium) • Heights Chamber Orchestra presents Travis Jürgens, conductor, and Kira McGirr, mezzo-soprano, program to include Stravinsky’s Octet & Libby Larsen’s Raspberry Island Dreaming (3:30 at St. Ann Church) • The Cleveland Opera & Cleveland Women’s Orchestra presents Triumphs and Tribulations of Love, Eric Benjamin, conducting, with Dorota Sobieska, soprano, and Andrzej Stec, tenor (4 pm at First Baptist, Shaker Heights) • Keith Fitch conducts the CIM New Music Ensemble with Andrew Rindfleisch, guest composer (4 pm in Kulas Hall) • and Arts at Holy Trinity features organist Rees Taylor Roberts, organ, in a program including works by the late Stephen Griebling (4 pm at Holy Trinity Lutheran, Akron).

For details of these and other classical music concerts, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

Why classical music should stop trying to be pop (The Guardian)

Leonard Slatkin named music director in Nashville for the third time (Nashville Scene)  [Read more…]

American Brass Quintet visits Oberlin Artist Recital Series

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by Stephanie Manning

With more than 65 years as an ensemble under their belt and a commitment to commissioning new works, the American Brass Quintet has a lot of repertoire to choose from. “We’ve got such an extraordinary wealth of music,” bass trombonist John Rojak said. For at least the past 15 years, “every piece that has been coming in is one we want to keep playing.”

Several of those works appear on the group’s current program, which they are set to bring to the Oberlin Artist Recital Series on February 20. Trumpeters Brandon Ridenour and Tiago Linck, hornist Eric Reed, trombonist Hillary Simms, and Rojak will take to the Finney Chapel stage to present works by Anthony Barfield, Philip Lasser, Jennifer Higdon, Osvaldo Lacerda, and David Biedenbender. Tickets are available online.

Although the majority of the evening’s works are less than a decade old, the concert first finds its footing in the 16th century, with John Dowland’s Earl of Essex Galliard & Can She Excuse My Wrongs. Rojak described how Brandon Ridenour combined the two pieces into his own, “really cool” edition. [Read more…]

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