by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: pianist Stewart Goodyear at CIM, and writer-activist Keith LaMar at CMA, remotely from the Ohio State Penitentiary
•In the news: student petition at CIM calls for new leadership
•Announcements and opportunities: Greater Cleveland Music Census, an Opera Roundtable from Cleveland Opera, an open position at ENCORE Chamber Music, and applications open for two summer festivals
•Almanac: César Franck, Rudolph Arnold Dolmetsch, and John Kirkpatrick
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30 pm, you can catch pianist Stewart Goodyear in a recital at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, playing the U.S. premiere of his Mending Wall as well as works by J.S. Bach, Clara Schumann, and Beethoven (free, but reservations required). Read a preview article by Mike Telin here.
Or you can visit the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium to hear Freedom First, the debut album from Cleveland-born poet, writer, and activist Keith LaMar (above, on-screen). LaMar will perform the album remotely from his cell at the Ohio State Penitentiary, where he has spent 30 years in solitary confinement on death row for a crime he testifies that he did not commit. He’ll be joined by Albert Marquès (piano), Chris Coles (alto sax), Zaire Darden (drums), and Jordan McBride (bass). Tickets are available here.
IN THE NEWS:
A petition from students at the Cleveland Institute of Music is calling for new leadership. As Joey Morona writes for cleveland.com, “Two hundred students — roughly 60 percent of CIM’s enrollment of 350 — recently signed a petition calling for the resignations of President and CEO Paul Hogle and Board Chair Dr. Susan Rothmann.” Read the article here.
ANNOUNCEMENTS & OPPORTUNITIES
All members of the Cleveland “music ecosystem,” including creatives, presenters, and other music industry professionals, as well as music fans, are invited to participate in the Greater Cleveland Music Census, which launches today (Wednesday, November 8) at 10 am. Click here for more information.
The Cleveland Opera will hold a free Opera Roundtable on Sunday, November 12 at 4 pm at the Polish-American Cultural Center. “Everyone is invited to join in for a mini-program of music and a roundtable discussion — over tea, coffee, chocolates and refreshments— on the future of opera in Cleveland, especially The Cleveland Opera. We are looking forward to an exchange of constructive ideas.”
The ENCORE Chamber Music Institute has an opening for the position of Operations Manager, who will work with the Artistic Director “to coordinate, manage, and produce the three-week summer festival” in addition to leading “day-to-day operations, advancement, and board liaison activities of the organization during the off-season.” The application deadline is November 10. More information here.
And applications are live for two area summer festivals: the ENCORE Summer Academy and the Kent Blossom Music Festival, with deadlines coming in early February. Find out more here and here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Daniel Hathaway
On this date in 1890, Belgian-born French composer César Franck died in Paris, his demise partially attributed to the after effects of injuries he sustained when a cab he was riding in collided with a horse-drawn trolley.
Franck’s most celebrated works are for the organ, including the Trois Chorales completed during the last year of his life. Click here to watch French organist Vincent Dubois play No. 3 in a minor at Soissons Cathedral. Dubois, who performed at St. John’s Cathedral in Cleveland in November, 2015, is now one of the three tenured organists at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris.
Otherwise, the composer left only one Symphony, performed here by Pierre Monteux and the Chicago Symphony, with a follow-along score. Among his chamber works are the popular and dramatic Violin Sonata, played here by ChamberFest Cleveland rising stars Nathan Meltzer and Evren Ozel in Harkness Chapel at CWRU. (It’s frequently poached by cellists, as well as the occasional flutist — which just doesn’t quite seem right for the material.)
Born on this date in 1906 in Cambridge, MA, American composer, conductor, and lutenist Rudolph Arnold Dolmetsch was the son of early music revival pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch, who settled with his family in the English village of Haslemere in 1914 and maintained a workshop for period instruments.
Rudolph eventually veered off in his own direction, but kept one foot in the early music world, as shown by his Concertino for Viola da Gamba and Small Orchestra from 1941. Click here for a performance by the Concord Chamber Orchestra.
And on this date in 1991, American musicologist and pianist John Kirkpatrick left us, but his legacy as the authority on the music of Charles Ives and as the composer’s archivist remains strong. Among his signal achievements, the first recording of Ives’ thorny Concord Sonata. Listen here.