by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

This is a week full of competitive activity as both the Paris Olympics and the Cleveland International Piano Competition will be running at full tilt.

After preliminary rounds earlier this year in Paris and Berea, the Cleveland competition — now in its 50th year — continues with Quarter-Finals in Reinberger Recital Hall at Severance Music Center. This week, the sixteen remaining pianists will each play 35- to 40-minute programs of pieces they have chosen, “including cherished favorites, bold new works, and repertoire from underrepresented composers.” You can attend the sessions in person (tickets here) or watch a live stream. Read our overview of CIPC here.

INTERESTING READ:

Conductor Leonard Slatkin sat for an interview with the British magazine Gramophone on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Speaking about repertory, among other subjects, in a conversation with Thomas May published on July 16, he said “I’m leaving it to the younger generation to figure out what’s important.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND: 

It’s a busy three days in Northeast Ohio. We’ll organize events by their organizers.

The Cleveland International Piano Competition moves forward with its Grand Piano Playoff on Sunday at 6 at the Hanna Theater, when the sixteen Quarter-Finalists will play transcriptions of 80s and 90s pop songs  (SOLD OUT). Before that, the CIPC Concert Truck will bring portable performances by the competitors to Cleveland City Hall (Friday at Noon) & North Union Farmers Market in Shaker Square (Saturday  at 10).

Stage crews will be busy in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster, changing sets for five of Ohio Light Opera’s six summer shows: The Sound of Music (Friday at 2), The Arcadians (Friday at 7:30), The Gondoliers (Saturday at 2), The Count of Luxembourg (Saturday at 7:30), and Guys and Dolls (Sunday at 2).

Apollo’s Fire “rediscovers” Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and programs stormy Italian arias sung by soprano Amanda Forsythe on Friday at 7:30 in Avon Lake, and at the same hour, a Cleveland Chamber Choir octet celebrates the Queens of England in Oberlin’s Kulas Recital Hall.

The Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra opens for The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom on Saturday at 6. The 7 pm side-by-side concert that follows, led by Hannu Lintu, will feature Mark Kosower in William Walton’s Cello Concerto and the combined orchestras in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

The Akron Symphony plays an outdoor summer concert at Forest Lodge Park on Sunday at 7:30, at the same hour when Oberlin Piano Festival faculty recitalist Carl Cranmer plays indoors in Clonick Hall.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Ohio Light Opera stages two shows today: Me and My Girl at 2 pm, and Guys and Dolls at 7:30 in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster.

At 6 pm, the Canton Symphony’s Summer Serenades brings a string quartet to Beech Creek Botanical Garden in Alliance.

And at 7 pm The Cleveland Orchestra’s Summers at Severance series welcomes conductor Petr Popelka and violinist James Ehnes (pictured) for Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto, César Franck’s Le Chasseur maudit & Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6. Read our pre-concert interview with Ehnes here.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Akron’s Tuesday Musical writes that all tickets for its 2024-2025 season will go on sale today. Read the announcement here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Organist Robert Myers plays a 12:15 noon recital, “Going Baroque,” on the Rudolph von Beckerath instrument in Trinity Lutheran Church, Ohio City, and The Cleveland International Piano Competition’s Concert Truck visits Wade Oval Wednesdays today at 5:30 with a payload of a baby grand and a selection of 2024 quarter-finalists. Bring a lawn chair and enjoy a free concert.

Ohio Light Opera presents a 2 pm matinee performance of Franz Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg (pictured) and a 7:30 production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

CATCHING UP WITH GEORGE LI:

Gramophone reviews pianist George Li’s third album, Movements: Schumann, Ravel, Stravinsky.

Early on, Li, who is now 29, dazzled Northeast Ohio audiences by winning the inaugural Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition at the Oberlin Conservatory in 2010 at the age of 14. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

The Cleveland International Piano Competition’s Concert Truck makes an appearance at noon at Edgewater Beach bearing a baby grand and 2024 quarter-finalists Mirabelle Kajenjeri, 26 (France) & Zhu Wang, 27 (China). Bring a lawn chair and enjoy a free concert — which might include some Scarlatti (see the Almanac).

Ohio Light Opera presents a 2 pm matinee performance of The Arcadians in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster, and Oberlin Piano Festival hosts a Guest Faculty Recital by Zhou Ting and Tianying Zhao in Clonick Hall.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1757, Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti (pictured above) died in Madrid. Son of composer Alessandro, Domenico spent most of his career in Spain, producing mainly keyboard works — including the 555 sonatas that have become popular opening works for many piano recitals. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 6 pm today, Piano Cleveland takes the mound at Progressive Field to promote the upcoming Cleveland International Piano Competition with a piano-inspired evening as the Cleveland Guardians take on the Detroit Tigers. CEO Yaron Kohlberg will throw out the first pitch at 6:40 and play “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” live on a piano — a first for the venue. Tickets, available online, include food and drink in the new right field Pennant District.

Come early to hear The Concert Truck perform in Gateway Plaza and catch CIPC contestants jamming out on the piano.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 12:15 noon, organist Robert Myers plays “Going neo-Baroque” on the Beckerath organ in Trinity Lutheran Church in Ohio City, and at 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera stages Me And My Girl at the College of Wooster.

Three events are in the works at 7:30 tonight:

• the Cleveland Museum of Art’s City Stages presents Wesli (Canada/Haiti) at Transformer Station,

• the Kent/Blossom Festival features violinist William Hagen (pictured) with Stephen Tavani, violin, Afendi Yusuf, clarinet and friends from The Cleveland Orchestra performing Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet and Schubert’s Octet in Ludwig Recital Hall on the Kent State Campus,

• and Apollo’s Fire “Rediscovers” Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at Kirtland’s Holden Arboretum.

And at 8 pm, Classical Revolution rises anew at the Happy Dog on Detroit Ave., on Cleveland’s West Side.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera presents a matinee performance of Rodgers &  Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music (pictured) in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Les Délices has announced details of its 2024-2025 season, which includes an all-Mozart program featuring a band of period-instrument wind players (October 3-6), music by visionary 14th-century composers with vocalists Sophie Michaux and James Reese (November 22-24), Baroque cantatas sung by tenor Nicolas Phan plus a new work by Viet Cuong (February 22-23), and The Mermaid featuring Irish bouzouki player Seán Dagher and soprano Elena Mullins Bailey (April 25-27). Three of the programs will be filmed and released via Vimeo as Virtual Concerts. Read the press release here.

The Violin Channel reports that “The Spanish violist Cristina Cordero has joined the Casals Quartet (Cuarteto Casals), succeeding violist Jonathan Brown, who will be departing the group after 22 years to pursue other music projects. Read more here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Venues are on hiatus this summer Monday. For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

IN MEMORIAM:  LaVert Stuart, 78

Lavert Levin Stuart (pictured), music teacher, and choir director, he was a church musician for almost 60 years and served as minister of music at a number of congregations in Northeast Ohio.” Read an obituary here.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Neighborhood Connections Announces $382,114 in Funding for 121 Projects, 27 co-funded by Cuyahoga Arts  & Culture. Read the press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

July 15 presents a number of noteworthy events beginning with the death of Carl Czerny in 1857 at age 66 in Vienna. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND: 

Ohio Light opera now has five of its six summer shows up and running at Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster. Catch Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers (Friday at 2), Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (Friday at 7:30), Me and My Girl (Saturday at 2), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Sound of Music (Saturday at 7:30) & Franz Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg (Sunday at 2).

On Saturday at 7 at Blossom, guest conductor Domingo Hindoyan leads The Cleveland Orchestra & Blossom Festival Chorus in Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, trumpeter Michael Sachs will be featured in Alexander Arutiuian’s Trumpet Concerto, and the program will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3.

Jodi Kanter’s Stars in the Classics offers two “Summer Music in the Garden” events on Friday and Sunday at 6 in a private garden in Orange Village. Check out the details of “From the Classics to Jazz” and make reservations here.

The McGaffin Carillon in University Circle will get a workout on Friday, with two separate programs by University of Denver carillonneur Carol Jickling Lens at 12:15 and 7 pm.

On Friday at 6:30 pm in Westlake’s Crocker Park, Piano Cleveland Live will present an outdoor concert with Steinway artist Shuai Wang, and a quartet from Cleveland’s Italian folk group, Alla Boara.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The New York Times reports that “Gary Ginstling, the New York Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, abruptly resigned on Thursday after just a year on the job, leaving the orchestra in limbo as it grapples with challenges including heated labor talks and an investigation into its workplace culture after two players were accused of misconduct.

[Read more…]