by Mike Telin
For those of us who had the good fortune to be part of a youth symphony system, we cherish those days fondly for the rest of our lives. We remember the first time when, while still young students, we were invited to join the ranks of a professional orchestra. All of a sudden, you realized that you had entered a whole new ballgame.
On Sunday, February 16 at 3:00 pm in Umstattd Hall, members of the Canton Youth Symphony will have that opportunity when they join with the Canton Symphony for side-by-side performances of Sibelius’ Finlandia and Walton’s Crown Imperial Coronation March, under the direction of Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz. The program will also include Nicolai’s Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”) performed by the Canton Symphony. A concert prelude with Jaroszewicz begins at 2:00 pm. Tickets are available online.
“I am very excited about this opportunity,” CYS concertmaster Karl Helmuth said in a conference call during his morning study hall at Hoover High School, where he is a junior. [Read more…]
If you’re looking for something special to share with your significant other for Valentine’s Day, why not take in a classical guitar concert? On Saturday, February 15 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, the 
When Susanna Mälkki made her Cleveland Orchestra debut in April of 2015, the Finnish conductor was well on her way to becoming a star in the international conducting firmament. Since that time Mälkki has clearly established herself as one of the leading conductors of our time.
Complicated relationships between children and their parents have often served as inspiration for opera. Most people know the disaster that awaits Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel after they misbehave and their mother sends them to the haunted forest to look for strawberries. In Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, after being scolded by his mother, a young boy destroys everything in the room — later the objects come to life and show him the error of his ways.
Composers have always turned to works of art, literature, folklore, and music by other composers as sources of inspiration. This week, St. Paul-based 
For centuries, people have wanted the things they cannot have, especially when it comes to love. In their current collaborative program, Lessons in Love, Debra Nagy of Cleveland-based Les Délices and Scott Metcalfe of Boston-based Blue Heron have created a musical and philosophical journey that focuses on the late Medieval attitude toward intimacy. The program draws from the narrative poem Roman da la Rose, in which the allegorical character Hope (Esperance) counsels a courtly lover through his amorous pains, guiding him down the path of turning his suffering into delight.
