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DIARY: Friday, March 1, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

An 11am matinee at Severance Music Center features The Cleveland Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki, conductor, and Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano.

At 7 tonight, CIM Opera Theater: stages Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and the Cleveland Cello Society presents “Cello Plus One,” featuring six duos for cello plus another instrument.

Tonight at 7:30 pm Raphael Jiménez leads the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in Finney Chapel (webcast available) and at 8, vocalist Connor Bogart O’Brien joins Carl Topilow and Cleveland Pops Orchestra in Champagne & Shamrocks at Severance Music Center.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, February 29, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, Trobár Medieval presents “I Sing a New Song, The Epic Journey of a Traveling Musician in the Middle Ages,” and at 7:30 Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki leads pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and The Cleveland Orchestra in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony at Severance Music Center.

Meanwhile, at Oberlin, tenor Joshua Blue will be featured with the Oberlin Sinfonietta in a program of music by Olly Wilson, Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Frazier & Wendell Logan led by Tim Weiss (webcast available).

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

On Thursday evening, Cuyahoga Community College released the lineup for its 45th Tri-C JazzFest, scheduled for June 20-22, 2024. View or download the press release here.

Ursuline College will honor Apollo’s Fire founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell as the 2024 recipient of its Women Who Light the Way Award “for her contributions to the world of music and her inspiration to women everywhere to pursue their dreams.” [Read more…]

David Hurd to play David Boe Memorial Concert at Oberlin

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin Conservatory alumnus David Hurd has been tapped to play a David Boe Memorial Concert on the Fisk organ in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel on Sunday, March 3 at 4:30 pm. His program comprises some two decades of his own compositions.

Boe was a beloved professor of organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1962 to 2008 who also served as the ninth dean of the Conservatory.

David Hurd is among the most celebrated church musicians and concert organists in the United States. He received the American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer award in 2010, and currently serves as organist and choirmaster of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City.

I reached Hurd at home in New York via Zoom to talk about his career, his experiences at Oberlin, and his program on Sunday. I began by asking him about his relationship to Boe as a student. [Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, February 27, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At Noon, organist Natalie Mealey plays music by Storace, J.S. Bach, Buxtehude & Frescobaldi at the Church of the Covenant, and at 5:30, Jim Riggs and Tyler Young offer a 50-minute rush hour program of music for organ and saxophone at Fairmount Presbyterian Church.

Tonight at 7:30, Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents cellist Steven Isserlis & pianist Connie Shih at Disciples Church, and the CIM Orchestra  pays a visit to Severance Music Center with guest conductor Leonard Slatkin.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

INTERESTING READS:

British Cellist Steven Isserlis returns to Northeast Ohio tonight, where he studied with Richard Kapuscinski at the Oberlin Conservatory from 1976 to 1978, to play a recital on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series with pianist Connie Shih.

This is a good time to have a look at the multi-talented musician’s biography and involvements, richly detailed on his website. Among them, his writings. Click on “Steven’s Books” to read about Why Handel Waggled His Wig, the sequel to Why Beethoven Threw the Stew. [Read more…]

BW Opera: Taking Up Serpents (Feb. 2 & 4)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater became only the fourth company — and the first collegiate one — to stage Kamala Sankaram and Jerre Dye’s provocative Taking Up Serpents when the show opened at the Kleist Center for Theater and Drama in Berea on February 2.

Masterfully directed by Scott Skiba with a talented student cast and a 13-piece professional chamber ensemble tightly conducted by Dean Buck, the one-act, 80-minute piece commissioned by Washington National Opera centers around 25-year-old Kayla, the daughter of a Holiness preacher in the Deep South.

A “lost soul and a wanderer,” Kayla’s on a quest to establish her own relationship with God outside the smothering confines of a patriarchal church that handles snakes, speaks in tongues, and indulges in other questionable practices invented by Christian charismatics. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Delivers wonderful, Majestic spin on tradition in ‘Beethoven’s Pastoral program (Feb. 22)

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Originally posted on Cleveland.com

Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The four Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Severance Music Center this weekend are as traditional in form as orchestral programs can be. Although they follow the long-established formula of Overture – Concerto – Symphony and feature standard works by Beethoven, Haydn, and Beethoven again, the interpretation of those pieces on Thursday evening was anything but business as usual.

Making their Cleveland Orchestra debuts in this “Beethoven’s Pastoral” program on Thursday, guest conductor Philippe Herreweghe and cello soloist Jean-Guihen Queyras brought historical sensibility and a deep knowledge of the scores to their tasks. Performing to a large crowd, Herreweghe, Queyras, and the orchestra made sure that every note and phrase leapt off the page and into the ear with freshness and immediacy.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend, February 24-25, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Visiting Artists: Conductor Philippe Herreweghe and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras join The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven & Haydn on Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 3 (read our Plain Dealer review here), the classical guitar duo of Hermelindo Ruiz and Samuel Diz (pictured) will be hosted by Cleveland Classical Guitar Society at the Maltz Saturday at 7:30), and organist William Porter plays at the Church of the Covenant Sunday at 4.

Other interesting events: soprano Sonya Headlam & pianist Joshua Konow perform music by Black composers Saturday at 7 at The Federated Church, and there are Oberlin Faculty Recitals by Dmitry Kouzov, cello & Thomas Bandy, piano on Saturday at 7:30 in Kulas Recital Hall & by pianist Tony Weinstein on Sunday at 4:30 in Warner Concert  Hall, and guitarist Jason Vieaux will play on the Music from the Western Reserve Series in Hudson on Sunday at 5.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

INTERESTING READS:

Cleveland OpEds

In his regular Saturday newsletter, Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn gives a nod to the book, The Way We Are, containing 100 opinion pieces by Thomas Bier published by the newspaper between 1977 and 2022. [Read more…]

DIARY: Friday, February 23, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 4:30 pm violist Wendy Richman, singer Alice Teyssier, and composer David Reminick will present the world premiere Reminick’s The Story Book for viola and voice along with works by Richman, Kaija Saariaho, and Hildegard of Bingen in Oberlin’s Stull Recital Hall. At 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, guest conductor Philippe Herreweghe leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont and Symphony No. 6, and Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Jean-Guihen Queyras (pictured) is the soloist. And 8:00 pm CUSP presents LIGAMENT — Anika Kildegaard + Will Yager — and Ensemble Mercury at Convivium 33 Gallery. Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Cleveland Orchestra announced it has received a generous gift of $4.6 million from longtime patrons and supporters Myrna and Jim Spira. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, February 22, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Guest conductor Philippe Herreweghe and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras visit The Cleveland Orchestra for Beethoven and Haydn tonight at 7:30, the same hour that the Dalí Quartet play Latin works by Arriaga, Piazzolla, Revueltas, and Ginastera in CIM’s Mixon Hall (webcast available).

Two Oberlin Faculty & Guest Recitals also begin at 7:30. Lillian Gordis, harpsichord & Jérôme Hantaï, viola da gamba play music by Marais, François Couperin & J.S. Bach in  Kulas Recital Hall, while clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein joins the Verona Quartet for Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind in Warner Concert Hall (webcasts available for both performances).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances.

NEWS BRIEFS:

CIM composition professor Keith Fitch and his predecessor Margaret Brouwer have both been honored with the 2024 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. [Read more…]

CD Review: violinist Alan Choo with Apollo’s Fire in Biber’s Mystery Sonatas

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by Daniel Hathaway

At its most recent concerts this month, Apollo’s Fire unveiled its newest recording on the Avie label. Mystery Sonatas by the early Baroque Bohemian composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber feature concertmaster and assistant artistic director Alan Choo.

One of the most significant rediscoveries from the fascinating period when flights of fancy — dubbed the stylus fantasticus — dominated early Baroque music, Biber’s Rozenkranz-Sonaten lay hidden in the Bavarian State Library in Munich until they came to light in 1905.

That unique and beautiful manuscript from the 1670s contains fifteen solo violin sonatas and a concluding Passacaglia (below) by the prolific Biber, himself a virtuoso violinist. Identified only by a copperplate engraving illustrating its subject, each piece is a meditation on one of the sacred mysteries in the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary. [Read more…]

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