by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: OLO’s Camelot
•Announcements: CIPC for Young Artists winners (pictured), R.I.P. Yuzo Toyama and Irene Sharp
•Almanac: Kurt Masur and Nkeiru Okoye
HAPPENING TODAY:
Catch Ohio Light Opera‘s production of Camelot at 2:00 at Freelander Theatre in Wooster. Read Daniel Hathaway’s review here, and get tickets here.
PIANO CLEVELAND NEWS:
Piano Cleveland has announced the results of the 2023 Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists. In the Senior Division, first prize went to Saehyun Kim (16, South Korea), second prize to Yanyan Bao (16, China), and third to Ryan Wang (15, Canada). In the Junior Division, Elisey Mysin (12, Russia) took home the top prize, followed by Qinyaoyao Ji (13, China) in second and Zhonghua Wei (14, China) in third. In addition to winning the top prizes in their respective divisions, Saehyun Kim and Elisey Mysin also won the Audience Prizes. Click here for the full results, including the Special Prizes in Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin, as well as the Junior Jury awards.
R.I.P. TOYAMA & SHARP:
Composer and conductor Yuzo Toyama passed away on July 11 at the age of 92, while cellist and pedagogue Irene Sharp died on the 13th at age 87.
On the podium, Toyama was a Permanent Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra since 1979. As a composer, he was known for incorporating folk music into his works, including in the Rhapsody for Orchestra. The founder and artistic director of California Summer Music, Sharp also taught at Mannes School of Music and UC Berkeley and at festivals such as Meadowmount School for Strings, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, and Indiana University’s String Academy.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
German conductor Kurt Masur was born on July 18, 1927, and American composer Nkeiru Okoye followed suit on this date in 1972.
Among his posts, Kurt Masur was Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and music director of the New York Philharmonic, leading politically significant concerts with both ensembles: in Leipzig, a performance of Beethoven 9 to celebrate German reunification, and in New York, a performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem following the September 11th terrorist attacks. (Click here to listen to a recording of the Brahms by Masur and the Philharmonic). He is also known for the role he played in helping to keep the peace amidst protests in East Germany in 1989.
Masur was considered an “old-style” conductor. According to former Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, Masur’s “demanding and intense” style brought about an important change within the orchestra. “…just by his sheer intensity of his personality, I think it sort of transformed most of us,” the violinist said.
A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, Nkeiru Okoye is known for exploring American history in her compositions, including in her 2014 opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom, with both music and libretto by Okoye. Click here to watch the premiere, which took place in 2014 at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn, NY.
The Guggenheim award will go towards the creation of a new opera, A Truth Before Their Eyes, again with music and libretto to be written by Okoye. As Erich Burnett writes, the opera “chronicles the experiences of two Black women who struggle to be heard in their small community, where Black Lives Matter garners headlines while everyday incidences of racial bias continue with alarming frequency.” Read more about the work in Burnett’s article here.