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DIARY: Weekend, September 9-11, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Weekend concerts feature music for guitars, organ, orchestra, and voice

. The Cleveland Orchestra appoints new Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow (pictured)

. Marking the birthdays of Christopher Hogwood, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, and Arvo Pärt

WEEKEND EVENTS:

Classical music concerts this weekend include a variety of options.

On Saturday at 7:30 pm, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society will present its annual Showcase Concert at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. [Read more…]

Old friends return for 73rd season of Cleveland Chamber Music Society

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by Daniel Hathaway

When you’ve been booking visiting chamber ensembles for seven decades, you develop some special relationships that regularly bring audience favorites back to town.

The first performers on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s calendar this season definitely qualify for re-invitable artist status. On Tuesday, September 13 at 7:30 pm, CCMS will present Wu Han, Philip Setzer, and David Finckel in a program of Schubert’s two piano trios in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

ClevelandClassical.com has conducted multiple interviews over the years with each member of the trio. Here are excerpts from conversations in March of 2010 that give some memorable insights into the lives of three touring musicians.

In March of 2010, we interviewed each of the musicians prior to their performance of Schubert trios on the CCMS series at Fairmount Temple Auditorium. We reached David Finckel in Vienna, Wu Han in New York between rehearsals, and spoke with Philip Setzer soon after he returned from Europe.

We began by asking cellist David Finckel about the recording of the Schubert piano trios the ensemble had just completed. What did he do to prepare for the sessions? [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, September 7, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. How did Brahms remember to cue the horns?

. Box offices get busy, Lars Vogt leaves us at 51, Putin’s war threatens future of Russian classical music

. Almanac: visiting Cleveland to compete in the Casadesus Competition (forerunner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition)

. The European Orchestra Bowl Review: Who would win?

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 7:00 pm in Fynes Hall at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, Dr. Laurie McManus of Shenandoah University will discuss Brahms’ German Requiem, the composer’s famous setting of the Lutheran mass for the dead. The Riemenschneider Bach Institute’s unique orchestra score of the Requiem, with conducting markings in Brahms’ hand, will also be on display. The event is free. [Read more…]

DIARY: Labor Day Weekend, September 2- 5, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway with Jarrett Hoffman.

IN THIS EDITION:

. Farewell to clarinetist Theodore Johnson

. An interesting handful of classical music events this weekend

. Anniversaries and ideas for a holiday playlist

R.I.P. THEODORE JOHNSON

Theodore Johnson, who began his career with his hometown orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, continued with the Kansas City Philharmonic, and then played clarinet with The Cleveland Orchestra for 36 years, passed away in Cleveland on August 30 at the age of 92.

His longtime orchestral partner Franklin Cohen has written on Facebook, “An amazing musician and extraordinary person has just sadly left us. Theodore Johnson was one of the main reasons for my seamless transition into the Cleveland Orchestra in 1976. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, August 31, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Farewells to Miss Olga (pictured) and Joey DeFrancsco

. Following orchestras on tour in Europe

. Musicology — dangerous profession?

TODAY’S EVENTS: 

Ho-hum — there are no live events to note in Northeast Ohio on this, the last day of August.

R.I.P., MISS OLGA:

We note the passing of longtime Cleveland Institute of Music piano faculty Olga Radosavljevich-Gradojevich, who retired in 2019 after teaching at the Institute for 59 years. In 2017 on the occasion of her 80th birthday, Youngstown State piano professor Cicilia Yudha — one of her many devoted students — wrote an appreciation for ClevelandClassical.com. Read the article here. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday August 29, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. All quiet on the concert front

. Charnofsky spins Górecki, Beach, Chávez, Reiprich & Hilton Jones on WRUW

. Signups for Summit Choral Society children’s programs, Bolcom revisits the piano concerto

. Anniversaries of the Longy School and why John Cage chose 4 minutes and 33 seconds as the duration for the most famous work nobody’s ever heard

TODAY’S EVENTS:

From 2:00 –4:00 pm today, hop on the WRUB feed from Case to hear Eric Charnofsky host music by Henryk Górecki, Douglas Anderson, Amy Beach, Carlos Chávez, Bruce Reiprich and Hilton Jones.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Summit Choral Society announces open registration for its children’s programs K-12. Follow this link. [Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend August 26 -28, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Events: Cleveland Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with Vadim Gluzman (pictured), Stars of Summer, Tuesday Musical Passport series, Tailgating with Cleveland Opera Theater

. CityMusic announces 2022-23 season

.  Arthur Loesser, Eric Coates, and Aspen Music Festival celebrate birthdays

WEEKEND EVENTS:

The Cleveland Orchestra is off to Europe for its first European tour since 2018. Friday night at 7:30 pm you can catch the second sendoff concert at Severance Music Center, when Franz Welser-Möst will lead Richard Strauss’ Macbeth, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks & Suite from Der Rosenkavalier (compiled by Welser-Möst) & Alban Berg’s Three Pieces from Lyric Suite. Tickets can be ordered online.

On Saturday, August 27 at 7:30 pm, New York’s celebrated Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, “a radical experiment in musical democracy” that plays without a conductor, will make a guest appearance at Blossom with violinist Vadim Gluzman as soloist. [Read more…]

PianoDays @CLE: Michelle Cann features music of Florence Price (Aug. 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Pianist Michelle Cann freely admits she was as unaware as everyone else about the music of Florence Price until a trove of Price’s compositions turned up in the composer’s former summer home in Chicago in 2009.

Since then, Cann has become one of Price’s most enthusiastic advocates, as she made clear to the audience in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on August 11. Her program, part of Piano Cleveland’s PianoDays @CLE, wrapped works by Chopin, Brahms, Clara Schumann, and Margaret Bonds around Price’s Sonata in e and Fantasie Nègre No. 1, also in e minor. I heard the performance through the livestream. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, August 24, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Philadelphia Orchestra breaks off a date in Edinburgh over chorus masking

. remembering Louis Teicher

TODAY’S EVENTS: 

There’s nothing to highlight on the calendar today — late August has arrived!

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Philadelphia Orchestra, about to embark on a European tour, has canceled tomorrow’s scheduled performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Edinburgh Festival because the 130-voice Edinburgh Festival Chorus is refusing to perform wearing face masks. Read the Philadelphia Inquirer story here. [Read more…]

Piano Days @CLE: Igudesman & Joo (July 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Because it usually takes itself so seriously, classical music is a sitting duck for parody and satire. But the art form also has a divinely installed funny bone that allows its artists to lampoon themselves and their craft, even while producing high quality performances.

This humor can take many forms, from the deadpanning of that great Dane, Victor Borge (while unwrapping and eating a sandwich between solo passages in a concerto), and the plummy but wicked commentary of Anna Russell (particularly on Wagner), to the down-home musicological wackiness of Peter Shickele, often accompanied by his favorite prop, the bassoon.

Violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo, who originally met over a plate of fish and chips at England’s Yehudi Menuhin School, jack up the game significantly with slapstick and athleticism. [Read more…]

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