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DIARY, Tuesday, December 3, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Giving TuesdaySince its inception at New York’s 92nd Street Y in 2012, Giving Tuesday has marked the fifth day after Thanksgiving as an occasion for supporting non-profit organizations in the middle of the holiday shopping season.

ClevelandClassical.com, Northeast Ohio’s premier online classical music journal, supports the activities of some 90 organizations through calendar listings, previews, reviews, and our daily Diary, in a user-friendly format —  a one-stop source for information about the vibrant classical music scene in our region.

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TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 12 Noon, organist Jonathan W. Moyer plays Advent music at the Church of the Covenant, Apollo’s Fire revives its production of WASSAIL! An Irish-Appalachian Christmas in Willoughby Hills, and Tuesday Musical presents mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato with Kings Return at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall.

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend, November 29—December 1, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Two orchestras are hard at work this weekend.

On Friday at 7:30, Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 3 at Severance Music Center, guest conductor David Robertson will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program of Americana for Thanksgiving weekend  featuring Pianist Marc-André Hamelin (pictured). Read our interview with Robertson here.

And on Sunday at 2 and 7 in Connor Palace Theatre in Playhouse Square, Carl Topilow will preside over A Jolly Holiday with Cleveland POPS Orchestra & Chorus featuring dancing Santas and adoptable puppies and kittens.

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Ideastream Public Media reports that “The Cleveland Orchestra’s second century has so far been financially sound. The 2023-24 annual report released Monday showed a sixth consecutive year of balanced books. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Hope and Solitude” featuring countertenor Reginald Mobley (Nov. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Apollo’s Fire concertmaster and assistant artistic director Alan Choo curated an thoughtful, unusual, and thoroughly engaging program at Rocky River Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon, November 17.

Featuring the formidable vocal gifts of countertenor Reginald Mobley, the program managed to gather under a single banner an orchestral suite and other selections by Henry Purcell, lute music by John Dowland, a suite by John Eccles, and an aria from J.S. Bach’s “Hunting” cantata as well as his solo cantata Ich habe genug. The well-attended concert ended with Spirituals that fit remarkably well into a menu of music played on period instruments.

In his director’s notes, Alan Choo wrote that this program “epitomizes the universality of music and its ability to uplift, heal, and revitalize the human spirit,” quoting the text of 17th-century Anglo-Welsh royalist poet Katherine Phillips’ O Solitude as set by Henry Purcell. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra impresses with Boulanger, Copland, and Rachmaninoff

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Anyone who believes that tired old canard that classical music is dead or dying needed to hear conductor Daniel Reith and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra play music by Lily Boulanger, Aaron Copland, and Sergei Rachmaninoff in their Autumn Concert at Severance Music Center on Sunday afternoon, November 24.

That challenging program tested COYO’s musicianship. Not only does it run deep, but it’s so sophisticated that the young players can make Boulanger sound French, Copland American, and Rachmaninoff Russian.

Boulanger’s D’un Matin de Printemps was light and airy, conjuring up in its five minutes a Gallic Spring morning with lovely solos by concertmaster Aika Birch and individual winds. Surges suggested the burgeoning surprises nature still had in store.

[Read more…]

Oberlin to present Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Ables’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar

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by Mike Telin

“What makes that document so remarkable is that it is a window into a world that we don’t talk about and that we don’t teach about, and it’s just miraculous that it survived,” composer Rhiannon Giddens told Martha Teichner during a Spoleto Conversations interview. “We have so few of these documents and each one holds multitudes in it. We have so little and it’s a miracle that we have it at all.”

The document that Giddens is referring to is the 1831 autobiography of Omar ibn Said, the only known autobiography written by an enslaved person during their enslavement, and the only document written in Arabic by an enslaved person.

During that same interview, composer Michael Ables noted that the document was written at a time when it was illegal to teach enslaved people to read and write. “And why is that? Because they knew that knowledge is power, and Omar’s power to speak to us today is expressed through the fact that he was educated.”

[Read more…]

Cuarteto Casals pays a thrilling revisit to Cleveland Chamber Music Society (Nov. 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

In 2022, the Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals was forced by a medical emergency to interrupt their rhythm of every-other-year performances on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series. Happily, they returned in fine fettle on November 12 at Disciples Church with a program of Mozart, Gubaidulina, and Brahms —  and with a new violist.

Cristina Cordero replaced Jonathan Brown at the beginning of the current season, seamlessly joining violinists Abel Tomàs and Vera Martinez Mehner and cellist Arnau Tomàs in the ensemble that was founded at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid in 1997.

Blindfolded, you could almost convince yourself that you were hearing three different string quartets during this sensitively-played program, so masterfully did the Cuarteto adapt its tone and approach to suit the three works on the agenda. [Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, November 26, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, organist Emily Amos plays a recital of French music by Charles Tournemire, Louis Vierne, and Paul Dukas on the chancel organ at the Church of the Covenant. Hear it in person or click here for the live stream..

And tonight at 7 pm, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Ohio presents an inaugural Thanksgiving Concert, Sound of Warsaw, featuring pianists Jiana Peng and Konrad Binienda. Grzegorz Nowak leads the Chopin Institute Orchestra at the Dodero Center for Performing Arts at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills.

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

CAC GRANTS:

On November 20, Cuyahoga Arts & Culture announced the approval of grants totaling $10,750,847 in support of 300 Cuyahoga County nonprofit organizations in 2025 through CAC’s General Operating Support, Project Support and Cultural Heritage grant programs. “Since 2006, CAC has invested more than $257 million in 500 organizations.” [Read more…]

DIARY, Weekend, November 23-24, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The concert schedule heats up on the weekend before Thanksgiving!

On Saturday: Oberlin faculty and guests present The Last Rose of Summer, Cleveland Silent Film Festival screens a 1925 ethnographic documentary with score by santour player Mahtab Nadalian, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra features concertmaster James Thompson, Les Délices continues exploring the 14th century Avant-garde, the Canton Symphony celebrates the centenary of Rhapsody in Blue, Firelands Symphony plays a Thanksgiving program, Relic Ensemble journeys into the Underworld, and The Cleveland Orchestra features violinist Stefan Jackiw.

On Sunday, the Canton Symphony repeats Saturday’s program, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra plays its fall concert, Choral Arts Cleveland visits music by female composers of the last millennium, violinist Amy Lee (pictured) solos with Heights Chamber Orchestra, and clarinetist Stanislav Golovin is featured with Suburban Symphony, BlueWater String Quartet plays at St. James, Lakewood, Les Délices plays medieval music at Disciples Church, Firelands Symphony Chorale sings songs of Thanksgiving, Lakeland Civic Band remembers a childhood, the YSU Wind Ensemble plays at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown, and the Baldwin Wallace Motet Choir performs in Berea.

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

OMAR OPERA AT OBERLIN AND IN CLEVELAND:

Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Abels’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar will be presented in a concert version on December 6 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel and December 8 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in Cleveland. [Read more…]

DIARY, Friday, November 22, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Four events begin tonight at 7:30. Violinist James Thompson (pictured) solos in Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in Rocky River, Les Délices presents 14th century avant-garde music in Hudson, Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts The Cleveland Orchestra with violin soloist Stefan Jackiw, and Opera Western Reserve stages Verdi’s La Traviata in Youngstown.

And tonight at 8, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project hosts Drew Wesely and Uno Lady at Calicchia Gallery Studio.

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

On her designated feast day, pour one out for St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music and musicians. [Read more…]

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