by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 7:00 pm the Cleveland International Piano Competition holds a Watch Party featuring Trivia Night. Yaron Kohlberg and Zsolt Bognár will host and test your knowledge of the piano and music. Teams can be up to six people, so bring your friends (or make new ones) and enjoy great music and a chance to win a Cleveland musical prize package. Music Box Supper Club, 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland. Tickets: $65 includes your first beverage and the Music Box Buffet. Click here to purchase tickets online or call 216.242.1250.

Also at 7:00 pm is Round 2, session 3 of Cleveland International Piano Competition. Contestants perform their Second Round solo recitals of 30 minutes from around the world. Ziyu Liu (22, China), Daria Parkhomenko (29, Russia), Rafael Skorka (32, Israel), and Bowen Li (24, China). Click here at start time. Free.

At 8:30 pm it’s Ohio Light Opera’s Rare and Well Done, a concert comprising thirteen songs connected with historical personages, composed by such operetta luminaries as Jacques Offenbach, Franz von Suppé, Arthur Sullivan, and George Gershwin. Characters range from queens to sculptors to actors to composers. Live streamed from Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre, no audience present. $20. Buy tickets here.

IN THE NEWS:

The Violin Channel wants to know what you’re thinking. Click here to access the article and online survey.

INTERESTING READS:

There are two interesting New York Times articles: in one, Javier C. Hernández examines the question “Asians Are Represented in Classical Music. But Are They Seen?” Click here to access the article. The other is a conversation with conductor Oksana Lyniv, who, after 145 years, will become the first woman to lead a production at the Bayreuth Festival. Click here to read.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1796, Cleaveland was established as a settlement by the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company and named after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland. (Although he supervised the design of what would become our modern downtown, he returned home shortly thereafter and never returned to Ohio.) The name of the settlement was shortened in 1831, allegedly in order to fit on the masthead of The Cleveland Advertiser, and it wasn’t until 1836 that the settlement became incorporated as a city.

Culture took even longer to arrive on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, a history laid out by Cleveland State University professor J. Heywood Alexander in his article in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Jazz began to flourish in the early 20th century (read a parallel article by Joe Mossbrook and Chris Columbi here.)

Fast forward to 2020 to take a tour of the city with Cleveland Orchestra cellist Alan Harrell, who plays Bach in a number of different locations, and follows that up by popping up all over Northeast Ohio in a second video.

And on this date in 1933, soprano Caterina Jarboro appeared in the role of Aïda at the New York Hippodrome, the first Black female opera singer to perform in the United States. A year earlier, Jules Bledsoe made history by singing the role of Amonasro in the same opera, the first Black singer to appear in that role. His performance came in the second and last season of Stadium Opera at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a series whose first season, sponsored by The Cleveland Press, also saw the premiere of Shirley Graham’s Tom-Tom. Alas, no recordings are available.

On this day in 1949, Alan Irwin Menken was born in Manhattan. A prolific composer and songwriter, Menken is best known for his scores and songs for Disney films. The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995) have each earned him Academy Awards. A personal favorite is his score for Little Shop of Horrors. Click here to listen to “Dentist!” from the 2003 Broadway Revival Cast Recording.

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 7:00 pm it’s the Cleveland International Piano Competition Round 1, Session 5. Contestants perform their solo recitals of 20 minutes from around the world. Suah Ye (20, South Korea), Philipp Lynov (22, Russia), Clayton Stephenson (22, United States) and Arsenii Mun (21, Russia). Click here at start time to watch the free videos.

Want to hear the event with others? Pack a picnic and bring lawn chairs to watch performances under the stars on the big screen at the Beachwood Community Center, 25225 Fairmount Blvd., Beachwood.

Also at 7:00 pm is Day 3 of the Oberlin-Como Piano Festival: Master Classes and Interviews. The Marvel of the Baroque on the Pianoforte will feature an interview with William Grant Naboré and performances by Xiaoyu Liu, Leonardo Pierdomenico, Anastasia Vaorotnaya, and Daniela Jiménez Ochoa. The free event is part of Oberlin’s Stage Left series. View here at start time.

IN THE NEWS:

Tuesday Musical is offering a 50% discount on tickets for groups of 6 or more for the concert by Chanticleer (pictured) on Tuesday, July 27, 7:30 pm at Akron’s EJ Thomas Hall. Stay after and celebrate during an audience reception. This offer is only available by calling 330-761-3460 by July 22 at 5 pm — it is not available online. Single tickets can be purchased here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

July 15 presents a number of noteworthy events beginning with the death of Carl Czerny in 1857 at age 66 in Vienna. For those who only know the celebrated teacher as the person who wrote the many technical studies we all had to endure as piano students, one must remember that he was also a prolific composer  with over one thousand works — sonatas, chamber music, symphonies, and choral pieces — to his credit. Click here to listen to his Variations on a Theme by Rode, Op. 33 (“La ricordanza”) played by pianist Alexis Weissenberg.

Another passing of note is that of violinist Leopold Auer in 1930 at Loschwitz, near Dresden. While he was the dedicatee of many works during his lifetime, perhaps the best known is Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Although he initially regarded the work as unplayable and refused to give the concerto’s premiere, he later — after some re-editing of the solo part — became a champion of the piece.

July 15, 1933 saw the birth of English guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream in London. With a career that spanned over a half-century, Bream is credited with transforming the classical guitar — in the eyes of the public —  into an instrument worthy of being performed in the world’s great concert halls. The list of composers who dedicated pieces to Bream include Malcolm Arnold, Richard Rodney Bennett, Leo Brouwer, Hans Werner Henze, Toru Takemitsu, Michael Tippett, William Walton, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Benjamin Britten. Bream plays Britten’s Nocturnal here.

One year later, English composer Harrison Birtwistle was born in Accrington, Lancashire. His 1986 Earth Dances have been compared to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Christoph von Dohnányi recorded the work in 1996 with The Cleveland Orchestra for Decca (listen here), but there’s also a video of a performance by Cologne’s Gürzenich Orchestra led by Marcus Stenz.

1946 saw the birth of American singer Linda Ronstadt in Tucson, Arizona. She began her prolific career as a member of The Stone Poneys — Click here to listen to their 1967 hit Different Drum. Never content to be boxed into a genre, Ronsdadt would later star in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, first with the New York Shakespeare Company, and later on Broadway and in the 1983 film version — listen to Poor Wandering One here. She also toured with The Nelson Riddle Orchestra. She sings Falling in Love Again here.

We conclude today’s list with two local connections. The first is that of Swiss American composer Ernst Bloch, who died on this date in 1959 in Portland, Oregon. Bloch served as founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1920-1925 before moving on to the San Francisco Conservatory. Among Bloch’s music based on Jewish themes is his tone poem about King Solomon, Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque. Listen here to a live Blossom Festival performance in 1980 by cellist Janós Starker with The Cleveland Orchestra, led by Eduardo Mata.

And July 15 1988 saw Robert Shannon give the premiere of John Harbison’s Piano Sonata No. 1 In Memoriam Roger Sessions at the Dorothy Taubman Piano Institute in Amherst, MA. The sonata was written for Shannon, a long-time faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory, and for Ursula Oppens and Alan Feinberg, on a consortium commission from the National Endowment for the Arts. Click here to listen to Shannon’s recording.

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 7:00 pm, the Cleveland International Piano Competition gets underway with Round 1, Session 1. Four of the 26 contestants perform 20-minute solo recitals, pre-recorded from around the world. Today’s lineup: Lin Ye (28, China), Stefano Andreatta (29, Italy), Ying Li (23, China) & Honggi Kim (29, South Korea). Click here at start time. Free. Click here to read a preview article.

IN THE NEWS:

When Jeanne Lamon (pictured), founder and longtime artistic director of Tafelmusik, the Toronto Baroque orchestra, passed away on June 20 at the age of 71, she left the world with many exceptional recordings she had made with that stellar ensemble. Writing in the July 6 edition of San Francisco Classical Voice, Nicholas Jones has assembled an annotated playlist in tribute to the violinist who led the ensemble for 33 years. Click here to read “The Essential Jeanne Lamon.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1883, Australian American pianist, composer, and folk tune arranger Percy Grainger was born in Melbourne — he became a U.S. Citizen in 1919. Click here to listen to a selection of piano rolls that preserve his performances of his popular works. And in 1939, Spanish composer Fernando Sor died in Paris.

July 8 also marks the world debut of American avant-garde composer and inventor George Antheil in 1900 in Trenton, New Jersey. The young George began learning piano at the age of six. In 1916, he began studying composition with Constantine von Sternberg in Philadelphia. It was there that he was exposed to conceptual art, including Dadaism.  Anthiel would later become a pupil of Ernest Bloch. Although Bloch was initially skeptical of Antheil’s talents, calling his compositions “empty” and “pretentious,” his teacher was eventually won over by the young composer’s enthusiasm and energy.

During his lifetime, Antheil composed symphonies, chamber works, film music, and operas. In addition to music, his interests included endocrinology, criminal justice, and military history, and he was co-holder (with actress Hedy Lamarr) of a patent for what today is known as “spread-spectrum technology.”

An excellent writer, at the age of sixteen, Antheil wrote an essay for the Trenton High School Spector titled “A Madman’s Narrative,” which begins “I am not mad. They are all maniacs here; all but me. I, alone am sane; a great composer, yet they tell me I am also mad. Surely, sir, you will not make that mistake. See how calm I am, how measured I talk.” Click here to continue reading. He would pen many articles during his life including his autobiography, Bad Boy of Music.

Although Antheil composed over 300 works, his Ballet mécanique is the most famous. Written in 1924 the work is scored for 16 player pianos playing four separate parts, four bass drums, three xylophones, a tam-tam, seven electric bells, a siren, and three different-sized airplane propellers (high wood, low wood, and metal), as well as two human-played pianos. Click here to read more about that notorious composition and here for a performance by Ensemble Modern, led by Peter Rundel.

 

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

Although our concert calendar is void of performances today, there are plenty taking place during the long Fourth of July weekend. Visit our Concert Listings page here.

IN THE NEWS:

Season tickets go on sale today for the four concerts in the Kent Blossom Music Festival Faculty Series, featuring Kulas Visiting Artists Paul and Helen Huang (pictured), Demarre McGill, and Rodolfo Leone, plus the Miami String Quartet and members of The Cleveland Orchestra. This season’s concerts are offered in a hybrid format: in-person in Ludwig Concert Hall (limited to 200 guests), and by live stream. Read a preview here.

A quick reminder that tickets also go on sale today for Tuesday Musical’s performance by   Chanticleer at E.J. Thomas Hall on July 27 at 7:30 pm. The celebrated 12-voice male chorus from San Francisco will present “Awakenings,” with music by Monteverdi, Byrd, Vicente Lusitano, Villa-Lobos, Augusta Read Thomas, Ulysses Kay, Steven Sametz, Burton Lane, and a newly commissioned work by Ayanna Woods. Click here for ticket information.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today marks the anniversaries of two births of note — German composer Hans Werner Henze in 1926 and American conductor Philip Brunelle in 1943.

We’ll begin with Henze whose extensive body of works incorporated neoclassicism, jazz, twelve-tone technique, serialism, as well as rock and some popular music. [Read more…]