by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12:15 noon, Music Near the Market presents organist Owen Reyda, in music by J.S. Bach and Robert Schumann at Trinity Lutheran Church in Ohio City.

At 6 pm, the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts violinist Emily Cornelius & percussionist Ross Karre in music by Maria Grenfell, Cara Haxo, Salina Fisher and Arvo Pärt in the Ames Family Atrium.

At 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the New York-based Relic Ensemble (pictured) presents The Blood of the Rose, a curation of Baroque music inspired by the story of Venus and Adonis.

Also at 7:30, an Oberlin Faculty Recital presents Oberlin Conservatory’s string quartet in residence, the Verona Quartet, with cellist Dmitry Kouzov, in Kulas Recital Hall.

For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today marks the anniversaries of the births of Irish composer and organist Charles Villiers Stanford (1852) and Russian violinist David Oistrakh (1908), and the death of American composer and music critic Virgil Thomson (1989). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, Mikhail Grazhdanov (pictured) will play French Baroque music for harpsichord & organ on the Tuesday Organ Plus series at the Church of the Covenant.

And at 5:30 pm, The Regis Bookshar Trumpet Ensemble with Jim Riggs, organ. will perform a free, 50-minute rush hour concert at Fairmount Presbyterian Church.

For details of this and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Michaelmas, or the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, falls on this date each year, and marks the beginning of autumn in many Christian cultures.

It lends its name to the fall term in British universities, and gives rise to a number of folk customs, including making Michaelmas Bannock on the eve of the Feast of Saint Michael from equal parts of barley, oats, and rye without employing any metal implements. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

BREAKING NEWS:

The Musical Arts Association and musicians’ union of The Cleveland Orchestra agree to new three-year contract

Read the Orchestra’s announcement released on Sunday at 5:26 pm.

Cleveland Orchestra musicians agree to new contract, ending strike

Read the Sept. 27 article by Kabir Bhatia on Ideastream.

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, the LCCC Signature Recital Series will present the Antigone Music Collective in the Cirigliano Studio Theatre at Lorain County Community College in Elyria.

For Details of this and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date, two American musical scholars and a British musical humorist bade adieu to the world of classical music, leaving it a bit less serious about itself than before. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

BREAKING NEWS:

The Musical Arts Association and musicians’ union of The Cleveland Orchestra agree to new three-year contract

CLEVELAND — The Musical Arts Association and the union representing the musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra have agreed to a new three-year contract, ending a three-day strike and clearing the way for concerts to resume. Read the announcement released on Sunday at 5:26 pm.

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WEEKEND CLASSICAL MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS:

SEPTEMBER 27 – SUNDAY

2:00 pm – Oberlin Dan Wall Memorial Tribute, Warner Concert Hall | 3:30 pm – Suburban Symphony Orchestra at Beachwood High School | 4:00 pm – CIM Insiders, Keith Fitch, composer. Mixon Hall | Kevin Jones, organ, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights | 5:00 pm – Music from the Western Reserve, Irwin Shung, piano & harpsichord, Christ Church Episcopal, Hudson | 7:00 pm – CityMusic Chamber Concert, Praxis Fiber Workshop, Cleveland.

For Details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

On September 25, 1927, English conductor Colin Davis was born in Weybridge, Surrey. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Brahms’ Second Symphony. Franz Welser-Möst, conductor. Franz Liszt’s Orpheus, Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 2, and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center.

7:30 pm – Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. Raphael Jiménz, conductor (pictured), and David Byrd-Marrow, horn. Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia, Huw Watkins’ Horn Concerto, and Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. Finney Chapel.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

September 24 was the birthdate of two Eastern European figures who emigrated to the West: Czech composer Vaclav Nelhybel in 1919 (who ended up in the United States writing music especially for student musicians), and Andrzej Panufnik in 1914 (who fled Poland — under circumstances said to resemble a John le Carré spy novel — to settle in England). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:00 pm – Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concert, Jonathan W. Moyer, organ. Heinrich Buttstett’s Fugue in e, Nicolaus Bruhns’ Praeludium in e, & Moyer’s Fanfare, Adoration, & Beef and Doodles, in the Form of a Batalha. Click here for the live stream. Church of the Covenant, 11205 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On September 22, 1989, Russian-American composer Irving Berlin (pictured) died at the age of 101 in New York City, having contributed some 1,500 songs to the mythical Great American Songbook over his 60-year career.

One of the most celebrated was “God Bless America,” indelibly linked to the singer Kate Smith, but sung by Berlin himself on the Ed Sullivan Show on May 5, 1968.

Polish-American violinist Isaac Stern died in New York City on this date in 2001 at the age of 81. In addition to his distinguished career as a soloist, Stern organized a campaign to save New York’s Carnegie Hall from developers in the 1960s. The renovated main auditorium is named in his honor. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

British composer Gustav Holst was born on September 21, 1874 in Cheltenham. Prolific and inspired by such diverse influences as Hindu music and English folksong, he left a large catalogue of music, much of which has been overshadowed by works like The Planets that made his name famous.

Holst’s daughter Imogen recalls her father in a charming documentary, and this restored 1926 recording of The Planets with the composer conducting has been described as revelatory and surprising.

Explore some of Holst’s less familiar choral works with these recordings: His Two Psalms, sung by the Estudio Coral de Buenos Aires in 1981, his Hymn to Jesus, based on the Apocryphal Gospels and performed by the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra and Grand Chorus in 2012, and — continuing the metaphor of sacred dance — his folklike but sophisticated setting of the old Cornysh carol, This have I done for my true love, performed by the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford with scrolling score. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND CLASSICAL MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS: September 18-20

SEPTEMBER 18 – FRIDAY

7:30 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. “The Johnstown Flood” (1926), in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art. | 7:30 pm – Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble & Oberlin Percussion Group in Warner Concert Hall.

SEPTEMBER 19 – SATURDAY

2:30 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. “A Page of Madness” (1926) featuring an original score by James Praznik performed by a quintet from the No Exit New Music Ensemble. Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art | 7:30 pm – Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, 2026 Showcase Concert. Sam Hooper, guitar, and Ed Ridley, keyboard. Maltz Performing Arts Center | 7:30 pm – Arts Renaissance Tremont. UnchARTed Territory. Five world-class jazz musicians come together for an experimental evening. Pilgrim Congregational UCC | 7:30 pm – Les Délices. The Poet & the Prodigy. Treelawn Music Hall, Cleveland | 7:30 pm – Oberlin Orchestra. Raphael Jiménez, conductor. Finney Chapel.

SEPTEMBER 20 – SUNDAY

2:30 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. “Beau Geste” (1926). Rodney Sauer leads a quintet in a newly compiled score created for the film. Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art | 3:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Franz Welser-Möst, conductor, and Golda Schultz, soprano (pictured above). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. | 4:00 pm – Arts @ Holy Trinity. Astralis Chamber Ensemble. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Akron | 4:00 pm – Daniel Boyle, organ. Grace Episcopal Church, Sandusky | 4:00 pm – CWR Concert Series. Ruth Ann Scanzillo, cello, and Christopher Petit, piano & organ. Church of the Western Reserve, Cleveland | 4:00 pm – St. Noel Concert Series. Clay and Jay Piano Duo. St. Noel Church, Willoughby Hills.

For Details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings. [Read more…]