by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Ohio Light Opera presents Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (2 pm, Freedlander Theater, College of Wooster), Tri-C JazzFest features Jason Moran and the Bandwagon (5 pm, Allen Theatre, Playhouse Square), Cécile McLorin Salvant (pictured) 6:30, Mimi Ohio Theatre), Marcus Miller/Bob James Quartet (7:45, Connor Palace Theatre) & Scary Goldings (10 pm, Mimi Ohio Theatre).
ChamberFest Cleveland presents “Paradise Lost” (7:30, Mixon Hall at CIM), Renovare Music plays “Facing the Rising Sun” (7:30 at Lekko Coffee in Hingetown), Nightingale Opera produces its final performance of Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (Cinderella, 7:30, Goodyear Theatre, Akron), and Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute presents a faculty concert featuring music of Paris and Versailles, 1660-1760 (8 pm, Kulas Recital Hall, Oberlin Conservatory — note: very limited seating).
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Apollo’s Fire has released details of its 2024-2025 season, for which subscriptions are now on sale. Click here for details.
Cleveland Chamber Choir, Gregory Ristow, artistic director, has been named Artists-in-Residence at Trinity Cathedral for the 2024-2025 season. Dean Bernard J. Owens said, “Trinity Cathedral has a rich history of great music and community collaboration, and this relationship feels like a perfect fit. The Cleveland Chamber Choir’s mission and artistic vision sets it apart in our community through intentional partnerships that connect cutting-edge music performances with social justice issues that affect us all.” CCC will present two concerts at Trinity Cathedral next season, Meditations and Mysticism on Saturday, October 26, 2024 and I Believe! with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
Youngstown’s Summer Festival of the Arts is seeking volunteers for the upcoming event on July 27 and 28. Volunteers assist with various tasks, including event setup, artist assistance, guest services, a children’s art tent, and more. To sign up as a volunteer or learn more about the Festival, click here or email Katie Merrill.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Jarrett Hoffman
From Rimsky-Korsakov to Lana Del Rey, and Pavel Haas to Lalo Schifrin, let’s use moods and keys to tie together a diverse playlist based on the musical anniversaries of June 21st.
Capriccio Espagnol by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (who died on this date in 1908) begins with ultimate razzle-dazzle. Its opening movement in A Major is full of flair, with clarinet trills, tambourine rolls, and lots of fortissimo, but it ends in a gentler place: a string pizzicato on A over the carpet of a timpani roll (stop at 1:26).
We pick up on an A from the electric guitar in Shades of Cool by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, who turns 39 today. But here we’re in d minor, setting up Del Rey’s melancholy opening verse, full of the smoky tone that is one of her calling cards. The chorus takes us higher up into her range, and into an F Major that feels like a mirage.
Pausing at 1:57, we move from the end of that chorus into something else quite dreamy: the opening of the first movement of the wonderful Symphony No. 2, “Mysterious Mountain” by Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness, who died on this date in 2000.
After a couple minutes of enjoying the gentle and meditative qualities of that work, perhaps stopping after the celestial celesta solo at 2:18, float even higher up into an ethereal realm with the combination of organ and choir (Voces8) in The Darkness is No Darkness by lesser-known English composer Judith Bingham, who turns 72 today, and who was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2020.
Next, how about a shock to the system? Lalo Schifrin’s “Theme from Mission: Impossible” ought to do the trick. You likely know the classic opening material, but stick around at least until 1:19 to hear the excellent keyboard solo.
We’ll conclude with something that retains the energetic quality of that tune but that also transports us into more solemn air: the rhythmically driving opening to the Study for String Orchestra by Moravian-Jewish composer Pavel Haas (born on this date in 1899), who wrote the piece while imprisoned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the early 1940s. It was premiered there under the baton of Czech conductor Karel Ančerl, and was reconstructed after Ančerl found the parts after the liberation of the camp. (Both musicians were among 18,000 prisoners transferred to Auschwitz in 1944; Ančerl survived, but Haas did not.)
Nothing can capture the horror of that event, but for something at least musically appropriate, listen to the most deeply reflective section of this piece, the slow section beginning at 4:02.
