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About Daniel Hathaway

Daniel Hathaway founded ClevelandClassical.com in September, 2008, after a thirty-one year tenure as music director of Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral, where he founded the Wednesday Noon Brownbag Concert Series and Trinity Chamber Orchestra. A graduate of Harvard College and the Episcopal Divinity School, he also studied historical musicology at Princeton and Harvard Universities. Before coming to Cleveland in 1977, he served as head of humanities at the Sunset Hill School in Kansas City and as head of arts at Groton School in Massachusetts. In Cleveland, he has served on the music staff of Cleveland Opera, Great Lakes Theater Festival, and the faculty of Laurel School. As an organist, Hathaway has played recitals in the U.S., England, France, Germany, and Austria. He team-teaches Music Journalism at Oberlin College and Conservatory and is a member of the Music Critics Association of North America.

Thomas Adès leads Cleveland Orchestra in colorful concert of Sibelius, Saariaho, Ives & more (Feb. 20)

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By Daniel Hathaway | ClevelandClassical.com

This article was originally posted in Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Thomas Adès is obsessed with sound color, as he vividly demonstrated with the assistance of the unflappable Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus (expertly prepared by Lisa Wong) in his guest appearance as curator, composer, and conductor at Severance Music Center on Thursday evening, February 20.

Works by Jan Sibelius, Kaija Saariaho, Charles Ives and Adès himself visited a vast spectrum of choral and orchestral hues that can be heard by the ear. Some of them use those colors to make poignant social commentary at the same time.

Color is represented impressionistically in the inexorable ebbing and flowing of the sea in Sibelius’ The Oceanides and Saariaho’s Otra Mar, and through musical collisions in Charles Ives’ Orchestral Set No. 2. And in the third, recently added movement of Adès’s America: the Prophecy, in ominous musical proclamations.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Wednesday, February 26, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

In conjunction with the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Picasso and Paper exhibition, guitarist Pipo Romero makes his Cleveland debut in a 7:30 concert at Transformer Station.

Visit our Concert Listings page for details and ticket information for these and other performances.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has made significant changes to its regulations around federal grant applications — stating that grant recipients may not “operate any programs promoting ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’(DEI). [Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, February 25, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 7:00 pm, Federated Church Performing Arts Series presents Voices From the Other Side with Steven Smith, conductor, Gabrielle Haigh, soprano, and eight Erie Coast Cellists. Read a preview here.

At 7:30 pm, LCCC Signature Series presents Annie Jacobs-Perkins, cello, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra joins Sameer Patel, conductor, and Viviana-Zarah Baudis, piano, in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

Visit our Concert Listings page for details and ticket information for these and other performances.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas’ brain tumor has returned, and the 80-year-old intends to lead his final performance in April. Read the story from the Associated Press here, and his personal statement here.

Roberta Flack, the magnetic singer and pianist whose intimate blend of soul, jazz and folk made her one of the most popular artists of the 1970s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 88. Read the New York Times article by Giovanni Russonello here. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir to feature works by Salamone Rossi

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland Chamber Choir will devote its midwinter concerts to the music of the prolific Italian Jewish composer and violinist Salamone Rossi, a transitional figure who bridged the Renaissance and Baroque periods and was equally at home in the worlds of Jewish liturgical and Italian secular music. Like his contemporary Claudio Monteverdi, he was employed at the court of the Gonzaga family in Mantua.

Artistic director Gregory Ristow will lead the Chamber Choir and youth choir HaZamir in “Synagogue and Salon” on Saturday, March 1 at 8:00 pm at Congregation Mishkan Or in Beachwood, and Sunday, March 2 at 4:00 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River. Admission is pay-what-you-can.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Monday, February 24, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at ​​7:30 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society presents tenor JR Fralick & Friends — Christine Fuoco, piano, Steve Sang Koh, violin, Lembi Veskimets, viola, and Khari Joyner, cello in works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Frank Bridge & Richard Strauss. The concert will also be live streamed here.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) has announced the lineup for its upcoming Re:Sound Festival, scheduled for May 16 and 17. Click here to view the announcement.

Cuyahoga Arts & Culture’s Board of Trustees will hold a regular meeting on Tuesday, February 25, in the 2nd Floor Learning Commons of the Louis Stokes wing of the Main Cleveland Public Library. [Read more…]

DIARY, Weekend, February 21-23, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Nineteen events appear in our Concert Listings for Friday through Sunday, and rather than repeating all of them in this summary, we’re going to send you directly to that page. Click here for details of these and other forthcoming concerts, then enjoy the richness of classical music offerings in Northeast Ohio!

Pictured: Sasha Cooke with Thomas Adès, Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus. Thursday’s performance will be repeated Saturday at 8. Photo by Roger Mastroianni.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

February 21:

British poet and lyricist W.H. Auden, who provided so many words for Benjamin Britten and Igor Stravinsky to set to memorable music, was born on this date in 1907 in York.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Thursday, February 20, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight the Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra, led by Douglas Droste, features soprano Kate Tiemens in Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, a nostalgic setting of words by James Agee (7:30 in Gamble Auditorium)

Also tonight, British composer/conductor Thomas Adès (pictured) joins mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in the U.S. premiere of the co-commission America: A Prophecy, plus Jean Sibelius’s The Oceanides, Kaija Saariaho’s Oltra Mar, and Charles Ives’ Orchestral Set No. 2 (7:30 at Severance Music Center, repeated at 8 pm Saturday). Read a preview interview with Sasha Cooke here.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other forthcoming concerts.

LOCAL HEADLINES:

CIM’s concert calendar expands with the launch of a new conductor-less chamber orchestra. Read the Cleveland Institute of Music press release here.

The Cleveland Orchestra to display costumes from Marvel Studios’ Black Panther and perform live film score. Read the Cleveland Orchestra News story here. [Read more…]

Fabio Luisi leads Cleveland Orchestra in fascinating pairing of works by Colasanti and Bruckner (Feb. 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — An odd but fascinating pairing brought the U.S. premiere of Italian composer Silvia Colasanti’s Time’s Cruel Hand and the 1888 version of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 together on the same program in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center on Thursday, February 13. Fabio Luisi, music director of the Dallas Symphony, led resplendent performances of both works.

In addition to the striking contrast between their musical styles, the two pieces clock in at 20 and 65 minutes respectively — a conundrum for program planners, whose tasks would be much easier if composers would just format their orchestral works in neat, 30-minute packages.

[Read more…]

Youth orchestra, chorus deliver stunning Stravinsky, Brahms in Cleveland (Feb. 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Many shades of meaning are inherent in the adjective “youth,” some popular ones being “the quality or condition of being young, immature, or inexperienced.” Only the first of those labels applies to the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, who gave an impressive joint Winter Concert in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center on Sunday afternoon, February 16.

Although these musicians are certainly young, under the direction of music director Daniel Reith they demonstrated musical maturity beyond their years and exuded remarkable confidence and professionalism. Perhaps we should re-label these organisms as an “apprentice” orchestra and chorus, because they polished their ensemble skills with Cleveland Orchestra mentors and conductors after having learned them from distinguished teachers in the community.

Sunday’s performance further advanced the collective gains that COYO showed in its November concert, most notably in the final work, a thrilling account of Stravinsky’s 1919 Firebird Suite. Reith guided the piece with a steady hand while still allowing its many wonderfully played solos to shine.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Wednesday, February 19, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

• 12 Noon – Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concert. Five Lakes Chinese Music Ensemble.

• 7:30 pm – Drummer and bandleader Nate Smith fuses his original compositions with everything from jazz and R&B to hip-hop and pop in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other forthcoming concerts.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One of the few items to pop up on a search for events that took place on this day in classical music history was the death of Italian madrigalist Orazio Vecchi in 1605 at the age of 54 in Modena. That got me thinking about alternative ways of observing some historic milestones. [Read more…]

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