By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday’s events begin at 7 with Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival’s mashup of Bach & Bartok with pianists Zarina Melik-Stepanova & Alexandra Nguyen & Jamie Ryan & Josh Ryan, percussion, in Gamble Auditorium.

Marking the 25th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s murder in Wyoming, on Saturday at 7 Avon Lake UCC, Gregory Ristow will conduct the first of two performances by Cleveland Chamber Choir & Lakewood High School Chamber Choir of Craig Hella Johnson’s affecting modern oratorio, Considering Matthew Shepard. The program will be repeated on Sunday at 4 at Trinity Cathedral (rehearsal pictured above).

Also on Saturday, at 7:30, organist Robert Mollard will join Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony for Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Worship, Ottorino Respighi’s Church Windows & Camille Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony at. E.J. Thomas Hall.

On Saturday at 8 pm, Jeannette Sorrell will lead Apollo’s Fire in a one-night-only performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt with Amanda Forsythe & Sonya Headlam, sopranos, Cody Bowers, countertenor, Jacob Perry, tenor, Edward Vogel, baritone, and Apollo’s Singers in Kulas Hall at CIM.

Saturday wraps up with “A Night in Hollywood,” an 8 pm concert by Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Carl Topilow, conducting, at Severance Music Center.

There’s more to Easter Island than its iconic statues, as pianist Mahani Teave will prove in her 2 pm recital on Sunday on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Island native will perform works from her debut album, Rapa Nui Odyssey.

And there’s more keyboard music on Sunday: At 4 pm, organist Daniel Colaner will play a solo recital at the Shrine of St. Stanislaus, and at 5 pm, pianist Zsolt Bognár will perform on the Music From the Western Reserve series at Christ Church, Hudson. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus will host composer and conductor Eric Whitacre (pictured), with cellist Mingyao Zhao & pianist Daniel Overly in a Severance Music Center performance of Reena Esmail’s When the Violin and Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil.

Across East Boulevard, but also at 7:30, JoAnn Falletta will guest conduct the CIM Orchestra, with Micah Kroeker, trombone, in Brian Raphael Nabors’ Upon Daybreak, Ferdinand David’s Concertino for Trombone, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet in Kulas Hall.

And across town at 8 at Convivium 33 Gallery, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project will present Dutch composer, vocalist, poet and visual artist Jaap Blonk.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READS:

New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe sums up the character and career of the Emerson String Quartet on the eve of their final performances at Alice Tully Hall. Read “After 47 Years, the Emerson Quartet Has One More Weekend” here.

According to a 2023 report on racial, ethnic and gender diversity prepared by the League of American Orchestras, Black musicians account for just 2.4 percent of orchestra members in the United States.

But not at the Gateways Music Festival, which this week will celebrate the 30th anniversary of an initiative established in 1993 by Juilliard-trained pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, CIM alumna Elisabeth Kufferath (pictured) will play mostly contemporary music both on violin and viola on the LCCC Signature Series in Elyria.

At the same hour, CityMusic Cleveland clarinetist Daniel Gilbert will “Celebrate Black Elegance” with soprano Elizabeth Hanje, tenor Trevis Guillory & bass-baritone Benhur Mosazghi at East Mount Zion Baptist Church (repeated on Friday at 8:30 La Sagrada Familia, Saturday at 7:30 at the Shrine of St. Stanislaus & Sunday at 4:30 at St. Sebastian in Akron).

Also tonight at 7:30, the Canton Symphony’s Divergent Sounds series will present JT’s Electrik BLACKOUT at The Auricle.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

San Francisco Classical Voice remembers publisher Stephen Rubin, who founded the Rubin Institute for Musical Criticism, which now funds a number of print and online classical music publications including ClevelandClassical.com. Read that article here, and his New York Times obituary here. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at Noon, organist Jonathan Moyer will play music by Georg Böhm & Franz Liszt on both organs at the Church of the Covenant.

Tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society opens its 74th season with the Belcea Quartet (pictured), formed in 1994 when its members were studying at the Royal College of Music in London. On the menu: quartets by Schubert, Dvořák & Bartók. Come early and hear a 6:30 pre-concert interview with Eric Kisch. But don’t — out of habit — come to Plymouth Church. The concert has been moved to the Disciples Cultural Arts Center in Cleveland Heights.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On October 17, 1849 Frederic Chopin died in Paris. Having planned ahead, his coffin was sprinkled with earth he had brought from Poland before his remains were interred at Père Lachaise Cemetery. You can visit his grave there along with those of such luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and Édith Piaf.

On this date in 1943, Naumburg prize winning violinist, violist conductor and soprano Susan Davenny Wyner was born in New Haven. She made her Met Opera debut — her only performance in that house — in October of 1981 as Woglinde in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and later settled in Ohio to lead the Warren Philharmonic and Opera Western Reserve.

And shockingly, a trio of promising composers — Victor Ulmann, Pavel Haas, and Hans Krása — were murdered by the Nazis on this date in 1944 in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

No Exit new music ensemble continues its season-long survey of surrealism with the third of three concerts on Saturday at 7 at SPACES. Read a preview article here.

And Apollo’s Fire repeats its “Splendour in London” program (Handel’s Water Music and Other Royal Festivities) on Saturday at 8 at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls, and on Sunday at 5 at Church of the Gesu in University Hts.

Two organizations will mark Hispanic Heritage Month on Saturday: Sammy DeLeon y su Orquesta at Severance at 7, and the Youngstown Symphony under Francisco Noya in “Latin Fire” at 7:30.

The first of two Cleveland Philharmonic concerts led by Victor Liva with violin soloist Andrew Sords will take place at West Shore Unitarian Universalist on Saturday at 7:30, repeated on Sunday at 3 at Cleveland State University.

And on Saturday at 8 at Disciples Church, Cleveland Chamber Collective plays two performances of the fourth program in its Music of America series, including music by Claude Bolling, Jeff Scott, Ty Alan Emerson, and traditional Brazilian chorinho, repeated Sunday at 8 at the Pivot Center. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

The second installments of three repeating programs are on the agenda tonight: No Exit’s “Surrealist Games” at Heights Arts at 7, Apollo’s Fire’s “Splendour in London” at Lakewood Methodist at 7:30, and The Cleveland Orchestra’s all-Mahler program featuring baritone Simon Keenlyside at Severance at 7:30.

Also at 7, The Singers Club of Cleveland will present “The Music We Sing” at First Baptist in Shaker Heights, and CityMusic Chamber Series will feature British music at Praxis Fiber Gallery.

And at 7:30, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series will present the all-female Seraph Brass (pictured) in Finney Chapel, featuring a premiere by Jeff Scott.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Three recent press releases from The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art: [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

The first installments of three repeating programs drop today at 7:30: No Exit’s “Surrealist Games” at Kent State, Apollo’s Fire’s “Splendour in London” (in Akron), and The Cleveland Orchestra’s all-Mahler program featuring baritone Simon Keenlyside (pictured).

Also at 7:30, Gregory Ristow leads the Oberlin College Choir & Chamber Singers in a varied program in Warner Concert Hall, and at 8, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project presents the trombone trio of Jeb Bishop, Matthias M. and Matthias M. as well as sound and visual artist Sandy Ewen at Convivium 33 Gallery.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Center for Arts Inspired Learning is sponsoring an Instrument Drive on  Saturday, October 14 from 10 am to 3 pm to benefit the Play It Forward! ® Cleveland free music program for 3rd to 12th grade youth. [Read more…]