by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
Ohio Light opera now has five of its six summer shows up and running at Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster. Catch Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers (Friday at 2), Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (Friday at 7:30), Me and My Girl (Saturday at 2), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Sound of Music (Saturday at 7:30) & Franz Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg (Sunday at 2).
On Saturday at 7 at Blossom, guest conductor Domingo Hindoyan leads The Cleveland Orchestra & Blossom Festival Chorus in Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, trumpeter Michael Sachs will be featured in Alexander Arutiuian’s Trumpet Concerto, and the program will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3.
Jodi Kanter’s Stars in the Classics offers two “Summer Music in the Garden” events on Friday and Sunday at 6 in a private garden in Orange Village. Check out the details of “From the Classics to Jazz” and make reservations here.
The McGaffin Carillon in University Circle will get a workout on Friday, with two separate programs by University of Denver carillonneur Carol Jickling Lens at 12:15 and 7 pm.
On Friday at 6:30 pm in Westlake’s Crocker Park, Piano Cleveland Live will present an outdoor concert with Steinway artist Shuai Wang, and a quartet from Cleveland’s Italian folk group, Alla Boara.
For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.
NEWS BRIEFS:
The New York Times reports that “Gary Ginstling, the New York Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, abruptly resigned on Thursday after just a year on the job, leaving the orchestra in limbo as it grapples with challenges including heated labor talks and an investigation into its workplace culture after two players were accused of misconduct.
“Behind the scenes, there were rising tensions between Ginstling and the Philharmonic’s board, staff and musicians, according to someone familiar with the situation who was granted anonymity to describe private conversations. The person said Ginstling also had disagreements with the star conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who, in a major coup, was tapped to become the Philharmonic’s next music and artistic director.”
Ginstling served as general manager of The Cleveland Orchestra from 2008 to 2013.
INTERESTING READ:
In today’s New York Times Hugh Morris writes, “At 75, the Aldeburgh Festival Is Bigger Than Benjamin Britten.
“The coastal festival, founded by the composer and Peter Pears in the 1940s, has built a reputation for rich, forward-looking programming.” Read the article here,
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
July 12 — by Jarrett Hoffman
A 1,088-page book published in April, 2022 is a timely — if time-intensive — way to celebrate lyricist, librettist, and musical theater icon Oscar Hammerstein II, who was born on this date in 1895 in New York City.
Mark Eden Horowitz, a Senior Music Specialist at the Library of Congress, took the plunge into the Library’s collection of Hammerstein’s many correspondences: 25,000 letters. Of those, Horowitz transcribed “the best ones” — a mere 4,600.
And of those, the cream of the crop made the cut for The Letters of Oscar Hammerstein II — “letters that showcase not just the creative Hammerstein, but Hammerstein the businessman, the mentor, the activist, and occasionally, the corrector,” Bob Mondello writes in an article for NPR.
July 13 — by Daniel Hathaway
Who hasn’t amused themselves — and hopefully their dining companions as well — by applying a moistened finger to the rim of a wine glass? In technical terms, you’re creating a hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, a type of friction idiophone. Benjamin Franklin, fascinated by the sound, invented a mechanical version he called the armonica (pictured above with Mr. Rogers), which he announced on this date in 1762.
Franklin worked with a glassmaker to create a series of glass bowls spinning in a water bath that he dubbed the armonica. The instrument became so popular that it was featured in compositions by Beethoven, Mozart, and Donizetti, but it was largely forgotten by the 1820s.
Franklin ultimately made no money from the construction of more than 5,000 armonicas, because he refused to patent or copyright any of his inventions.
July 14 (Bastille Day)
On this date in 1789, Parisians stormed the infamous Bastille prison, liberating seven political prisoners as well as its cache of arms and munitions, creating what has become France’s Independence Day. Six years later, the revolutionary song La Marseillaise was adopted as the French national anthem. Claude-Benigne Balbastre, a famous Parisian organist of the time, wrote a set of variations on the tune that might be considered the equivalent of Charles Ives’ playful Variations on ‘America.’
Balbastre, who had served as organist of Notre-Dame and the Royal Chapel and taught keyboard lessons to Marie Antoinette, somehow survived the political upheaval of the Revolution. Click here to enjoy his La Marche des Marseillois et l’air “Ça ira” performed by Michel Chapuis on the organ at the Parisian church of St-Roch, where Balbastre played to great popular acclaim. As Charles Burney reported, Balbastre introduced into his improvisations “minuets, fugues, imitations, and every species of music, even to hunting pieces and jigs, without surprising or offending the congregation.”
