by Jarrett Hoffman (Almanac) & Stephanie Manning (Events & News)

EVENTS TODAY:

The Kent Blossom Music Festival Faculty Concert Series continues tonight at 7:30 pm with a performance by Demarre McGill, flute (pictured), and Rodolfo Leone, piano. The Kulas Visiting Artists will present works by Valerie Coleman, Lowell Liebermann, William Grant Still, and Yuko Uebayashi from Ludwig Recital Hall. Click here for tickets & here for a link to the free live stream.

Two concerts from the Ohio Light Opera are on today’s calendar. The 2:00 pm performance of the comic opera Trial by Jury is sold out, but you can reserve $20 tickets here for the 8:30 pm live stream of The Daring of Diane (American premiere of the Viennese operetta). 

Other events today include the Stars in the Classics Summer Garden Concert, “From Beethoven to Bernstein,” at 6:30 pm in a garden in Orange Village. This performance is sold out, but you can order tickets here for the second concert on July 24. And at 7:00 pm, Dominico Boyagian will conduct the Suburban Symphony in a program of Rossini, Schubert, and Dvořák. This concert comes with a freewill offering and will take place on the lawn of the Church of the Western Reserve.

IN THE NEWS: 

Oberlin Conservatory has published an obituary for Richard Hoffman, professor of composition emeritus, who died June 24 at the age of 96. A native of Vienna, Hoffman worked as Arnold Schoenberg’s secretary, then became an assistant professor of composition and music theory at Oberlin in 1954 and remained there for 50 years — tied for the longest tenure in the Conservatory’s history. Read the obituary by Erich Burnett here.

The Birmingham Opera Company has also announced a recent death — artistic director Sir Graham Vick died on July 17 from Covid complications at the age of 67. Vick founded the Company in 1987, which has become well-known for its community engagement programs focused on non-traditional opera audiences. Read the obituary in The Guardian here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One virtuoso and two inventions arrive on the shores of our almanac today.

Violinist Isaac Stern was born on this date in 1920 in Kremenets, Poland (now Ukraine), though he didn’t stay there long — his family moved to San Francisco when he was only 14 months old. After making his public debut at age 15 as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Stern went on to achieve great success in just about every way you can measure.

Onstage, he was a national and international presence, performing frequently in Israel, and making groundbreaking tours of China and the Soviet Union.

In the studio, he recorded a long list of famous concertos and contemporary music, in addition to dubbing the violin playing of actors in many films, including Fiddler on the Roof (1971).

His trophy case was certainly not lacking, from his Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by George H.W. Bush, to his six Grammys — four as a concerto soloist and two as a chamber musician.

[Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

2021-2022 SEASON ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland Chamber Music Society will present a full season of eight live, in-person concerts in 2021-2022. The Imani Winds (pictured) will open the Tuesday evening series on October 5, followed by cellist Edgar Moreau and pianist Jérémie Moreau on October 26, the Cavani Quartet on December 7 (an episode in its “Beyond Beethoven” cycle), the Danish String Quartet on January 25, Cuarteto Casals on February 22, the Rosamunde String Quartet on March 15, tenor Lawrence Brownlee on April 26, and the Takács Quartet with cellist David Requiro on May 3. Performances will take place at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights with the exception of October 5 (Kulas Hall at CIM), and October 26 and April 26 (Maltz Performing Arts Center at Case).

Summit Choral Society’s 32nd season, titled “Forward,” reflects its return to live performances, although the organization notes that it is “proud to have provided in-person singing throughout the COVID19 pandemic with no instances of transmission.” Summit’s programs include the Metropolitan Chorus, which will give three concerts during the year in Akron’s St. Bernard Church and Greystone Hall, community sing sessions with the Akron City Gospel Singers, its extensive Children’s Choir Program, “Drumming,” a hybrid experience for high schoolers and young adults, the early childhood program “Sing With Me” for children up to 5 years of age and their caregivers, and its one-week Summer Music Camps for children of school age. Read a press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On the 173rd anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention — the first women’s rights convention in the U.S. — we’ll begin by celebrating an underrecognized female American composer and conductor.

Peggy Stuart Coolidge, born on this date in 1913 in Swampscott, Massachusetts, is known for her distinctly American compositional voice influenced by popular and folk music.

Despite that, she’s better known abroad. Significant performances overseas during her lifetime included a 1967 concert of American music in Tokyo (she was also received by the Crown Prince of Japan) and, in 1970, a program presented in the Soviet Union that was devoted entirely to her music — a first for any American composer. [Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

GUITAR SOCIETY NEWS:

As we wait for the organization’s final three Creative Fusion videos to emerge in the last week of July and first week of August, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society has made an announcement to tide us over: the lineup for this fall’s International Series, set to be presented in person.

The season opens with the free Showcase Concert on September 18 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, featuring a triple billing of artists from around the region: the Gruca White Ensemble (guitarist Robert Gruca and flutist Linda White), guitarist Andy Poxon with violinist Jeanelle Brierley, and Cincinnati composer and guitarist Jeremy Collins.

That will be followed by solo recitals from Celil Refik Kaya (October 23) and Andrea González Caballero (November 20) at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. Tickets for those two events are available here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Russian composer Anton Arensky, German flutist and composer Johann Quantz, and English composer and folksong collector George Butterworth turned up in the calendar last year on July 12. This year we’ll turn our attention to American clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, born on this date in 1942 in Omaha.

A two-time Grammy winner, Stoltzman has also achieved some important firsts among the woodwind family, and of his instrument in particular. He was the first wind player to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize, and he gave the first clarinet recitals in the history of Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. He’s also a rare breed as a solo clarinetist rather than an orchestral player.

Acclaimed in both the classical and jazz realms, for a long time Stoltzman struggled with being musically categorized. As he told Kathy Wilson of Cincinnati-based publication CityBeat in 2000, “When I was younger, RCA would say, ‘We have to figure out what bin you’re in.’”

Musicians who occupy multiple genres are often asked how they change gears when the time calls for it. “What I like to feel is that I don’t switch from a so-called Classical person to a Jazz person, but that I listen to what the composer is saying,” he told Wilson in that same interview.

On that occasion, Stoltzman was returning to Cincinnati, the city where he graduated high school (one of two significant regional connections — he’s also an Ohio State grad), to join the Cincinnati Symphony for Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, which moves from a smooth, elegant, and beautiful first movement to a jaunty, modernist, and jazz-influenced second, with a fascinating cadenza bridging the gap stylistically.

About that cadenza, he said, “…you turn around the corner, and that’s where Copland basically says, ‘Kick it up a notch.’ That changes how you’re going to play…how you’re going to use your tongue, your breath, your bravado.” Listening to the composer — and responding.

Click here to watch him perform that work with Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony in 1993, in a recording full of incredible playing, engaging videography, and old-fashioned hairdos. (The cadenza begins at 6:25.)

Chamber music is what won Stoltzman both of his Grammys — in 1983, Brahms’ Clarinet Sonatas with pianist Richard Goode (listen to the first movement of No. 2 here), and in 1996, the Clarinet Trios of Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart with pianist Emanuel Ax and cellist Yo-Yo Ma (first movement of the Brahms here).

And for something jazzy, check out Chick Corea’s Marika Groove, written in 2012 for Stolzman and virtuoso marimbist Mika Yoshida (now his wife, Mika Stoltzman). In this live recording, they’re joined by drummer Steve Gadd, bassist Eddie Gomez, percussionist Duke Gadd, and guitarist John Tropea.

by Jarrett Hoffman

SALONERA SEASON 2:

In the language of the television industry — not a strange comparison considering the pandemic-era broadcasts of classical music organizations — there is reason to celebrate, because Les Délices has picked up SalonEra for a second season.

From September to April, Les Délices will release twelve episodes that, in trademark form, will bring together conversation, performance, and a diverse slate of emerging and established musicians.

Among the eclectic themes and repertoire set to be covered: “insights from living composers who take cues from their Baroque Era forebears, an homage to 17th-cent. Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a deep-dive into the technological shifts of the turn of the 16th century, and much more.” Read the press release here.

TONIGHT IN PERSON & ONLINE:

The Cleveland International Piano Competition kicks off at 7pm with its free Opening Ceremony hosted by Yaron Kohlberg and Zsolt Bognár, allowing you to meet the 26 contestants and hear a performance by 2016 First Prize winner Nikita Mndoyants.

And the Verona Quartet and pianist Scott Cuellar will have the honor of giving Oberlin’s first in-person concert in nearly 16 months. Their 7:30 program in Stull Recital Hall — which will also be streamed — includes music by Puccini, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ernst Krenek, and Grażyna Bacewicz.

Links and details in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC, WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES:

On this day last year, we honored several noted classical musicians who were born or died on July 7th in history, including Gustav Mahler, Giovanni Bottesini, Gian-Carlo Menotti, and Leo Sowerby.

This time around, we’ll step into another artistic discipline for a moment, as a gateway into film and television music. The starting point is British writer (and physician) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who died on July 7, 1930, and who is best known for dreaming up the character of that detective known for his wonderfully ridiculous abilities of logic and deduction.

Sherlock Holmes inspired a large output from Conan Doyle — 4 novels and 56 short stories — and still much more from the hands of other creative people ever since, spanning several media. In fact, the Guinness World Records announced in 2012 that Holmes had achieved — yes — a world record, having been depicted in film and television 254 times (besting Shakespeare’s Hamlet by 48).

That also means an astounding amount of music inspired by the prickly yet delightful character of Holmes and his adventures that never fail to sink their teeth into you, derailing whatever else you might have planned to do with your day.

On that note, the aptly named publication Den of Geek has done the world a favor by rounding up a long list of YouTube videos with music from the many, many Sherlock films and TV shows.

Some highlights? The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970) has to be included, thanks to its unique scoring by Miklós Rózsa, that great composer of both film and concert music. The extended violin solo a couple of minutes in is a particular treat — and is of course fitting for the Stradivarius-playing detective.

Patrick Gowers is responsible for the excellent theme to the TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (starring the celebrated Jeremy Brett), which ran from the mid-‘80s to mid-‘90s. Gowers captures a keen sense of intrigue that now feels very Holmes, and that has inspired the music of some of the more contemporary screen adaptations, including the spectacular BBC series Sherlock (2010-2017).

In the theme to that recent show — its earworm of a main melody coming in at the 1:49 mark — composers David Arnold and Michael Price hone in not only on mystery, but also on the humorous flavor of Holmes’ (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson’s (Martin Freeman) gallivanting adventures around modern-day London in this take on the story.

Finally, who doesn’t like some good, fun camp? Check out 1959’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, where composer James Bernard embraces horror in a way that should make you smile.