by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Three free events today — from Trinity Cathedral, Les Délices (joined by Contemporary Youth Orchestra members and Cleveland State scholars), and the Oberlin Improvisation and Newmusic Collective
•Saxophone concerto by Tyshawn Sorey (pictured) awarded Pulitzer Prize
•Applications open for Cuyahoga Arts & Culture project support grants
•Almanac: the elder Oscar Hammerstein
HAPPENING TODAY:
Today’s noontime Brownbag Concert at Trinity Cathedral, “Dvořák in America,” presents a pair of works with connections to the composer’s time in New York as director of the now-defunct National Conservatory of Music of America from 1892 to 1895. The Sonatina in G, Op. 100 — written for violin and piano, to be performed today by cellist John Walz and pianist Elizabeth DeMio — was composed in 1893. And the Piano Trio No. 4 in e (“Dumky”), with violinist Andrew Sords rounding out the ensemble, was published during those years. The concert is free and will also be livestreamed.
At 7:00 at Loganberry Books in Cleveland, humanities scholars and guest speakers from Cleveland State University will join members of Les Délices and students from the Contemporary Youth Orchestra for conversations around Black cultural life in 18th-century London in a program titled “Sancho’s London: Panel Discussion & Performance.”
The event will feature performances by Les Délices musicians Debra Nagy, oboe & director, Andréa Walker, soprano, Julie Andrijeski, violin, Rebecca Landell, cello, and Mark Edwards, harpsichord, who will also be joined by the CYO students for Jonathan Woody’s Suite for Strings after the works of Charles Ignatius Sancho. It’s free.
And at 7:30 in Stull Recital Hall, the Oberlin Improvisation and Newmusic Collective (OINC) will perform improvisations on John Cage’s Ryoanji as well as the ensemble’s own Ornithological Observations and Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music. Free, and also livestreamed.
NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS:
On Monday, Tyshawn Sorey’s saxophone concerto Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith) was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The announcement describes the piece as in many ways “an anti-concerto,” one that is “introspective…with a wide range of textures presented in a slow tempo, a beautiful homage that’s quietly intense, treasuring intimacy rather than spectacle.” Read the full announcement here, and read an article by Javier C. Hernández for The New York Times here.
Applications are now open for 2025 Project Support grants from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. The first step in the application process, the Eligibility Check, must be completed by 4:30 pm on June 6. Learn more here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Daniel Hathaway
Everybody knows the name Oscar Hammerstein II — the lyricist half of the Broadway creative team Rodgers & Hammerstein — but did you ever wonder about Oscar I? Born in Stettin, Germany on this date in 1846, Oscar II’s grandfather was an opera composer and impresario who also founded several opera houses, most notably the Manhattan Opera House in 1906, which engaged in a fierce competition with the Metropolitan Opera. Oscar I sold both the Manhattan and Philadelphia houses to the Metropolitan in 1910, agreeing not to produce grand opera in New York for the next decade. Along with Elektra, Thaïs, and Salome, he was responsible for the American premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande.
Listen to Erich Leinsdorf’s arrangement of “Preludes and Interludes” from Debussy’s symbolist opera recorded live by The Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall in February 1945, shortly before Leinsdorf left the podium to serve in the U.S. Army. The Orchestra presented a production of Pelléas et Mélisande in 2017 staged by Yuval Sharon and conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, both of whom comment on the work in a promotional video.