Archives for March 2026

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at 12 Noon, organist Andrew Johnson plays works by Hugo Distler, Dietrich Buxtehude, Vincent Persichetti, Louis Vierne, and Horatio Parker at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

And tonight at 7:30 pm, Daniel Sáñez, principal organist for the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia, plays a recital on the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

NEWS BRIEFS:

R.I.P. Bernard Rands, 92

The Chicago-based, British American composer left a catalog of 100 works. His wife, Augusta Read Thomas, a prolific composer herself, survives him. Read the Violin Channel obituary here.

 

Hoopes to join CIM faculty

Violinist Chad Hoopes, an alum of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program, will join the faculty of his alma mater as an associate professor of violin. Beginning in Fall 2026, he will take on a limited number of students as he maintains his studio at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Read more here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Pablo de Sarasate, who was born on March 10, 1844, is known for his virtuosic and pure-toned violin playing, as well as the pieces he wrote to show it off. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS DIGEST:

Douglas McLennan, formerly an arts columnist and arts reporter with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Weekly, has begun summing up the latest news in his daily ArtsJournal Newsletter. A lot is happening all at once, and here’s what he has to say today:

“The Met Opera is the largest performing arts company in the country, and it is quietly desperate — box-office receipts down $20 million from a decade ago, deficits mounting, and no obvious fix in sight (The New York Times). The Boston Symphony, meanwhile, just fired its music director, and the postmortem is not gentle: Andris Nelsons is being held up as the cautionary symbol of the “overstretched, overtired, overindulged modern music director” (The New York Times). Big institutions, big problems.

“The Toronto Film Critics Association is effectively in freefall after an Indigenous filmmaker’s pro-Palestine acceptance speech was cut from a broadcast. She returned her trophy, the president resigned, and 16 members have quit — with more weighing it (The Hollywood Reporter). The Voice of America got better news: a federal judge ruled Kari Lake’s appointment invalid, potentially reinstating more than 1,000 journalists and restoring broadcasts to China, Russia, and Iran (The New York Times).

“And then there’s Timothée Chalamet, who declared that nobody cares about opera and ballet. Opera and ballet companies responded by posting sold-out notices and offering discount ticket codes in his name (NBC). Somebody cares.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

British-American composer Anna Clyne was born in London on this date in 1980. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS;

On Friday evening at 7:30, concertmaster Alan Choo takes Apollo’s Fire to Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles for works written for the court of the Sun King by Lully, Marais, and Rameau. The second and third of four performances take place on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Hts., and the fourth on Sunday at 4 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church..

On Friday at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, James Feddeck conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven Lives Upstairs. The program, designed especially for ages 7-12, features a lively exchange of letters between young Christoph and his uncle about the “madman” who has moved into the upstairs apartment of Christoph’s Vienna home.

On Friday evening at 8, Oberlin Opera Theater raises the curtain on two one-act operas by John Musto, directed by Scott Skiba and conducted by Timothy Weiss. Later the Same Evening is set in a single evening in 1932 Manhattan and brings to life the characters and scenes from five Edward Hopper paintings. Bastianello wraps itself around an amusing series of encounters derived from several versions of an old Italian folk tale. Repeated on Saturday at 8 & Sunday at 2.

On Saturday at 2:30 in Warner Concert hall, the Oberlin Conservatory will present a memorial tribute for the late voice professor Daune Mahy, who taught there for 39 years. Details here.

On Saturday evening at 7:30, Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, a frequent guest, returns to the Mandel Concert Hall podium at Severance Music Center to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 3, and Vítĕzslava Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta. Repeated Sunday at 3.

On Saturday at 7:30 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Vietnamese-born classical guitarist An Tran, now based in Chicago, makes his Cleveland debut on the Cleveland Classical Society’s International Series. His program includes world premieres from his new recording, Illumina.

And on Sunday at 4:30 in Finney Chapel, organist James O’Donnell will play the annual David Boe Memorial Recital honoring the ninth Dean of the Conservatory, who taught at Oberlin from 1962 to 2008.

For details of these and other performances, visit our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

On March 6, 1967, Hungarian ethnomusicologist, educator and composer Zoltán Kodály passed away in Budapest. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, a frequent guest, returns to the Mandel Concert Hall podium at Severance Music Center to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 3, and Vítĕzslava Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta. Repeated Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3.

Tonight at 7:30, concertmaster Alan Choo takes Apollo’s Fire to Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles for works written for the court of the Sun King by Lully, Marais, and Rameau. The first of four performances is at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron, repeated on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Hts., and Sunday at 4 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church..

And tonight at 8 in Hall Auditorium, Oberlin Opera Theater raises the curtain on two one-act operas by John Musto, directed by Scott Skiba and conducted by Timothy Weiss. Later the Same Evening is set in a single evening in 1932 Manhattan and brings to life the characters and scenes from five Edward Hopper paintings. Bastianello wraps itself around an amusing series of encounters derived from several versions of an old Italian folk tale. Repeated Friday & Saturday at 8 & Sunday at 2.

For details of these and other performances, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will release a new spatial audio recording on April 17 celebrating their creative partnership with composer and flutist Allison Loggins-Hull. [Read more…]