A two-week calendar is published every Monday. Dates with no scheduled events are not listed.
APRIL 30 – TUESDAY
12:00 pm – Covenant Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concerts: Kingsley Price Wood, organ. Olivier Messiaen’s Mass for Pentecost (complete). Church of the Covenant, 11205 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering. Click here for the live stream.
7:30 pm – Oberlin Djembe Orchestra led by Grammy nominated Djembist Weedie Braimah. The ensemble will be joined by fourth-year student Kelsi Bolden on the balafon. Finney Chapel, 90 North Professor Street, Oberlin. Free. Click here for livestream.
MAY 1 – WEDNESDAY
12:00 pm – Trinity Brownbag Concert. Chamber music with guest cellist John Walz of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio and Brahms’ Piano Quartet. Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering.
7:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra, Legacy: Past, Present, and Future. Valerie Coleman’s Portraits of Langston, Allison Loggins-Hull’s Persist and excerpts from Choir Boy. Karamu Artists, Musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra, and Allison Loggins-Hull, composer and curator. Karamu House’s Jelliffe Theater 2355 East 89th St, Cleveland. Free but tickets required.
[SOLD OUT] 7:00 pm – Cleveland Museum of Art. Alex Cuba (born Alexis Puentes), is known worldwide for his sugarcane-sweet melodies, pop-soul hooks, and powerful guitar riffs that relinquish a conventional stereotype that exemplifies much of the Latin music landscape. His musical evolution is about searching for the simplicity and soul in Cuban music—taking apart the complex arrangements, mixing these with North American influences, adopting the melodic simplicity of pop music, and looking to Cuban folk traditions for inspiration. Transformer Station, 1460 West 29th Street, Cleveland. Tickets available online.
7:30 pm – Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Timothy Weiss leads works by trombonist and composer Alex Paxton. Warner Concert Hall, 77 West College Street, Oberlin. Free. Click here for livestream.
MAY 2 – THURSDAY
7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra: Franz Welser-Möst, conductor, Lang Lang, piano. Program includes Saint-Saëns’s piano concerto No. 2 and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Tickets available online.
7:30 pm – Oberlin Sinfonietta conducted by Timothy Weiss. Program includes Stephen Hartke’s The Rose of the Winds, Wesley Horner’s Three Songs for Baritone and Orchestra with Timothy LeFebvre (world premiere), Graham Lazorchak’s Letters for Lili (world premiere) and Jesse Jones’ Tune Book with Jake Jolliff (world premiere). Warner Concert Hall, 77 West College Street, Oberlin. Free. Click here for livestream
MAY 3 – FRIDAY
11:00 am – The Cleveland Orchestra: Franz Welser-Möst, conductor. Program includes Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Tickets available online.
12:00 pm – Tri-C Classical Piano Series: “101 Pianists” with Lang Lang, This keyboard extravaganza aims to inspire the next generation of music lovers and performers by engaging 100 local young pianists with international piano superstar Lang Lang in a unique community-centered program that celebrates the beauty and social nature of the piano. An educational workshop and performance featuring works by Schubert and Brahms. Cuyahoga Community College Metro Auditorium, E. 30th & Woodland, Cleveland. Free but tickets required.
7:30 pm – Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. Raphael Jiménez leads Cashel Day-Lewis’s Black River Prelude (world premiere), Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in e with Jiongli Wang, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Finney Chapel 90 North Professor Street, Oberlin. Free. Click here for livestream.
7:30 pm – Oberlin Collegium Musicum, led by Steven Plank. The program includes works by Josquin Desprez, Orlande de Lassus, Pierre Villette, Josquin, Pierre Villette, and Ludwig Senfl. Fairchild Chapel – Bosworth Hall, 50 West Lorain Street, Oberlin. Free, Click here for livestream.
8:00 pm – Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: Daniel Reith, conductor. Program includes Valerie Coleman’s Umoja, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, and Lalo’s Cello Concerto with COYO concerto competition winner Eleana Ziegler as soloist. Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Tickets available online.
MAY 4 – SATURDAY
7:30 pm – BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: “Jason Vieaux Plays Vivaldi.” Daniel Meyer, conductor, and Jason Vieaux, guitar. Vivaldi’s Concerto in D, RV 93, Dorman’s How to Love, and Beethoven: Symphony No. 7. Church of the Covenant, 11205 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Pay-what-you-wish tickets available online.
7:30 pm – Cleveland Philharmonic. Victor Liva leads Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and Chausson’s Poème and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen with violinist Odin Rathnam as soloist. Waetjen Auditorium, Cleveland State University, 2100 Euclid Ave. Tickets available online.
7:30 pm – Oberlin Collegium Musicum, led by Steven Plank. The program includes works by Josquin Desprez, Orlande de Lassus, Pierre Villette, Josquin, Pierre Villette, and Ludwig Senfl. Fairchild Chapel – Bosworth Hall, 50 West Lorain Street, Oberlin. Free, Click here for livestream.
8:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra: Franz Welser-Möst, conductor, Lang Lang, piano. Program includes Saint-Saëns’s piano concerto No. 2 and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Tickets available online.
MAY 5 – SUNDAY
2:00 pm – North Coast Winds. The Jazz Fascination. Kimberly Zaleski (flute), Danna Sundet (oboe), Ben Chen (clarinet), Arleigh Savage (bassoon), and Emily Shelley (horn) explore the parallel stories of how the distinctly American art form of jazz reframed musical possibilities around the globe — while also tracking the incredibly rich cultural-moment for woodwind chamber music to popularize. Hudson Library and Historical Society, 96 Library Street, Hudson. Free with Registration.
2:30 pm – Tuesday Musical Scholarship Competition Final Round and Winners Concert. Guzzetta Recital Hall, 157 University St., Akron.
2:30 pm – Oberlin College Choir and Musical Union, Gregory Ristow director. This program, under the direction of Gregory Ristow, features Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem and three world premieres by Conservatory student composers written for the Lorain County Bicentennial. Finney Chapel, 90 North Professor Street, Oberlin. Free. Click here for livestream.
3:00 pm – Cleveland Philharmonic. Victor Liva leads Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and Chausson’s Poème and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen with violinist Odin Rathnam as soloist. Westlake Performing Arts Center, 27830 Hilliard Blvd. Tickets available online.
3:00 pm – Parma Symphony: Program includes Strauss’ Radetzky March, Bruch’s Concerto for Violin with Samuel Rotberg and Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Valley Forge High School Auditorium, 9999 Independence Blvd., Parma Heights. Tickets available online.
3:00 pm – Organist Davis Badaszewski plays Preludium pro Organo pleno, (BWV 552) by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ciacona in f-moll by Johann Pachelbel, Ricercar del nono tono by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Praeludium in fis-moll by Dieterich Buxtehude, and Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit by Johann Sebastian Bach. First Church Congregational, 22 Liberty Street, Painesville. Free.
3:30 pm – Heights Chamber Orchestra. Frank Wiley, conductor and Perry Roth, alto saxophone. Music includes Holst’s A Somerset Rhapsody, Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto, and Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 (“Eroica”). St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2747 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Hts. Free.
4:00 pm – Arts Renaissance Tremont: Verona String Quartet, with the Cavani String Quartet. Program includes Andrew Rindfleisch’s Phantasmagoria for String Octet. St. Wendelin Church, 2281 Columbus Rd., Tremont. Freewill offering.
4:30 pm – Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day. This program will feature speakers including Holocaust survivor Carol Wilner, a performance of songs by soprano and Oberlin Conservatory alumna Emily Mandell with pianist Thomas Bandy, and a performance of Gideon Klein’s String Trio by Oberlin Conservatory String Department faculty—violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson, violist Kirsten Docter, and cellist Dmitry Kouzov. This piece was written in Terezín by Klein 10 days before he was moved to Auschwitz. He perished at the sub-camp of Fürstengrube in 1944. Bernhardsson will perform on one of the violins from the Violins of Hope collection. Three additional violins from the collection will be on display in the Conservatory. Warner Concert Hall, 77 West College Street, Oberlin. Free. Click here for live stream.
7:30 pm – The West Shore Chorale. Micheal Lisi leads Joseph Haydn’s Maria Theresa Mass and Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria. Annalise Dzwonczyk (soprano), Elizabeth Frey (alto), Brian Skoog (tenor), and Tom Scurich (bass). Avon Lake High School Performing Arts Center, 175 Avon Belden Road, Avon Lake. Students free. Click here for more information.
MAY 6 – MONDAY
7:30 pm – Rocky River Chamber Music Society: Afendi Yusuf, clarinet, Wesley Collins, viola, with pianist Dawoon Chung. Trios by Bruch and Mozart. West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, 20401 Hilliard Blvd., Rocky River. Free.
MAY 7 – TUESDAY
7:00 pm – Les Délices: Sounds of Sancho’s London, Debra Nagy, oboe & director, Andréa Walker, soprano, Julie Andrijeski, violin, Rebecca Landell, cello & Mark Edwards, harpsichord. A man of letters, merchant, abolitionist, theater lover, and musician, Charles Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) made history as the first British man of African descent to vote in a general election. Les Délices’ newest program explores the “Sounds of Sancho’s London” with music composed and published by Sancho himself as well as that of his contemporaries. Rocky River Public Library, 1600 Hampton Rd. Free.
7:30 pm – Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Garrick Ohlsson, piano. Beethoven’s Sonata No. 6 in F, Op. 10, No. 2, Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasie, Thomas Misson’s Convocations (2023) 7 Chopin’s Variations brillantes, Op. 12, Nocturne in B, Op. 62, No. 1 & Scherzo No. 2 in b-flat, Op. 31. Disciples Christian Church, 3663 Mayfield Rd, Cleveland Heights. Tickets available online. Clevelandchambermusic.org
MAY 8 – WEDNESDAY
12:00 pm – Trinity Brownbag Concert, Chamber music cellist John Walz & pianist Elizabeth DeMio. Antonín Dvořák’s Sonatina and César Franck’s (Violin) Sonata. Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering.
MAY 9 – THURSDAY
7:30 pm – Canton Symphony Divergent Sounds Series: BIG POP is a band that shatters boundaries and defies all expectations. Founded in 2021, this powerhouse collective is led by the extraordinary Jeri Sapronetti, a guitar hero and vocalist whose raw talent and captivating stage presence have earned the admiration of their peers and fans alike. The Auricle, 201 Cleveland Ave NW, Canton. Tickets available online. Tickets available online.
MAY 10 – FRIDAY
7:00 pm — The Many Moods of Melodrama: Sentiment, Satire, Horror, and Noir. An evening of short silent films exploring the melodramatic mode, with original scores performed by students from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The program includes Mary Pickford in a new restoration of An Arcadian Maid (1910, pictured), the historical drama The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (1908) featuring an original score by Camille Saint-Saëns, the 1928 film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” episode 2 of the French protonoir crime serial Les Vampires (1915), and Charlie Chaplin in the Keystone Studios comedy The Face on the Barroom Floor (1914). Cleveland Museum of Art at Transformer Station, 1460 W. 29th St., Cleveland. Click here for tickets.
MAY 11 – SATURDAY
2:00 pm – Music at Main. Les Délices “Sounds of Sancho’s London” with music composed and published by Sancho himself as well as that of his contemporaries. Cleveland Public Library, 325 Superior. Free
7:30 pm – Akron Symphony and Akron Symphony Chorus. Christopher Wilkins leads Lili Boulanger’s On a Spring Morning, Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, and Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’s Mass in C minor “Great” with Sonya Headlam and Amanda Powell (sopranos), Tim Culver (tenor), and Brian Keith Johson (baritone). E.J. Thomas Hall, University of Akron, 198 Hill St. Tickets available online.