by Stephanie Manning
HAPPENING TODAY:
The Ohio Light Opera opens their sixth and final show of the season, The Arcadians, at 2:00 p.m. this afternoon at Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster. It will run three more times before the end of the month. Tickets available online.
July’s edition of The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Third Thursdays at Transformer Station begins at 7:00 p.m. Ideastream Public Media’s Bill O’Connell will host the Cleveland-based ensemble Opus 216 (pictured). This free event is already sold out.
Gearing up for the start of their 50th anniversary competition, the Cleveland International Piano Competition hosts a recital from their most recent (2021) Mixon First Prize Winner, Martín García García. The 7:00 p.m. event at Heights Theater is free, but reservations are required. Learn more about what’s in store with the CIPC this year in our recent feature here.
And if you feel like getting out into nature — the Canton Symphony’s Summer Serenades series hosts a woodwind quintet in Hartville’s Quail Hollow Park (6:30 p.m., free), while Apollo’s Fire presents the nature-themed “Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Rediscovered” in Kirtland’s Holden Arboretum (7:30 p.m., tickets available online.)
For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page. [Read more…]
In between their already-packed schedule at Blossom Music Center, the musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra appeared at their usual venue — Severance Music Center — for an exciting offering on July 11. Returning after a five-year absence, the Summers at Severance series kicked off with a high-quality evening of Mandel Concert Hall debuts.
Choosing a mausoleum as a concert venue might imply a more somber occasion, but the atmosphere was distinctly lighthearted at the Classically Lake View concert on July 7. Held in the Lake View Cemetery’s Community Mausoleum on a sunny Sunday afternoon, a string quartet of Cleveland Orchestra members and an Oberlin student guitarist presented a spirited program of chamber music by Black composers.
Given Imani Winds’ active touring schedule, it’s not unusual to see the group revisit the same part of the U.S. within a few months. So while it might feel like the wind quintet was just here for their March performance in Oberlin, July 3 saw them return to Northeast Ohio to appear on the Kent Blossom Music Festival’s Faculty Concert Series in Ludwig Recital Hall. Thankfully, this proximity was no issue — Imani is a group worth hearing again and again.
Four years on from pandemic disruptions, some ensembles are still working on returning to 100% of their pre-2020 programming. Case in point from this summer: The Cleveland Orchestra, which is reviving its Summers at Severance series for the first time in five years.
Hearing the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” was not on my ChamberFest Cleveland bingo card. But Brandon Ridenour had other ideas.
Not only is it a challenge to walk out of Me and My Girl without the music stuck in your head, it’s also a challenge to pick which of the many songs you might be humming.