by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: two performances at Oberlin inspired by the total solar eclipse, plus a sax quartet in Rocky River and Handel’s Messiah at Case
•Announcements: a cancellation and postponement from CityMusic, a new Cleveland Orchestra release through partnership with Apple Music, and an opening for Executive Director of the Central Ohio Symphony
•Almanac: Michael Daugherty and János Starker
HAPPENING TODAY:
Ready for the total solar eclipse? Here’s a handy guide from Cleveland Metroparks about the exact timing of the event as well as some precautions to take.
Oberlin Conservatory is presenting a couple of free musical appetizers beforehand via the OCLIPSE Concert Series.
At 1:00, the Oberlin Percussion Group performs Gérard Grisey’s astronimically inspired Le Noir de l’Étoile in Hales Gymnasium. Read about this fascinating work in a preview article by Mike Telin here.
And at 2:00, the TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts) department welcomes you Oberlin’s Tappan Square for a theatrical performance bringing together members of the Oberlin Improvisation and Newmusic Collective and students in the Contemporary Dance Technique course. And Daniel Fishkin, a composer, sound artist, and instrument builder, will present his light-reactive synthesizers known as Solar Sounders. Read about that event in an article on Obie Muse.
“And then,” as Oberlin Percussion Group director Ross Karre told Mike Telin, “we’ll head to the football field with our special glasses.”
Two more free events tonight at 7:30 pm. Rocky River Chamber Music Society presents the Capitol Saxophone Quartet at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, and the Case Baroque Orchestra and Early Music Singers will perform Handel’s Messiah at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CityMusic Cleveland has announced that its April Chamber Concert (“Reflections of Time” on April 12) has been canceled due to an illness, and that its May Orchestra Series (“Jerod Tate Conducts Jerod Tate”) has been postponed until fall 2025.
The Cleveland Orchestra has released a new spatial audio recording of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6, led by Franz Welser-Möst. It is available exclusively on Apple Music Classical as part of a new partnership between Apple Music and the Orchestra. Read the press release here.
And the Central Ohio Symphony has an opening for the position of Executive Director. More info here at Musical America’s Career Center.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Iowa-born, Grammy-winning University of Michigan faculty composer Michael Daugherty turns 69 today. One thing that’s interesting to note before listening to his work is that all the way back to his childhood in Cedar Rapids, his life has been abundant with musical variety and pop-culture influence. His dad was a jazz and country-music drummer, his mom was an amateur singer, and his grandma played piano for silent films.
Responsible for a few of his Grammys through a recording by the Nashville Symphony, Daugherty’s five-movement, forty-minute, Superman-inspired Metropolis Symphony makes all those genre influences evident with a mix of jazz, rock, funk, avant-garde, and symphonic music. Listen to the Nashville recording here — and take a moment to enjoy the album’s cover art.
Another piece not to be missed is Daugherty’s Dead Elvis for bassoon and ensemble. The theater of it is just as important as the music, so when you click here to watch the first movement in a performance by TK DeWitt (at the time a student at Rice, now a member of the Kansas City Symphony), make sure not to skip over all the shenanigans that take place before a single note has been played.
Another musical luminary to celebrate today is Hungarian-American cellist János Starker, who died on this date in 2013. For 57 of his 88 years on earth, he taught at Indiana University, which brings up one Ohio connection: it’s there that he mentored now-Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower.
Enjoy Starker’s playing in a 1988 performance of two unaccompanied cello suites — one by Bach, one by Gaspar Cassadó — plus Kodály’s solo sonata. Then listen to his 1980 appearance at Blossom Music Festival, where he joined Eduardo Mata and The Cleveland Orchestra in Bloch’s Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque.
Daugherty photo by Yopie Prins