After two days of impressive performances by the nineteen participants in the Cooper International Violin Competition, the Jury selected six to advance to Round Two. Yesterday at Oberlin Conservatory’s Warner Concert Hall, the six contestants — each vying for a spot among the final three — presented 45-minute programs with piano. Here are our impressions. [Read more…]
DIARY: Thursday, January 9, 2025
by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30, French conductor Stéphane Denève and The Cleveland Orchestra take the Severance Music Center audience on a guided tour of the City of Light, featuring George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. Elsewhere on the all-French program, saxophonist Steven Banks solos in the Cleveland premiere of Guillaume Connesson’s A Kind of Trane, a tribute to John Coltrane, and the Orchestra fills out the program with Darius Milhaud’s jazz-inspired La création du monde, and Francis Poulenc’s Suite from Les biches.
Also tonight at 7:30, the next-to-last event of the Cooper International Violin Competition is an Honors Recital featuring outstanding performances selected from the first three days of competition. It’s live in Oberlin’s Warner Concert but you can log into webcasts at oberlin.edu and The Violin Channel.
For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Cooper Violin Competition announced this morning on Facebook: “Last night, Thomas and Evon Cooper joined the judges in congratulating participants and presented awards at the conclusion of round two of the competition. Receiving awards and congratulations were Jinan Laurentia Woo (4th place), Emrik Revermann (5th place and audience prize), and Lauren Yoon (6th place). Continuing to the Concerto Finals are Julia Xiaozhuo Wang, Edna Unseld, and Tiantian Lu.” The final round takes place on Friday at 7:30 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel with the Columbus Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra.
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced that violinist Augustin Hadelich will step in for Hilary Hahn in concerts at Severance Music Center from January 16-18. Hahn continues to recover from injuries sustained last summer. Hadelich will be featured in the Brahms concerto, and Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra will be led by the previously announced conductor Elim Chan. [Read more…]
DIARY, Tuesday, January 7, 2025
by Daniel Hathaway
Thanks to construction, Oberlin’s Cooper International Violin Competition has moved — perhaps more than temporarily – from the late summer to early January, with opening rounds continuing this afternoon and evening in Warner Concert Hall. Read a preview interview with director Sibbi Bernhardsson here and enjoy hearing young violinists ages 13-18 play 30-minute programs live or via webcasts at oberlin.edu and The Violin Channel beginning at 2:30 and continuing at 7:30.
And at 2 pm, Congregation Mishkan Or in Beachwood presents the Acadia Trio (pictured), Maude Cloutier, violin, Ari Peraza-Webb, cello, and Jude Giddens, piano. For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Akron’s Tuesday Musical reports that its forthcoming performance by the Czech National Philharmonic on February 11 has been canceled, as has the orchestra’s entire U.S. tour, due to work visa problems. Details here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
French composer Francis Poulenc was born on this date in 1899, making January 7 a good occasion to revisit his Flute Sonata. [Read more…]
DIARY, Weekend, January 4-5, 2025
by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday at 2 pm and Sunday at 3:30, The Cleveland Opera presents “Mozart, Still, and Christmas” a one-hour, costumed, semi-staged concert at Kent’s Faith Lutheran Church (Saturday) and Cleveland’s St. Casimir Church (Sunday).
And on Sunday at 4 pm, Church of the Western Reserve Concert Series presents the Acadia Trio in piano trios by Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn.
For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
INTERESTING READ:
In a New York Times guest essay published on December 28, pianist Jonathan Biss (pictured) discusses Franz Schubert’s last three piano sonatas, written in 1828, just two months before the composer died. Read “Schubert Is the Best Cure I Know for Loneliness” here, and don’t skip the reader comments.
WEEKEND ALMANAC by Jarrett Hoffman
January 4:
On this date in 1950, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) announced that it would produce LPs — 33 1/3 rpm long playing records — following the lead established by Columbia Records in 1948. [Read more…]
DIARY, Friday, January 3, 2025
by Daniel Hathaway
No events are scheduled for today. Enjoy an interesting read and celebrate a classical music milestone from the past.
For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
The Cleveland Orchestra’s 45th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Concert, scheduled for January 19 at 7 pm at Severance Music center, will offer “a journey through the life of civil rights leader and author Coretta Scott King,” the wife of Dr. King, “an accomplished soprano and activist who used music to inspire, uplift, and mobilize people.” Free tickets will be available beginning at 10 AM on Saturday, January 4, with a limit of four per household. Learn more here.
INTERESTING READ:
Opera is for Everyone
Although opera has a reputation as an antiquated pastime for rich people, this thrilling art form ought to be enjoyed by all. Read the article by Annie Levin in Current Affairs here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC by Jarrett Hoffman:
One of the most interesting characters to appear in our Almanac has to be Victor Borge (pictured above), the Danish-American comedian and pianist who was born on this date in 1909 in Copenhagen. [Read more…]
DIARY, Thursday, January 2, 2025
by Daniel Hathaway
No events are scheduled for today. Enjoy a couple of interesting reads and celebrate some classical music milestones in the past.
For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Tuesday Musical’s 2025 Annual Scholarship Competition — to be held in Akron on Saturday, March 22 and on Saturday, March 15 for organists — is now receiving online applications through February 1. Click here for eligibility criteria, repertory, and other details.
INTERESTING READS:
What Accounts For Those New Year’s Music Traditions?
“For old time’s sake, we sing Auld Lang Syne. We embrace the waltz to remember and ward off depression. Everywhere in the world there are New Year’s concerts featuring Strauss waltzes.” — Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times
How Lutherans Saved The Organ For (And From) The Reformation
“Early on, many in the Protestant movement saw organ music as just another Popish frippery; even Luther disapproved of it at first. He changed his mind, of course, and the presence of the organ in church became a major point of conflict, and even identity, between Lutherans and Calvinists.” –Anna Steppler in History Today
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1747, French composer, violinist and conductor Jean-Fery Rebel wrote finis to a distinguished career in Paris, where he was born on 18 April 1666. [Read more…]
A Message from Daniel Hathaway
As I write this end-of-calendar-year letter, I’m pleased to announce the renewal of our San Francisco Conservatory grant “to support the publication of classical music reviews, previews, profiles, and features” as one of the publications supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.
We’re delighted to continue being part of a distinguished group of publications that includes the Boston Globe, the Dallas Morning News, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Baltimore Sun, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Chicago Tribune, who are keeping the great tradition of classical music journalism alive amid drastic changes in the industry.
That said, we would be nothing without the outstanding local musicians who provide us with such interesting topics to write about. In addition to a full concert calendar, look out in the new year for features about the 15th anniversaries of Blue Water Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir, the Grammy-nominated classical producers of the year, Erica Brenner and Elaine Martone, and the 2025 edition of the Cooper International Violin Competition. And that’s just at the beginning of January.
ClevelandClassical.com provides a unique service to Northeast Ohio’s vibrant classical music scene, a valuable source of information for presenters, musicians, and audiences alike.
If you use and appreciate what we offer, we hope you’ll consider making a tax-exempt gift to ClevelandClassical as we close out 2024. Click here for easy ways to do that.
With grateful thanks and best wishes for 2025,
Daniel Hathaway
President
DIARY
The Diary will be on hiatus from December 23 through January 1.
DIARY, Friday, December 20, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
It’s the Winter Solstice, the longest night and shortest day of the year. (Left: the sun rises over Stonehenge in England.)
At 7 pm, Arts Renaissance Tremont hosts Burning River Brass — a longstanding tradition — for a holiday pops concert at St. Wendelin Church.
At 7:30, Cleveland Chamber Choir presents a concert centered around David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion, a modern day retelling of the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen story, influenced by Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, at the Cleveland School of the Arts. Read a preview article here.
Also at 7:30, Sarah Hicks presides over a Cleveland Orchestra Holiday Concert featuring vocalist Jimmie Herrod, the Orchestra Chorus, the Youth Chorus Chamber Ensemble, and The College of Wooster chorus at Severance music Center.
For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
NEWS BYTES:
The Hohens International Piano Competition has released the names of the 51 pianists who will compete in its quarterfinal rounds in Calgary, Alberta. Cleveland piano fans will recognize at least three of them: Maxim Lando, Evren Ozel, and Yuanfan Yang. [Read more…]
DIARY, Thursday, December 19, 2024
by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Burning River Brass plays its Holiday Pops program at the Bath Church in Akron tonight at 7 pm.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s live-to-picture screening of Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol is sold out.
For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The annual Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition alternates between pianists and violinists. This year young violinists ages 13-18 will compete in the event, which moves from the summer to January. After the drawing for performance order on January 5, live rounds at the Oberlin Conservatory will begin on Monday, January 6 and conclude with Concerto Finals with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra on Friday, January 10. Each round will be open to the public and will be streamed live.
Click here to view the slate of participants.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
French composer, organist, and harpsichordist Louis Nicholas Clérambault was born on December 19, 1676 in Paris. [Read more…]