by Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. SalonEra returns for a third season
. Birthday anniversary toasts to Steve Reich and Zenobia Powell Perry (pictured, with Darius Milhaud)
TODAY’S EVENTS:
Today, Les Délices has released the first episode of SalonEra Season 3, available for viewing here through the end of June 2023. The period instrument ensemble takes a plunge into the history of Venice’s Ospedali with baritone/scholar Lisandro Abadie as guide. In the 18th century, the orphaned girls of the Ospedali were unlikely stars in the musical firmament of Venice, and yet tourists and luminaries alike crowded into their concerts, with writers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles Burney remarking on their sophisticated and touching concerts. Archival performances including an all-woman rendition of Vivaldi’s Gloria from Early Music Vancouver round out this episode.
From Case Western Reserve University, Eric Charnofsky hosts today’s episode of “Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music,” featuring Steve Reich’s Tehillim, Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto for Flute and Strings, art songs by Clara Schumann, and music for percussion ensemble. Click here from 2:00-4:00 pm to listen to the WRUW internet feed.
OBERLIN ARTIST RECITAL SERIES RESUMES TOMORROW
On Tuesday, October 4 at noon in Finney Chapel, the acoustic roots duo of Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi perform songs from their Grammy-winning album They’re Calling Me Home, which explores music of their native and adoptive countries of America, Italy, and Ireland. This program is part of the 2022-23 Artist Recital Series. Tickets are available online only.
Seating for this concert is General Admission. Ticket holders will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. The house will open at 11:15 AM.
Plan a little extra time for parking. Oberlin’s construction efforts toward carbon neutrality have affected some streets and parking lots. Learn more at Activity Updates.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Here are two American composers’ birthdays to which to raise a glass today: Zenobia Powell Perry, born in Boley, Oklahoma in 1908, and Steve Reich, who made his personal debut on this date in New York in 1936.
In 2015, ChamberFest Cleveland programmed two of Reich’s works, New York Counterpoint (for amplified clarinet and tape, featuring Franklin Cohen in CIM’s Kulas Hall) and Nagoya Marimbas (played by Scott Christian and Alexander Cohen at The Wine Spot).
Two of Reich’s CDs were reviewed by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette music critic Jeremy Reynolds for ClevelandClassical.com. Read his takes on the EP of Electric Counterpoint here and Third Coast Percussion | Steve Reich here.
Composer, poet, pianist, and educator Zenobia Powell Perry studied privately with R. Nathaniel Dett in Rochester while Dett was teaching at Eastman. She moved on to work with Darius Milhaud, and with William Dawson at the Tuskegee Institute, and participated in the teacher training program for Black Americans headed by Eleanor Roosevelt. This documentary tells the story of her opera Tawawa House, written in 1985 and restored and revived in 2014 at the Gallo Center for the Performing Arts in Modesto California.