by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Freedlander Theatre, 329 E. University St., Wooster. Tickets available online.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
July 1 marks the anniversaries of two births (German composer Hans Werner Henze in 1926 and American conductor Philip Brunelle in 1943), two deaths (German composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach in 1784 and French composer Erik Satie in 1925) and one founding (the Music Division of the Library of Congress in 1897).
Henze, gay and an avowed Marxist, was influenced by the theater, serialism, Italian and Arabic music, and jazz. The 1968 Hamburg premiere of Das Floß der Medusa, a requiem for Che Guavara, sparked a riot and the arrest of his librettist. Listen to his “oratorio volgare e militare” in a 2017 performance here.
Brunelle, probably best known for his choral work with Vocal Essence on A Prairie Home Companion, gave a series of chats about composers from the piano in the Guild Hall of Minneapolis’ Plymouth Church. In episode No. 70, he discusses African American composer Hall Johnson, who wrote “choral music that sounds like a symphony orchestra.” Watch here.
And in an episode of “The Washington Connection,” Michigan congresswoman Candace Miller introduces her constituents to the music division of the Library of Congress in a conversation with division head Susan Vita.
