by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
12 Noon – Angela Kraft Cross & Chase Olson, organ. Works by J. S. Bach & Cross (click here to download the program). Church of the Covenant in University Circle.
For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Sonny Rollins, Giant of the Jazz Saxophone, Is Dead at 95
“Even by the standards of a music that prizes individuality, he stood out, as both a musician and a personality.” Read a New York Times article here.
(Republished) Sonny Rollins Establishes Oberlin Ensemble to Give Back
Click here to read a 2018 Ideastream article by Dan Polletta.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1924, Irish-American cellist and composer Victor Herbert died in New York, leaving a legacy of popular Broadway operettas and classical works. Click here to watch Mark Kosower and the Ulster Orchestra, led by JoAnn Falletta, in a rehearsal clip for their Naxos recording of Herbert’s two cello concertos.
And American composer and pianist William Bolcom was born in Seattle on May 26, 1938. A student of Milhaud and Messiaen, and a Pulitzer Prize and Grammy-winning composer, he taught his craft at the University of Michigan from 1973 to 2008, and made two dozen recordings of show tunes and parlor and popular songs with his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris. One of his operas, A Wedding, was produced at Oberlin in November of 2011. Click here to watch an uninhibited 2018 Wild Plum Arts interview with Bolcom, where he talks about being a composer, “and many other things.”
In addition to his piano rags, one of Bolcom’s most popular cycles is his Cabaret Songs, setting witty texts by Arnold Weinstein. Click here to watch Eastman School of Music mezzo-soprano Michaela Swan perform several on her senior recital with pianist Jeremy Vigil in February, 2018.
