by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera continues its run of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience, with Thomas Valenti singing the role of the fleshly poet Reginald Bunthorne, and Spencer Reese the role of the idyllic poet Archibald Grosvenor. Maggie Lanthorne and her cello star in a show-stopping performance of Silver is the Raven Hair, and Valenti and Reese deliver a warp-speed version of the patter song “When I go out of door.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On July 8, 1939, Spanish composer Fernando Sor died in Paris. Classical guitarist Ana Vidovic performed his Introduction and Variations on a Theme of Mozart on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series in October, 2015, and revisited the series in the fall of 2018. Click here to watch her performance of the Mozart Variations in Germany in 2019.
Australian American pianist, composer, and folk tune arranger Percy Grainger was born on July 8, 1883 in Melbourne and became a U.S. Citizen in 1919. Click here to listen to a selection of piano rolls that preserve his performances of his popular works, and here to watch a video of his Lincolnshire Posy performed by the University of Michigan Symphony Band. In a Gresham College Lecture, Malcolm Gillies considers Grainger and his career. “But, despite his birth, was he really Australian, was he primarily a composer, and what was so great about him, anyway?” Find out here.
Speaking of piano rolls, celebrate the birthdate of American avant-garde composer and inventor Georges Antheil on this date in 1900 by spinning a recording of his Ballet Méchanique for four pianos, two electric bells, two airplane propellers & percussion (1953 revision).
