Early Music America has announced that Ross Duffin and Beverly Simmons are the recipients of the 2018 Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. [Read more…]
Bambergers to relocate
David and Carolla Bamberger, who led Cleveland Opera from 1976 to 2004, have announced their plans to move to California at the end of the season. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra Announces Season 101
The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2018-2019 season at Severance Hall will include the Orchestra’s first performances of Richard Strauss’ opera Ariadne Auf Naxos in a made-for-Cleveland production led by music director Franz Welser-Möst. [Read more…]
Robert Schneider Memorial Service
A memorial service honoring the life and career of Robert Schneider will be held at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday, April 4 at 1:30 pm. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra Announces Chorus Auditions
There are opportunities for singers of all ages to perform at Severance Hall and Blossom next season. Adult chorus auditions for the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Blossom Festival Chorus will be held in May. [Read more…]
Cleveland Uncommon Sound Festival seeks home hosts
CUSP is in need of hosts to offer homestays to out-of-town erformers during its inaugural festival from June 6-11. [Read more…]
CityMusic Cleveland with accordionist/composer Merima Ključo at St. Stanislas (March 17)
by Daniel Hathaway
Bosnian composer and accordionist Merima Kljuo gave the Cleveland premiere of her work The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2015 in a version for accordion and piano. Last week she returned to Cleveland with her new, vibrant orchestration of the piece, which celebrates the miraculous journey of an elegant medieval Jewish prayer book from Spain to Bosnia. [Read more…]
Barnby roars past Monteverdi in March Madrigal Madness upset (Mar. 18)
by Daniel Hathaway
In a clever concert in the Recital Hall of the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, March 18, nineteen members of Scott MacPherson’s Cleveland Chamber Choir pitted sixteen madrigals against each other as though they were competing basketball teams in the March Madness bracket, inviting the audience to vote by “applauseometer” on their favorites, and ultimately declaring a champion. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra with Alan Gilbert and Alisa Weilerstein (March 15)
by Daniel Hathaway
A tone poem and a symphony by Antonín Dvořák framed Samuel Barber’s dauntingly virtuosic Cello Concerto at Severance Hall on Thursday evening, March 15, when Alan Gilbert and Alisa Weilerstein returned for guest appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra. Weilerstein’s performance of the rarely-heard concerto was as breathtaking for its virtuosity as her encore of a Bach sarabande was for its simple poignancy. [Read more…]
BW’s The Secret Marriage: questions for Covent Garden guest director Noa Naamat
by Daniel Hathaway
Baldwin Wallace Conservatory will present four performances of Domenico Cimarosa’s late-18th-century opera, Il matrimonio segreto (“The Secret Marriage”) this week at the John Patrick Theater on the school’s campus in Berea. The performances, from Thursday, March 22 through Saturday, March 24 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, March 25 at 2:00 pm, will be guest directed by Noa Naamat of London’s Royal Opera at Covent Garden. Tiffany Chang will conduct the BW Symphony Orchestra.
Although Cimarosa wrote over 80 operas, Il matrimonio is the only title to have won a permanent place in the canon, where it is favorably compared to the comic operas of Mozart. It became a hit at its first performance in Vienna in 1792, when Emperor Leopold II commanded the entire piece to be encored — after thoughtfully treating the performers to supper.
A native of Israel, Noa Naamat joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at Covent Garden in the fall of 2017 after studying in Florence and Scotland and directing theater and opera productions in Israel, Germany, Italy, Austria, the UK, and Ireland. [Read more…]