by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Friday: Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival begins at Transformer Station | The Mandel Festival presents The Moth Mainstage at Severance | CityMusic Chamber Orchestra moves to St. Noel in Willoughby Hills.

Saturday: The Mandel Festival presents United in Song at Severance | Master Singers Chorale perform at The Bath Church | Federated Church hosts Sammy DeLeon y su Orquestra in Chagrin Falls | The Cleveland Orchestra stages its first performance of Leoš Janáček’s opera Jenůfa at Severance | BlueWater Chamber Orchestra (pictured) and Cleveland Chamber Choir collaborate at Trinity Cathedral | the Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival continues at Transformer Station | CityMusic Chamber Orchestra calls in at St. Stanislaus.

Sunday: Cleveland Composers Guild holds its 33rd annual junior concert at the Music Settlement | Suburban Symphony features violinist Aika Birch and pianist James Carson at Beachwood H.S. | members of the Jenůfa cast light on Janáček’s opera at Severance | CityMusic Chamber Orchestra ends its season in Rocky River | Music at Bath presents Alla Boara in Italian folk music | Chucho Valdés and his Royal Quartet play Afro-Cuban jazz at Severance.

HEADLINES:

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst appoint Joel Link as Concertmaster (Cleveland Orchestra Press Release)

American Classical Musicians Publish Letter Criticizing Trump Administration’s Threats to Free Speech (The Violin Channel)

Canceled CSO recital signals bigger brewing visa crisis for musicians in Trump era (WBEZ, Chicago)

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Let us now praise famous musicians who arrived or departed on May 18. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, CityMusic Cleveland begins its portable May Orchestra Series at Fairmount Presbyterian Church with a free concert led by Lorenzo Lopez featuring soprano Chabrelle Williams with the CityMusic Community Choir. Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem is the centerpiece, and the program includes William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama, and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walk-Around.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Apollo’s Fire releases details of ¡HISPANIA!, its 2025 Summer Concerts

Performances include May 27 & 28 send-off concerts for the ensemble’s Puerto Rican tour and Countryside Concerts from June 5-9 with Puerto Rican vocalists Sophia Burgos and David Glazman and Mexican-American flamenco guitarist Jeremías Garcia. Download a press release here.

Carillon bells return from the Netherlands

Friends of the University Circle McGaffin Carillon write that “The McGaffin Carillon Bells have cleared customs (with minimal import tariffs) and are on their way to Cleveland. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

6:00 pm – Piano Cleveland Live presents Daniela Liebman, joined by fellow pianists and Baldwin Wallace faculty members Anthony and Christine Fuoco in repertoire that runs the gamut from originals to new spins on old favorites at BrewDog Cleveland Outpost.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Before lighting the birthday candles for historical figures born on May 14, let’s observe the passing of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel in 1847 at the too-young age of 43. That Felix Mendelssohn’s sister could hold her own is demonstrated in her piano cycle Das Jahr (played here on a doctoral recital in Montréal by Laurence Manning). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12:00 Noon Piano Cleveland presents Daniela Liebman in the Ames Family Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and at the same hour, Tuesdays at the Church of the Covenant hosts organist Mikhail Grazhdanov.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today we celebrate the births of two British musical luminaries who made their debuts on May 13.

In 1842 composer Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan came into the world in London. Sullivan exhibited his musical prowess early on — at the age of eight he composed his first anthem and soon after became a soloist in the boys’ choir of the Chapel Royal. At age 14 the Royal Academy of Music awarded Sullivan the first Mendelssohn Scholarship, allowing him to pursue his musical studies at the Academy as well as at the Leipzig Conservatory. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

The classical music concert calendar is blank today, so we’ll take this opportunity to reprint an amusing almanac entry by our long-time managing editor, who is currently on leave.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

A little bit about me: I enjoy long walks on the beach at sunset, and quiet days in classical music history — the kind when you can easily zero in on one or two musicians and give them their proper respect in the daily almanac.

Here’s one way to put May 12 in perspective: if all the important composers who were born on this date decided to celebrate their birthdays at the local Burger King — as we all were once inclined to do — the playpen would be so full of collisions and tears that at some point, each musician would need to be lifted into the air by mom or dad, receive a gentle pat on the back, and be taken home early. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Some highlights in a busy weekend (see all events and details in our Concert Listings):

The Cleveland Orchestra continues its unveiling of Allison Loggins-Hull’s Grit. Grace. Glory. (a co-commission, composer pictured) on Friday at 11 am, and Saturday at 8.

A Heights Arts Close Encounters open rehearsal on Friday at 6 pm involves pianist Yaron Kohlberg, violinist Amy Lee, and cellist Dane Johansen, who are preparing Antonìn Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 4 and Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat for performance on Sunday, May 11 at 3 pm at Heights Theater.

A virtual trip to Italy on Friday at 7:30 will take you to hear Ottorino Respighi’s The Pines of Rome performed by Raphael Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra, and Yubo Deng soloing in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, plus the premiere of Katharina Mueller’s Elements. It’s free, and will be live streamed from Warner Concert Hall..

Unless you’re a woodwind player, the name of composer Anton Reicha may not ring any bells, and neither might Josef Eybler or Manual Canales. Allow Wit’s Folly to introduce you to three of their string quartets on Saturday at 7 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop (suggested donation $20).

And on Saturday at 7:30 pm, Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony and Chorus will raise the roof of E.J. Thomas Hall with Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic Requiem. Tickets available online.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Akron’s Tuesday Musical has announced its 2025-2026 subscription series at E.J. Thomas Hall. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, music director Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the premiere of a co-commissioned work by Allison Loggins-Hull, Grit. Grace. Glory. 

Read our interview with the composer (pictured) here. The new work shares the program with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4, and will be repeated on Friday at 11 am and Saturday at 8.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Everybody should know the name Oscar Hammerstein II — the lyricist half of the Broadway creative team of Rodgers & Hammerstein — but did you ever wonder about Oscar I? [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, Members of Harmonia perform traditional Klezmer music on the free Brownbag Series at Trinity Cathedral.

At 6 pm, Young artists from Case Western Reserve University’s Historical Performance Practice Program present a free evening of Baroque music and dance in the Atrium of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

At 7:30, guest conductor Rebekah Fawn Heller leads the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in works by Orson Abram, (world premiere), Brittany J. Green, Felipe Lara, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Benjamin Muir, and Marcos Balter in Warner Concert Hall (free and live streamed).

Also tonight at 7:30, pianist Evgeny Kissin (pictured) will play J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 2, Frédéric Chopin’s Scherzo No. 4 and the Nocturnes Op. 27, No. 1 and Op. 32, No. 2, together with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sonata No. 2 and the Prelude and Fugues in D-flat and d in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. Tuckets are available online.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1747, Johann Sebastian Bach met the Prussian king Frederick II in Potsdam while visiting his son, Carl Phillip Emanuel, and accepted the flute-playing monarch’s challenge of improvising a three-voice Ricercar on a theme that Frederick supplied. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the executive order that created the Works Progress Administration or WPA, which along with other federal programs, gave temporary assistance in the form of jobs to out-of-work Americans during the Great Depression.

Later that year, Nikolai Sokoloff (pictured), who along with Adella Prentiss Hugues had founded The Cleveland Orchestra and conducted the ensemble from 1918-1932, was put in charge of the Federal Music Project, which supported unemployed musicians, composers, opera projects, and orchestras in Cleveland and elsewhere. Sokoloff was soon criticized for favoring Eurocentric classical music — the focus of the project widened in 1936 when Charles Seeger was appointed assistant director.

Read a WQXR story that suggests five WPA-commissioned works that listeners should be aware of. One of them is Aaron Copland’s atmospheric Quiet City, a piece written for the short-lived play of the same name by Irwin Shaw that has become an icon of the Depression Era. [Read more…]