by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
On Saturday, CityMusic Cleveland presents its January chamber music concert at 2 pm at Hudson Library, Minnesota’s Zeitgeist (“Spirit of the Times”), joins Cleveland’s No Exit at 7 at Heights Arts for the last of three joint concerts, Christopher Wilkins, pianist Theron Brown and the Akron Symphony celebrate the centennial of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at 7:30, and at the same hour, The Cleveland Orchestra welcomes violinist Augustin Hadelich and conductor Elim Chan to Severance Music Center for the third performance of a program featuring Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto and Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra.
On Sunday, Erik Ochsner leads the Youngstown Symphony at Stambaugh Auditorium at 2:30, and at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Chorus, Daniel Reith & William Henry Caldwell, conductors, take the audience on a journey through the life of civil rights leader and author Coretta Scott King, the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured: the first MLK celebration concert, photo by Roger Mastroianni).
And on Monday, Severance Music Center welcomes the community to an open house with activities and performances for the MLK holiday. Click here for the schedule. At Noon, classical guitarist Damian Goggans plays works by African diasporic composers, arrangers, and musicians in the Cleveland Museum or Art’s contemporary art galleries.
For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Piano Cleveland has announced a series of free noontime & pub concerts around town. Arseniy Guusev and violinist Shannon Lee will play at Forest City Brewing on February 5 at 6, followed by Yaron Kohlberg with cellist Toke Møldrup at CMA on March 4 at noon, Zhu Wang at CMA at Noon on April 15 & at Hofbräuhaus on April 16 at 6 pm, and Daniela Liebman on May 13 at noon at CMA & at BrewDog Cleveland Outpost on May 16 at 6 pm. More information here.
WEEKEND ALMANAC
Most eyes will be focused on the nation’s capital on Monday. Here are some historical moments from previous presidential inaugurations and other events. Jarrett Hoffman contributed to these entries.
January 18:
Perhaps the most interesting anniversary on this date is not that of a birth, a death, or a premiere, but of a dinner. The host was John F. Kennedy, the featured guest was a 79-year-old Stravinsky, and the setting was the White House on January 18, 1962 (pictured left to right: Vera de Bosset Stravinsky, JFK, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and Igor Stravinsky.)
JFK reportedly made the perfect toast to the composer: short and humorous, but also moving. One guest later commented that Stravinsky — “an amiable man, very tiny, with a manner of twinkling gravity” — responded “with immense charm.”
Despite his general abrasiveness, Stravinsky seemed to remember the event with gratitude. And after Kennedy was assassinated in late 1963, the composer responded a year later with his twelve-tone Elegy for J.F.K., setting a text by W.H. Auden written at Stravinsky’s request. Click here to listen to a performance from March 2021 featuring mezzo-soprano Sara Sheffield accompanied by two clarinetists and an alto clarinetist from the U.S. Marine Band.
January 19:
On this date in 1961, Leonard Bernstein’s 36-second long Fanfare was performed at the Inaugural Gala for President John F. Kennedy by “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band.
More fanfares were planned for the 2021 Inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Alexandria, VA-based Classical Movements has organized “Inauguration Fanfares” in association with Marin Alsop and the Hope & Harmony Ensemble, featuring musicians from 14 professional orchestras performing Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1. Watch here and read more here.
Composer Peter Boyer has been commissioned by the United States Marine Band to compose a special fanfare for the 2021 ceremony. His Fanfare for Tomorrow will be featured in hour-long prelude music to the Inauguration conducted by Colonel Jason K. Fettig.
January 20:
It’s interesting to look back on memorable performances over the years by classical musicians at U.S. presidential inaugurations. WQXR has curated a list of seven, beginning with the first such performance by the Marine Band — for noted musical enthusiast Thomas Jefferson.
Other names on the list include the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and several vocal stars: Marian Anderson, Jessye Norman, Marilyn Horne, and the duo of Susan Graham and Denyce Graves. In 2009, Barack Obama broke the pattern with some instrumental chamber music: the premiere of John Williams’ Air and Simple Gifts by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, clarinetist Anthony McGill, and pianist Gabriela Montero.
