by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, organist Rees Taylor Roberts plays works by J.S. Bach, Richard Russell Webster, Kristina Arakelyan, Rachel Laurin & Olivier Messiaen (Dieu Parmi Nous from La Nativité du Seigneur) at the Church of the Covenant.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Anniversaries on this particular date in classical music history go on and on — the birth of Mozart (Salzburg, 1756) and the death of Verdi (age 87 in Milan, 1901) just scratch the surface.

Given that January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day — chosen for the date in 1945 when the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps — we’ll turn our focus to Czech pianist and composer Gideon Klein, who died on that same date in 1945 at age 25. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society will present the Africa → West Percussion Trio. Jamie Ryan, Ryan Korb, and Josh Ryan blend African and Afro-Caribbean traditions with Western classical and jazz influences at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. The Society has confirmed that the event will take place as scheduled, but will be live streamed for those who would rather not venture out in our current, sub-freezing weather.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

AWARDS:

On Thursday, the Cleveland Institute of Music announced that conductor Leonard Slatkin has been selected to receive its 2026 Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts degree. He will accept the award and deliver the keynote address at CIM’s commencement proceedings on Saturday, May 16 in Kulas Hall.

At the same ceremony, CIM will grant a Distinguished Alumni Award to conductor-pianist Kathryn Harsha (MM ’99) and an Alumni Achievement Award to cellist Rebecca Shasberger (MM ’17), artistic and executive director of Renovare Music. Read a press release here.

TRANSITIONS:

Cynthia Snider has announced her retirement as executive director of Akron’s Tuesday Musical. Austin Ferguson, the organization’s director of artistic operations and educational engagement since 2021, will assume the leadership role when Snider retires in June. Read the announcement here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the fifth and most obscure son of Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach, departed this life on January 26, 1795 in the provincial town of Bückeburg, where he served as harpsichordist beginning in 1750 and as concertmaster from 1759, and composed a large number of works in all categories. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

Here are our classical music recommendations for this weekend, selected from our master concert listings calendar.

On Friday evening at 7:30 the Cleveland Museum of Art will host the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by Timothy Weiss, with Jennifer Koh, violin, Alexandra Armantrading, soprano, Rodrick Dixon, tenor, Timothy LeFebvre, baritone, and the Oberlin Percussion Group in Gartner Auditorium, 11150 East Blvd., Cleveland.

On Saturday afternoon at 3 pm, Roger Kalia will lead the Canton Symphony Orchestra with narrator Averi Ellis in works by Clarice Assad, Benjamin Britten, Wojciech Kilar, and Dmitri Shostakovich (his Symphony No. 9) in Umstattd Hall, Zimmermann Symphony Center, 2331 17th St. N.W., Canton.

On Saturday evening at 7:30, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Ohio will present pianist Kevin Kenner and the Callisto Quartet in works by the Polish composer in Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University.

And on Sunday afternoon at the same hour, Erik Ochesner will lead the Youngstown Symphony in works by Richard Wagner, Jean Sibelius, John Williams, and Hector Berlioz (Symphonie fantastique) in Stambaugh Auditorium.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READS:

‘An Unbelievable Mess’: Artists Are Stymied by Trump Travel Bans (NY Times)

In operatic dispute, Met Opera director and designers order names stripped from Carmen (Associated Press)

Guest Essay: Stop Mutilating Classical Music to Sell It to Kids (NY Times)

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

This date in 1894 saw the first performance of Antonin Dvorák’s own arrangement of Stephen Foster’s Old Folks at Home with vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh at a  concert of African American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in NYC. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 in Warner Concert Hall, the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by Timothy Weiss, will be joined by Jennifer Koh, violin (pictured, by Roger Mastroianni), Alexandra Armantrading, soprano, Rodrick Dixon, tenor, Timothy LeFebvre, baritone, and the Oberlin Percussion Group, for a program that includes Emma O’Halloran’s meditation for metal pipes, Olly Wilson’s Of Visions and Truth, Jesse Jones’ Ennead, and Courtney Bryan’s Syzygy. (To be repeated on Friday in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art).

For details of other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today’s birthdays include French pianist Petr Eben and composer Henri Dutilleux (1916),  Czech composer and church musician  (1929). And American pianist and composer Marc Blitzstein died on January 22, 1964. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at Noon, the Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concerts feature Cleveland Chamber Choir members. Dominic Aragon, baritone, Abigail Hakel-Garcia, soprano and violin, Adrian Murillo, theorbo, Kira McGirr, mezzo-soprano (pictured), and Gregory Ristow, harpsichord, in “Madness & Melancholy — including selections from Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, mad songs, and Italian and French laments.

And tonight at 7:30 in Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum of Art will host the Oberlin Sonny Rollins Jazz Ensemble, Bobby Ferrazza, director, in original works by members of the band and fresh arrangements of Rollins’ compositions, along with jazz standards.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

TODAY’S HEADLINE:

New York’s Met Opera announces ‘necessary’ layoffs and pay cuts

The Guardian reports that “The company is laying off 22 of its 284 administrative staffers, reducing pay for 35 of its top executives (including general director Peter Gelb and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin), and dropping one production from next season’s schedule.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1575, Queen Elizabeth I granted English composers Thomas Tallis and William Byrd letters patent that gave them a monopoly over publishing music and music paper. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

In a free concert tonight at 7:30, the Oberlin Sonny Rollins Jazz Ensemble, Bobby Ferrazza, director, will play original works by members of the band and fresh arrangements of Rollins’ compositions along with jazz standards at the ’Sco (Dionysus Club) in Wilder Hall.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

The New York Times sent David Allen to sit in on rehearsals by The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Music Center in advance of their concerts this week at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Read How the Cleveland Orchestra Stays at the Top of Classical Music here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

By Jarrett Hoffman

Born on this date in 1895 in Coffeyville, Kansas, Eva Jessye is known as the first Black woman to achieve international recognition as a choral conductor. [Read more…]

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a federal holiday.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Open House & Day of Music at Severance Music Center will feature  appearances by 10K Movement, Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers, Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, The Cleveland Orchestra Learning Ensembles, and The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

The Diary & Almanac will return on Tuesday.

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

Here are our top classical music recommendations for this weekend, selected from our master concert listings calendar.

On Saturday evening at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, The Cleveland Orchestra led by Franz Welser-Möst, and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus prepared by Lisa Wong, present Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem, with Asmik Grigorian, soprano, Deniz Uzun, mezzo-soprano, Joshua Guerrero, tenor, and Tareq Nazmi, bass. Repeated on Sunday afternoon at 3.

On Sunday afternoon at 3 pm at the Hudson Library & Historical Society, Les Délices will celebrate the Scottish bard Robert Burns in A Red, Red Rose, a new program featuring his poetry and music with tenor James Reese.

On Sunday evening at 7pm,  CityMusic Cleveland will present its January Chamber Concert at Praxis Fiber Workshop. Erin Reidhead & Shreya Sachdev, violins, Anne Yu, viola, and Helen Hawersaat, cello, will play Jessie Montgomery’s Breakaway, Caroline Shaw’s Plan and Elevation & Valencia, and Samuel Barber’s String Quartet.

The weekend ends interestingly on Sunday evening at 7:30 with a visit from the Relic Ensemble (pictured above), who will bring the epic adventures of Homer’s Odyssey to life at Heights Theater through a dramatic curation of works by Handel, Monteverdi, Rameau, and others, performed on period instruments.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Among those who have left their mark on the history of classical music who departed on January 16: [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem, with Asmik Grigorian, soprano (pictured), Deniz Uzun, mezzo-soprano, Joshua Guerrero, tenor, and Tareq Nazmi, bass (repeated on Saturday evening at 7:30 and Sunday afternoon at 3).

At the same hour at the Hermit Club, Les Délices will celebrate the Scottish bard Robert Burns in A Red, Red Rose, a new program featuring his poetry and music with tenor James Reese (repeated on Sunday at 3 at the Hudson Library & Historical Society.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Stimm’ in unsern Jubel ein!
Nie wird es zu hoch besungen,
Retterin des Gatten sein.

He who has won a lovely wife,
join our jubilation!
Never will she be praised too highly,
being the savior of her husband.

Those are the words that close Beethoven’s Fidelio, when the entire company celebrates the freeing of Florestan and other political prisoners through the intervention of his faithful wife Leonora.

Listening recently to the ebullient finale of the composer’s only opera — to be performed by The Cleveland Orchestra in May — made me wonder why the celebrations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy around his birthday on January 15 every year rarely mention his own faithful wife, Coretta Scott King, who continued his campaigns against racism and injustice after his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY

Tonight at 6 pm, Piano Cleveland Live presents Spencer Myer, Chu-Fang Huang, Daria Rabotkina, and Dongni Xie, the members of the preliminary jury for The Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists, in recital at Sapphire Creek Winery & Gardens.

And at 7:30, ENCORE Chamber Music Institute presents Trio Seoul (pictured, Jinjoo Cho, violin, Brannon Cho, cello, and Kyu Yeon Kim, piano) in music by Joseph Haydn, Juri Seo, Franz Liszt, and Maurice Ravel at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

INTERESTING READ:

Can the American Oboe Sing Again?

“Building the instrument is hard enough. Turning a profit is a killer. But Jim Phelan is bent on reviving one of the great names in classical music. Read the NY Times story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

This edition of the Almanac complements today’s Interesting Read topic of …interesting reeds.

Several sources claim that the clarinet was invented by the German woodwind maker Johann Christoph Denner on this date in 1690 in Nürnberg. [Read more…]