As of June 29 at 9 am, we have received gifts totaling $15,319, exceeding our goal of $15,000 to be raised by June 30 by $ 319. Contributions are still welcome! Visit our Donate page to make a gift by Credit or Debit card and to view a list of donors to date. Thank you!
DIARY: Weekend, June 29-30, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday afternoon, the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute will culminate in a marathon participant chamber music concert (1:30-5 pm in the Conservatory’s Kulas Recital Hall & Orchestra Room), the Cleveland Clinic Concert Band will anticipate Independence Day with American classics (2 pm, Eastman Reading Garden, downtown Cleveland Public Library), and Ohio Light Opera stages Me and My Girl (2 pm in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster.)
Events on Saturday evening include a screening of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark with John Williams’ live score played by Sarah Hicks & The Cleveland Orchestra (7 pm at Blossom), ChamberFest’s Closing Night (7:30 at the Maltz, pictured), Ohio Light Opera’s The Sound of Music (7:30 in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster), and the Stow Symphony (7:30 in Tallmadge Bible Church).
Sunday’s agenda, a bit lighter, includes Ohio Light Opera’s Guys and Dolls (2 pm), a summer carillon concert by Davis Osburn (6 pm, St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.,) and a repeat of Saturday’s Cleveland Orchestra at the Movies (7pm at Blossom).
For details, visit the Concert Listings page.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Piano Cleveland writes, “In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Cleveland International Piano Competition (CIPC), Piano Cleveland has placed six golden pianos in prominent — and sometimes unexpected — locations throughout the city. [Read more…]
DIARY: Friday, June 28, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
Carillonneur George Leggiero plays a 12:15 Carillon Recital from the McGaffin Tower in University Circle, and Ohio Light Opera stages two shows: Guys and Dolls at 2 pm & Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers at 7:30 (Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster).
Tonight, ChamberFest Cleveland presents “Night Moves” with music ranging from Palestrina to Piazzolla (7:30, Disciples Church), Cleveland Lute Fest features Catherine Liddell (7:30, Harkness Chapel at Case), and faculty and students of the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute form a Baroque orchestra to play works by Lully, Leclair, and Rameau with violin soloist Edwin Huizinga (pictured, 8 pm, in Finney Chapel).
For details, visit the Concert Listings page.
SAVE THE DATES:
On Thursday. June 27, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series announced to friends and subscribers the lineup for its 2024-2025 season. Subscriptions will become available to the general public on July 22, and single tickets will go on sale on August 15. [Read more…]
DIARY: Thursday, June 27, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
At 2 pm in Kulas Recital Hall, participants in Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute will play movements from François Couperin’s Concerts royaux, written for the court of Louis XIV. At the same hour in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster, Ohio Light Opera stages Me and My Girl (pictured).
Later today, the Canton Symphony fields a string quartet for one of its Summer Serenades (6:30 at Huston-Brumbaugh Nature Center in Minerva, and the Cleveland Lute Fest presents Bor Zuljan with flutist Mara Winter in early 16th century improvised music (7:30 at Harkness Chapel, Case Western Reserve University.)
For details, visit the Concert Listings page.
NEWS BRIEFS:
From Cleveland.com’s The Wakeup today: “Months after issuing a vote of “no confidence” in leadership, faculty members at the Cleveland Institute of Music are looking to unionize — and to have a more formal voice in decision making at the conservatory, reports Sean McDonnell. [Read more…]
DIARY: Tuesday, June 25, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
A 2 pm Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute Faculty Recital features Michael Lynn, flute, Catharina Meints, pardessus de viole, Rebecca Landell, viola da gamba & Lisa Crawford, harpsichord in music by Marin Marais, Louis Heudelinne & François Couperin in Kulas Recital Hall. Also at 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera presents Guys and Dolls in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster.
And tonight at 7:30 in Harkness Chapel at Case, Cleveland Lute Fest continues its nightly series of recitals with a program of 16th Century Dances & music by S.L. Weiss performed by Robert Barto (pictured) with flutist Mara Winter, flute. For details, visit the Concert Listings page.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Cleveland Orchestra continues its summer community engagement programming on Wednesday, June 26 at 7 pm with a free, outdoor performance as part of University Circle’s Wade Oval Wednesdays concert series. [Read more…]
DIARY: Weekend, June 22-23, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday, Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute puts its participants on display in chamber music of Paris & Versailles from 1660-1760 (1:30 to 5 pm, Orchestra Room & Kulas Recital Hall at the Conservatory), Ohio Light Opera presents Me and My Girl (2 pm) & The Sound of Music (7:30, in Freedlander Theater, College of Wooster), Tri-C JazzFest hosts sets by a wide range of artists with start times from 2:30 to 9 pm (Playhouse Square theaters), and ChamberFest Cleveland presents “In Other Worlds” featuring — among many other artists — soprano Susanna Phillips (pictured, 7:30, Federated Church, Chagrin Falls).
On Sunday, ChamberFest Cleveland sponsors a Music & Art Exploration (1-3 pm at the Pivot Center), Encore Chamber Music Institute presents its season finale, a family concert with Encore Camerata (3 pm, event moved indoors to Gates Mills Community House, 1460 Chagrin River Rd.), carillonneur Dennis Curry performs from the tower of St. Paul’s, Cleveland Heights (6 pm), and Paul O’Dette headlines the week-long Cleveland Lute Fest (7:30, Harkness Chapel at Case).
For details, visit the Concert Listings page. [Read more…]
DIARY: Friday, June 21, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
Ohio Light Opera presents Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (2 pm, Freedlander Theater, College of Wooster), Tri-C JazzFest features Jason Moran and the Bandwagon (5 pm, Allen Theatre, Playhouse Square), Cécile McLorin Salvant (pictured) 6:30, Mimi Ohio Theatre), Marcus Miller/Bob James Quartet (7:45, Connor Palace Theatre) & Scary Goldings (10 pm, Mimi Ohio Theatre).
ChamberFest Cleveland presents “Paradise Lost” (7:30, Mixon Hall at CIM), Renovare Music plays “Facing the Rising Sun” (7:30 at Lekko Coffee in Hingetown), Nightingale Opera produces its final performance of Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (Cinderella, 7:30, Goodyear Theatre, Akron), and Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute presents a faculty concert featuring music of Paris and Versailles, 1660-1760 (8 pm, Kulas Recital Hall, Oberlin Conservatory — note: very limited seating). [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera opens 45th season in Wooster with classic Broadway musicals (June 12 & 13)
by Daniel Hathaway
Titles like Guys & Dolls and The Sound of Music may have been novelties in American lyric theater when they opened on Broadway in 1950 and 1959. But by now, at the age of 74 and 65, respectively, both shows have achieved classic status as successors to the European operetta tradition and no longer seem like interlopers in the repertoire of companies like Ohio Light Opera.
Marking its 45th season as a company and its 40th in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster, OLO delivered handsome productions of these venerable shows by the creative teams of Frank Loesser (music and lyrics) and Jo Swerling & Abe Burrows (book) in the case of Guys and Dolls, and Richard Rodgers (music), Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics), and Howard Lindsay & Russell Crouse (book) for The Sound of Music.
DIARY: Thursday, June 20, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
The Summer Solstice will occur today at 4:51 pm EDT when the sun reaches its most northern point in the sky during the year.
Before that happens, at 2 pm Ohio Light Opera will present the opening performance of Me and My Girl in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster, and at 7 pm, a new series, Third Thursdays at Transformer Station, will feature Ideastream’s Amanda Rabinowitz and Talons’ — the event is sold out. And The Canton Symphony has canceled its 6:30 pm Summer Serenade at the Canton Garden Center due to extreme heat.
Even though summer will have officially begun, tonight at 7:30, ChamberFest Cleveland will continue its series with “Rite of Spring,” a program featuring duo-pianists Roman Rabinovich & Yaron Kohlberg (pictured) & percussionists Tom Sherwood & Alexander Cohen in an arrangement of Stravinsky’s iconic work along with many other vernal selections in CIM’s Mixon Hall.
Meanwhile, at 7:30 pm in Akron’s Goodyear Theater, Nightingale Opera will present Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon, a take on the beloved fairytale of Cinderella (repeated on Friday). And this evening at 8, Tri-C JazzFest, will kick off a busy weekend with a performance by Take 6 in Playhouse Square’s Mimi Ohio Theatre. [Read more…]
ENCORE Chamber Music Institute: two Sunday afternoons at Harkness (June 9 & 16)
by Daniel Hathaway
ENCORE Chamber Music Institute brought its Music & Ideas Festival — and its entire student body — to Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University on two adjacent Sunday afternoons, June 9 and 16. Lectures by experts on the natural world’s often overlooked musicians were followed by artist-teacher showcase performances featuring the human participants in this summer’s institute.
On June 9, in a collaboration with the Cleveland Humanities 2024 Festival, bird and insect song was the subject of an engaging, illustrated, half-hour lecture, “The World’s First Musicians” by composer and naturalist Lisa Rainsong. On June 16, in “Earth Makes Us Equal,” the songs of male humpback whales (the females don’t sing!) was the topic of a fascinating talk by David Rothenberg, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who brought his bass clarinet along to engage in expressive duets with some of his subjects.