by Daniel Hathaway

COOPER PIANO COMPETITION NEWS:

Following the Concerto Rounds on Tuesday in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall, Fifth place prizes were awarded to Qinyaoyao Ji (15, China) and Yangting Wang (13, China), and the Fourth prize was given to Yixen Shen (14, China).

On Thursday at 7:30 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Anwen Deng (16, Australia), Sawako Harada (18, Japan), and Anna Avramidou (17, Cyprus) will vie for the top three prizes by playing concertos by Robert Schumann, Sergei Prokofief, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky respectively with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Samy Rachid. 

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. Herman Haller and Eduard Künneke’s The Cousin from Batavia. Freedlander Theatre, 329 E. University St., Wooster. Tickets available online.

5:30 pm – Piano Cleveland. Wade Oval Wednesdays: A Celebration of Ukrainian Roots. Honoring her Ukrainian heritage, pianist Mirabelle Kajenjeri partners with faculty and students from Cleveland’s own bandura academy, Hryhory Kytasty Cleveland School of Bandura. Wade Oval, 10820 East Blvd., Cleveland. Free.

7:30 pm – City Stages. Las Karamba. Founded in Spain, this six-woman group of mestizas and migrants create danceable music influenced by traditional styles, rap, and a touch of samba and rumba. Transformer Station, 1460 W. 29th St., Cleveland. Free. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Cooper International Piano Competition. Concerto Round Session 1. Four pianists each perform a full concerto with piano accompaniment in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory: Yangting Wang (Beethoven No. 1), Qinyaoyao Ji (Prokofiev No. 3), Yixen Shen (Grieg), Anwen Deng (Schumann). Watch the webcast here.

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera presents Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon in Freedlander Theatre at The College of Wooster.

6:00 pm – Piano Cleveland’s Piano Days presents Utsav Lal (pictured) in a concert of Indian Classical Music with New Interpretations during a full night of Indian culture at the Dodero Center for Performing Arts in Gates Mills.

7:00 pm – Cooper International Piano Competition. Concerto Round Session 2. Two pianists each perform a full concerto with piano accompaniment in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory: Sawako Harada (Prokofiev No. 3), Anna Avramidou. (Tchaikovsky No. 1). Watch the webcast here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1796, Cleaveland was established as a settlement by the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company and named after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland. (Although Cleaveland supervised the design of what would become our modern downtown, he returned home shortly thereafter and never returned to Ohio.) [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

9:00 am & 2:00 pm — Cooper International Piano Competition. Semifinals: Day 1, Sessions 4 & 5. Contestants perform 40-minute recitals. Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin Conservatory. Announcement of the six who will advance to Tuesday’s Concerto Rounds follows at 6 pm.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Conductor Roger Norrington, 91

In an obituary published by The Guardian on Saturday, Tom Service writes, “Norrington (pictured) remains still the maverick presence that classical music needs. His mission wasn’t only to make us hear the repertoire we thought we knew through the prism of the techniques and playing styles of its time, rather than the ossifications of later traditions. He was also an irresistible firebrand in performance, whose energy wasn’t only about inspiring his performers to get closer to the music they were playing, it was also an invitation to his audiences that their listening should be involved too.” Andrew Clements recommends five essential Norrington recordings here.

Cleveland Chamber Choir has announced the four programs for its 11th season, including two performances at Trinity Cathedral, where the professional choir is in residence. Details here.

Les Délices has released details of its 2025-2026 season, “Metamorphosis.” Read a press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

One virtuoso and two inventions arrive on the shores of our almanac today. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Ohio Light Opera has five of its six summer shows running at The College of Wooster, The Cleveland Orchestra welcomes conductor Petr Popelka and violinist Veronika Eberle to Blossom, Young violinists begin the semifinal rounds of the Cooper Competition at Oberlin, Piano Cleveland presents The 5 Browns in Playhouse Square, and Kent Blossom Music Festival schedules its annual Young Artist Concert Series.

Check our Concert Listings for details.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

July is a bit snoozy for anniversaries, but on this date in 1752, German-British composer and conductor John Christopher Pepusch died at the age of 85 in London. One of the founders of what eventually became the Academy of Ancient Music, Pepusch was active in London during the era of Handel. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

We have two anniversaries to mark today. The first is that of Swiss American composer Ernest Bloch (pictured), who died on this date in 1959 in Portland, Oregon. Bloch served as founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1920-1925 before moving on to the San Francisco Conservatory. After a hiatus back in Switzerland, he helped found the Music Academy of the West, and taught in the summers at the University of California, Berkeley. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1789, Parisians stormed the infamous Bastille prison, liberating seven political prisoners as well as its cache of arms and munitions, creating what has become France’s Independence Day.

Six years later, the revolutionary song La Marseillaise was adopted as the French national anthem. Claude-Benigne Balbastre, a famous Parisian organist of the time, wrote a set of variations on the tune that might be considered the equivalent of Charles Ives’ playful Variations on ‘America’. 

Balbastre, who had served as organist of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Royal Chapel and taught keyboard lessons to Marie Antoinette, somehow kept his head on his shoulders during the political upheaval of the Revolution. Click here to enjoy his La Marche des Marseillois et l’air “Ça ira” performed by Michel Chapuis on the organ at the church of St-Roch, where Balbastre played to great popular acclaim.

As Charles Burney reported, Balbastre introduced into his improvisations “minuets, fugues, imitations, and every species of music, even to hunting pieces and jigs, without surprising or offending the congregation.”

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

FRIDAY: Ohio Light Opera (2 pm, Brigadoon in Wooster)  | Stars in the Classics (6:30, A Summer Garden Concert in Orange | Piano Cleveland (6:30, Forte Fridays in Westlake | Chagrin Arts Blind Injustice (7:30 in Playhouse Square, sold out. Pictured: Brian Keith Johnson, Tim Culver & Marian Vogel).

SATURDAY: Athena String Quartet (12 Noon in Cain Park) | Ohio Light Opera (2 pm, Carousel in Wooster) | Cleveland Silent Film Festival (His People, 1925 with live score at Main Cleveland Public Library) | The Cleveland Opera (4 pm arias and duets at Darl Center in Cleveland) | The Cleveland Orchestra (7 pm Carmina Burana at Blossom) | Ohio Light Opera (7:30 Tip-toes in Wooster) | Chagrin Arts (7:30 Blind Injustice in Playhouse Square).

SUNDAY: Ohio Light Opera (2 pm, Brigadoon in Wooster) | Chagrin Arts (3 pm, Blind Injustice in Playhouse Square) | The Cleveland Opera (4 pm arias and duets at St Cyprian in Perry) | Stars in the Classics (4 pm, A Summer Garden Concert in Orange | Music at Bath (5 pm Hunter Skeens and the Forerunners. Original Bluegrass at The Bath Church).

For details visit our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

By Jarrett Hoffman

A 1,088-page book published a few years back is a timely — if time-intensive — way to celebrate lyricist, librettist, and musical theater icon Oscar Hammerstein II, who was born on July 13, 1895 in New York City. [Read more…]