by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra reliably offers the music of Johannes Brahms on weekdays at noon, and on his birthday today, the playlist includes an overture and selections from A German Requiem, his First Piano Concerto, and his Second Symphony.

Locally, at 7 pm tonight, the Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra plays a pre-recorded concert including a Bach harpsichord concerto with Nicole Keller, and Oberlin’s Sacred Heart Concert series presents a live, in-person concert by violist Chris Gokelman with pianist Immanuel Mykyta-Chomsky (you can also watch online).

And follow the tendrils of the worldwide web to keep in touch with some of Cleveland’s favorite soloists and ensembles: So Percussion from the University of Washington, violinist Francesca dePasquale from Philadelphia, the Pavel Haas Quartet from Duke University, and Alisa Weilerstein from Washington Performing Arts. Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Ohio Light Opera has announced an abbreviated season in Wooster this summer. Because of the pandemic, audiences aren’t permitted in Freedlander Theatre, so performances of The Fantasticks and Trial by Jury will be presented in outdoor venues, and The Daring of Diane and Rare and Well Done will be streamed from the company’s empty theater. Click here to read more and here to view the complete schedule.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1747, Johann Sebastian Bach met the Prussian king Frederick II in Potsdam while visiting his son, Carl Phillip Emanuel, and accepted the flute-playing monarch’s challenge of improvising a three-voice Ricercar on a theme that Frederick supplied. Back home in Leipzig, Bach the father turned that royal theme into A Musical Offering, a suite that included Ricercare for three and six voices, twelve canons — a number of them expressed as musical puzzles to be solved — and a trio sonata featuring Frederick’s instrument, the flute.

Click here to hear the entire collection conducted by Jordi Savall, with harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï, and here to listen to the Trio Sonata played by Cleveland Orchestra principal flute Joshua Smith, violinist Allison Edberg, gambist Ann Marie Morgan, and harpsichordist Jory Vinikour.

A version of the polyphonically dense six-voice Ricercar arranged by Anton Webern has been recorded by Christoph von Dohnányi and The Cleveland Orchestra, and Arseniy Gusuv tackled the piece on his semifinal round of Piano Cleveland’s Virtu(al)oso competition earlier this year. Watch that here.

Also on May 7, Italian composer Antonio Salieri died in Vienna in 1825. Highly regarded in his day, he counted Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Hummel among his students, and wrote many popular operas.

Though not perhaps the brightest musical light in 18th-century Vienna, Salieri has been the victim of a disinformation campaign begun by Russian author Alexander Pushkin with his 1831 “little tragedy,” Mozart and Salieri. Written to illustrate the sin of envy, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov made the story into an opera in which Mozart is poisoned by his mentor, and Peter Shaffer gave extra mileage to the tale in his 1979 play Amadeus. (Peter Schickele lampooned it in 1982 in P.D.Q. Bach’s Little Nightmare Music — excerpt here).

The music of Johannes Brahms, born on this date in 1833, is ubiquitous, but some pieces more than others. For his birthday today, let’s consider him in the same light as J.S. Bach — as a master contrapuntalist. His Geistliches Lied, Opus 30, is written as a double canon at the 9th — sopranos and tenors and altos and basses are paired and sing the same material one bar and nine pitches apart — yet the resulting music is unmistakably Brahmsian. Click here to hear the piece in its original form for chorus and organ, and here to compare it to Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s orchestration. In both cases, the composer has written one of the most striking “Amens” in Romantic music.

The music of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, born on May 7, 1840, also scarcely needs a plug, but we’ll celebrate with two significant recordings by The Cleveland Orchestra. His 1812 Overture, soon to appear (inexplicably) on July 4th concerts, was featured on the first commercial recording by The Cleveland Orchestra, captured in New York on January 23, 1924 under Nikolai Sokoloff. And his Serenade for Strings (composed at the same time as the 1812) was the first piece that members of the Orchestra recorded during an experimental return to Severance Hall on July 15, 2020.

Finally, just a tip of the hat to Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge, who died on this date in 2002, with two of his works. His 1953 Concierto Breve was recorded by Alicia de Larrocha with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid in 1999, and his opera El Gato con Botas (Puss in Boots), previewed at Cleveland’s Ohi in 2010 for a New York production, can be enjoyed here.

Montsalvastge’s Fantasia for Harp and Guitar is featured on Yolanda Kondonassis and Jason Vieaiux’s 2015 Azica recording Together. Their CIM students Grace Roepke and Maryam Hajialigol recorded the first movement in Mixon Hall in November, 2017.

by Mike Telin

STREAMED CONCERTS:

At 7:00 pm, The Cleveland Orchestra premieres In Focus Episode 10, “Style and Craft.” Vinay Parameswaran will lead Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and principal oboe Frank Rosenwein and pianist Carolyn Gadiel Warner (pictured) are featured in Ravel’s Sonatine. Digital streaming premiere filmed April 8-10 at Severance Hall. Click here for details.

There’s plenty happening in other parts of the country — check our Concert Listings page for details.

NEWS: 

Earlier this week Juan Perez Floristan (Spain) was announced the winner of the 2021 Rubinstein Piano Competition. Second place went to Shiori Kuwahara from Japan, with third place going to Cunmo Yin from China.

As the first place winner, Floristan received a gold medal with a portrait of Rubinstein illustrated by Picasso, and a cash prize of $40,000. The pianist was also awarded Best Performance of an Israeli Piece ($3,000), Best Performance of a Beethoven Concerto ($ 5,000, awarded to mark the occasion of Beethoven’s 250th birthday), Best Chamber Music Performance ($6,000), and Audience Favourite ($3,000).

Applications for 2022 Cuyahoga Arts and Culture grants are being accepted.

The first step in the application process, the Eligibility Check, must be completed by Thursday, June 3, 2021 by 4:30 pm ET. All organizations seeking funding in 2022 must complete the Eligibility Check to be considered for funding. Click here for more information.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today we celebrate the births of three Americans who made their debuts on May 6:  pianist/composer Alfred Humphreys Pease in Cleveland, Ohio in 1838, composer George Perle in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1915, and composer/conductor Victoria Bond in Los Angeles, California in 1945.

Although Alfred Humphreys Pease showed an aptitude for music and drawing at an early age, his parents had other career goals in mind for their son, and encouraged him to focus on classics. At the age of sixteen Pease entered Kenyon College where his paintings and drawings caught the attention of a young German artist who convinced Pease’s parents to allow him to move to Berlin where, in addition to languages, he studied piano with Theodor Kullak, composition with Richard Wüerst and orchestration with Wilhen Wieprecht and later with Hans von Bülow.

After returning to the United States, Pease toured the country as a pianist and was praised for his brilliant technique, quality of tone and musical expression. As a composer, Pease wrote nearly 100 songs as well as orchestral works and a piano concerto. Sadly, Pease died of alcoholism in 1882 in St. Louis.

After graduating from DePaul University, George Perle served in the United States Army during World War II and later earned his doctorate at New York University in 1956. As a composer, Perle employed his own technique that he called “twelve-tone tonality” —  which is somewhat related to the  technique used by composers of the Second Viennese School. In 1968, along with Igor Stravinsky and Hans F. Redlich, Perle co-founded the Alban Berg Society. His work on that composer’s music included documenting the third act of Lulu.

After retiring from Queens College Perle  became a professor emeritus at the Aaron Copland School of Music and in 1986 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Fourth Wind Quintet as well as a MacArthur Fellowship. Perle also served a three-year appointment as composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Symphony, and authored several books including The Listening Composer. Click here to listen to the Dorian Wind Quintet’s performance of the fourth Wind Quintet, and pianist/composer Michael Brown performs Perle’s Toccata here.

Born into a musical family, Victoria Bond has long been a leading voice in classical music as a composer, conductor, lecturer, and artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts. The first woman awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School, her teachers included Ingolf Dahl and Roger Sessions (composition); William Vennard (voice); Jean Morel, James Conlon, Sixteen Ehrling, Leonard Slatkin, and Herbert Blomstedt (conducting).

In 1978 Bond became the  Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony and in 1986 was invited to conduct the Houston Symphony for the premiere of her work Ringing. She has served as artistic director of the Bel Canto Opera Company in New York, music director and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Southwest Virginia Opera, the Harrisburg Opera and the New Amsterdam Symphony. Her opera Mrs. President was premiered in 2012 in Anchorage, Alaska. Click here to visit her website and here to listen to Bond discuss her life in music.

by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY ON THE WEB:

Trinity Cathedral’s Virtual Brownbag Concert today at noon is a “Brahms-Fest,” and also an organ-fest. Working from the Flentrop and Aeolian-Skinner instruments, Todd Wilson and Nicole Keller will present that composer’s eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, via stream.

Oberlin Conservatory faculty violinist Francesca dePasquale will be featured at 6:00 in a concert from the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. The program begins with Mozart’s K. 360 Six Variations for violin and piano, then adds electronics to that combination with On the Blue Shore of Silence by Gity Razaz, Gloria Justen, and Sayo Kosugi. That piece, receiving its Philadelphia premiere, also includes visual art by Johanna Andruchovici.

Later this evening, at 7:30 pm, flutist Brandon Patrick George — a member of the Imani Winds and an Oberlin graduate — joins pianist Bryan Wagorn in a recital presented by 92nd St Y. The program includes music by Schubert, Carl Reinecke, Lili Boulanger, William Grant Still, and Valerie Coleman (who is also George’s predecessor in the flute seat of the Imani).

Also at 7:30, Piano Cleveland ramps up to this summer’s Cleveland International Piano Competition with a listening guide called Prelude to Piano, intended to “help enthusiasts of all levels not only understand classical music better, but learn what to listen for during the CIPC competition this summer.”

Finally, to help mark the festivities on the calendar today, the Celebrity Series of Boston presents the “Verónica Robles Cinco de Mayo Celebration” at 7:30 pm. Robles and her all-female mariachi band celebrate Mexico’s national holiday commemorating the country’s victory over the French at Puebla in 1862.

Watch that last one here, and find all the other links in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On May 5 of last year, we celebrated the anniversary of the opening of Carnegie Hall, which held a gala concert featuring a pretty decent musician as guest conductor: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

This time around the sun, we’ll focus on a couple of lesser-known but interesting figures born on this date in history.

First, when’s the last time you heard music for guitar ensemble? How about a 36-piece guitar ensemble? (That’s assuming I correctly counted all the little heads in a YouTube video to be unveiled in just a moment.) Well, that genre — as well as guitar solos, duos, and concertos — has inspired a great deal of productivity from Tokyo-born composer Reiko Arima, who turns 88 today.

And here’s the video I so tantalizingly hinted at earlier: a performance of Arima’s Rainy Blue by Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University Guitar Ensemble. Not only was the work written for them, but it served as a required piece for the Japan Guitar Association’s National Guitar Ensemble Competition in 2012.

If you haven’t heard much music before from a guitar ensemble of this size — I certainly haven’t — when the melody comes in, you’ll enjoy the surprise of how intense the timbre can be from a collective of what is generally a fairly gentle solo instrument.

Slightly more well-known on these shores but still underrecognized is composer and Madison, Wisconsin native Bunita Marcus, who turns 69 today. She was widely performed a few decades ago, writing commissions for such groups as the Bang On A Can All-Stars and the Kronos Quartet, and receiving awards from the National Endowment of the Arts and other organizations. She’s also famous for her close collaboration with Morton Feldman.

In an extensive interview with Frank J. Oteri for NewMusicBox, she opens up about being derailed from her career around 1989 or 1990, when she began to have flashbacks to sexual abuse, only to then struggle with an abusive psychiatrist when she sought treatment.

“In the course of trying to recover memories from my childhood, this man also tried to take over my life,” she told Oteri. “…And he refused to let me compose…I could not write music for 15 years. And I was at my prime. I was 40 years old.”

What saved her, she said, was John Cage. When she went to him and explained the flashbacks and her difficulty concentrating, he suggested writing short pieces:

He said, “What’s that they give horses to get them to do tricks?” I said, “Sugar cubes.” He said, “Yeah, give the composer in you some sugar cubes.” So I totally took this literally. I went out, bought a box of sugar cubes, and put them on a nice little plate on the piano. And I said, “O.K., simple: Cage. C-A-G-E. These are the only notes I’m going to use in this piece, and it’s all going to be quarter notes. It can’t be simpler.”

Naturally, the piece is full of counterpoint, something she loves. And though it took her years to finish — in part due to her emotions around Cage’s passing shortly after that meeting — one day during the Jewish High Holidays, she decided to finish it.

I started writing counterpoint that started breaking the rules…leaping to and from dissonance, leaping to perfect intervals, leaping to imperfect intervals, crossing voices, I mean everything you could do wrong, I was doing. It just got worse and worse and worse, until the piece ended. But for some reason, it ends beautifully. I guess I knew the rules well enough; I knew which ones to break. That’s all I can say.

Listen to the three-minute Sugar Cubes here in a performance by Marc Tritschler.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

May 4 in classical music history marks some important beginnings that ultimately led to the modern grand piano, the phonograph record, and the international orchestral tour.

Italian craftsman Bartolomeo Cristofori, born in Padua on May 4, 1665, was responsible for inventing the first practical pianoforte, an instrument that looks just like a harpsichord until you raise the hood. Inside, instead of quills that pluck strings, a hammer mechanism strikes them and then retreats, allowing the performer to play soft, loud, or at any dynamic level in between. Thus Cristofori named his invention the “gravicembalo col piano e forte.”

Cristofori’s pianoforte mechanism was so sophisticated that no major improvements were made for the next 75 years, and the basic concept has persisted to today. You can see the 1720 model he built in Florence in the musical instrument collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum, read about it here, and listen to Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in d played on it here by Dongsok Shin.

A number of late 19th century inventors were involved in creating machines that would reproduce sound, but on May 4, 1887, Emile Berliner was the first to file a patent application (U.S. patent 372,786) for a device he called the gramophone. His machine “recorded a lateral pattern on lamp-blacked paper wrapped on a cylinder, similar to the phonautograph of Leon Scott, but with an oil applied to the surface mixed with lampblack to make a fatty ink better able to be engraved with a cutting stylus.” Read about it in The Early Gramophone.

That a lot remained to be done before Sony could develop a single disc capable of reproducing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is suggested in the first news story about Berliner’s invention. A two-page article in Electrical World dated November 12, 1887 described a device driven by a weight box and controlled by a paddle-wheeled governor that recorded four minutes of sound on an 11-inch glass disc at 30 rpm.”

And on May 4, 1920, The Symphony Society of New York — which eventually became the New York Philharmonic — played the opening concert of its debut European Tour at the Paris Opera, making it the first American ensemble to perform overseas.

The Symphony Society Bulletin of March 18, 1920 noted that the European Tour was being undertaken “by official invitation from the governments of France, Italy, Belgium and a committee of England’s foremost musicians.” The Orchestra embarked on the transatlantic crossing aboard the Rochambeau on April 22, beginning “a tour which is unprecedented and indicates in a remarkable manner the new position of America in the world of music.”

The May 4 performance, led by Walter Damrosch, included Berlioz’ Overture to Benvenuto Cellini, Beethoven’s Third Symphony, d’Indy’s Istar: variations symphonique, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe, “Fragment Symphonique.” The Orchestra’s European adventure lasted nearly two months, culminating in a June 20 matinee at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Like the Middle Eastern tour The Cleveland Orchestra was forced to cancel at the beginning of the pandemic, orchestral touring will eventually resume, however slowly. On this May 4th, it’s good to look back and recall that cultural exchanges have until recently been important tools of international diplomacy, and not merely expensive expressions of musical vanity.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Todd Wilson adds the title of Visiting Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan to his positions as Music Director at Trinity Cathedral and Head of the Organ Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Heights Arts invites its patrons to host a Random Acts of Art LIVE! event this summer at their home, businesses or community spaces. Born during the pandemic, “Random Acts of Art LIVE! (RAAL) brings local music talent directly to you in private yard concerts, music for patrons at your business, and in partnership with local community organizations. From classical and folk, to world music and jazz this series has something for everyone.” Contact Arleigh Savage at Heights Arts for more information on available ensembles and how to book your event.

HAPPENING TODAY:

The music publishers Boosey & Hawkes present a Zoom webinar about how opera is being reimagined as film. “When the pandemic hit, creators and producers learned to pivot from a traditionally live medium to visually dynamic, made-for-film productions of stage works with sets, soundtrack recording sessions, and directors.”

The Oberlin Guitar Ensemble presents a late afternoon virtual concert of music by Ponce, Britten, Giuliani and Coste.

And Tuesday Musical returns to Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall for an in-person concert by New York Philharmonic principal clarinet Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet. You won’t find this one online.

by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY ON THE WEB:

Les Délices finishes off the spring series for SalonEra tonight at 7:30 pm with “La Folia.” That’s something to celebrate, so fittingly, this will be a “party episode” featuring soprano soprano Sherezade Panthaki, countertenor Reginald Mobley, and lutenist Arash Noori, as well as a host of guests and contributing artists in music by Monteverdi, Corelli, Purcell, Marais, Boismortier, and others. Click here at start time. It’s free but a $10 donation is suggested.

ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH:

The history around this month’s celebrations is complicated, thanks in part to Congress.

In the late 1970s, several joint resolutions were introduced calling for an official weeklong recognition of the contributions of Asian and Pacific Americans to American society. What was agreed upon was that two historic dates would anchor the celebration in the fifth month of the year: May 7, 1843 brought the arrival of the first known Japanese immigrant to America, and May 10, 1869 marked the completion of North America’s first transcontinental railroad, built largely by Chinese immigrants.

Here’s where things get complicated: a few of those resolutions had the Heritage Week celebration lasting for ten days. One simply called for it to happen in early May. Another directed President Jimmy Carter to proclaim the week beginning on May 4, 1979 as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.

The last one passed, and beginning that year and continuing for the next decade, Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush (H.W.) continued the tradition. It wasn’t until 1990 that the observance was extended throughout the full month of May, thanks to a proclamation by Bush. Two years later, it was made permanent: going forward, May would be Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

What still shifts is the name. That’s because of something quite remarkable and, in a way, challenging inherent to this celebration: the vast diversity of cultures and histories represented by the term Asian American, let alone Pacific American. In 2009, President Obama named May as Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. And just a few days ago, President Biden proclaimed this month as Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month.

Still, many have stuck with the original name from the ‘90s, including the official government website. There you can find virtual exhibits — one honors veterans’ history, while another reflects on a Japanese-American internment camp through the lens of Ansel Adams’ photography — as well as classroom materials, and resources relevant to the fight against the rising tide of anti-Asian hate and violence.

Local events include a virtual edition of the Cleveland Asian Festival, which will go live on Saturday, May 22 at 10:30 am on YouTube, highlighting a diversity of foods, performances, and other elements of culture and tradition.

And Case Western Reserve University will celebrate Asian, Pacific Islander, Desi, and Asian American heritage with a series of events in the cultural realm (film, literature, poetry), as well as discussions on issues related to community, human rights, and bystander intervention in harassment.

by Daniel Hathaway

IT’S MAYDAY: 

A variety of traditions, both religious and secular, are associated with the first day of May in most cultures that have slogged through months of winter and are more than ready to celebrate the return of balmy breezes and the reflowering of the earth.

One tradition that’s persisted for over 500 years in England is the May Day morning singing of hymns and madrigals by the Magdalen College Choir from its iconic tower in Oxford (pictured here in a painting by William Homan Hunt).

A brief video puts the celebration in context among appearances by May Day Morris Men and a pagan band, and the Choir’s own video from 2016 documents the event from the perspective of the singers. COVID-19 forced the ceremony to go virtual in 2020, but  this news item from the College tells how the Choir found an ingenious solution for May 1, 2021.

Mayday trivia:

In a delayed response to the adoption in 1899 of May 1 as International Workers Day by the socialists and communists of the Second International, the Vatican created a second religious holiday in 1955 in honor of St. Joseph the Worker.

And how did “Mayday” become an international distress call? Frederick Mockford, a radio officer at London’s Croydon Airport introduced the idea in 1923 because it sounded like the French phrase m’aider (help me).

HAPPENING TODAY:

Out-of-doors events on Saturday include the YSU Wind Ensemble and Horn Choir on Harrison Commons in Youngstown. On Sunday, enjoy al fresco performances by the Oberlin Gospel Ensemble, and the Oberlin Chamber Singers.

One local in-person performance is on the docket: Sunday’s concert by the Dana Ensemble at the DeYor PAC in Youngstown, featuring orchestral reductions by the Schoenberg circle and the premiere of a new work by Jamie Wilding.

Everything else remains online. On Saturday, organist Jan Kraybill in Akron, the Dana Piano Trio, Oberlin Large Ensembles (including a premiere by student composer Natsumi Osborne), CWRU jazz ensembles, and broadcasts from the Detroit Symphony, 92nd Street Y, Friends of Ringwood Chamber Music (Jasper and Jupiter Quartet, and Tulsa Opera (commemorating the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. On Sunday, tune in for the Callisto Quartet from Caramoor, low instruments from the Louisiana Philharmonic, BW Men’s Chorus, Russian Duo from Music from the Western Reserve, and an all-Scriabin piano recital from Oberlin by Jiaqing Luo.

Details in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

In the interest of highlighting some lesser-known figures whose anniversaries pop up on this weekend’s calendar, we’ll acknowledge in passing the demise of Antonín Dvořák on May 1, 1904 (for whom a national day of mourning was declared), Giacomo Meyerbeer (who died with his boots on during rehearsals for his opera, L’Africane on May 2, 1864), and Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (who died in Moscow on May 1, 1978), the latter with a performance he led in 1972 of his Piano Concerto in D-flat with Nikolai Petrov at the keyboard — a piece that we’d like to hear programmed more frequently).

We’ll also light candles for the birthdays of English composer Alan Rawsthorne and Austrian-American opera director Kurt Adler, both on May 2, 1905, as well as for Belgian conductor Philippe Herreweghe in 1947, and Russian conductor Valery Gergiev in 1953.

In more detail, let’s toast the birth anniversaries of two composers best known for their church compositions — an important but often overlooked stream in the great ocean of music.

Leo Sowerby, born on May 1, 1895 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, figured prominently in the musical life of Chicago, where his works appeared regularly on Chicago Symphony programs, but is remembered today mostly for the music he wrote for St. James’ Church (later Cathedral) where he served as organist and choirmaster from  1927. In 1962, he retired and became founding director of the College of Church Musicians at Washington Cathedral, a position he held until 1968, when he died at Port Clinton, Ohio, enroute to Camp Wa-Li-Ro in Put-in-Bay, the summer choir camp where he had taught for many years.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

April 30 marks the 10th celebration of International Jazz Day. While a Global All-Star Concert is on the schedule, you can join a local Songbook Watch Party featuring trumpeter Dominick Farinacci and pianist Monty Alexander, streamed live from Tri-C’s LiPuma Center and rebroadcast throughout the weekend. Tri-C JazzFest pre-college students open the program, and afterwards, JazzFest director Terri Pontremoli talks with the artists.

Friday’s online events include local concerts by the CIM Orchestra and Baldwin Wallace wind ensembles, and special programs from New York’s Carnegie Hall (featuring Jordi Savall), from The Gilmore in Kalamazoo (premiere of a new piano concerto written and performed by Michael Brown), from Houston Grand Opera (Damian Sneed’s life of Marian Anderson), and from Urban Arias (Susan Kander’s new opera, dwb).

Live, in-person performances in Oberlin include an indoor program on the Sacred Heart Concert series and al fresco performances by the Oberlin Chamber Singers and Oberlin Trombone Choir.

Details in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Friday’s honorees include Austro-Hungarian operetta composer Franz Lehár (born on April 30, 1870 in Komárom, now Komárno, Slovakia), American conductor Robert Shaw (born on this date in 1916 in Red Bluff, Iowa), American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (who entered the world in Miami on this date in 1939), and Russian American choreographer George Balanchine, who debuted in 1904 in St. Petersburg as Georgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze and made his final curtain call in New York City on the last day of April in 1983.

Lehár composed a number of light operas that became popular in Viennese circles, including the much-performed Merry Widow (Lustige Witwie). Some of them have found their way into the repertoire of American lyric theater companies like Ohio Light Opera. In lieu of live performances last summer, the Wooster-based organization produced a virtual season. Watch an episode here that includes two virtual performances of The Mock Marriage and visits archival scenes from other European operettas.

Before moving on to the Atlanta Symphony, Robert Shaw served as George Szell’s assistant with The Cleveland Orchestra, where he prepared the Orchestra Chorus for many performances while also maintaining his own professional ensemble, The Robert Shaw Chorale. In celebration of his centenary, Carnegie Hall made a series of documentaries showing how Shaw prepared for performances of major choral works. In this episode, he rehearses and conducts excerpts from Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, soprano Christine Goerke, tenor Richard Clement, baritone Benjamin Luxon, the Robert Shaw Festival Chorus, Robert Shaw Institute Singers, and the American Boychoir.

One of America’s pioneering female composers, in 1983 Ellen Taafe Zwilich was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her 2008 Septet for piano trio and string quartet was written for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and the Miami Quartet, who play the unusual work on the 2014 recording, Passionate Diversions: a Celebration of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Listen here, or watch a 2012 video of a performance by the Newbury Tio and Amphion Quartet at the La Jolla Music Festival.

Balanchine, who was invited to the U.S. by Lincoln Kirstein, married the techniques of the Russian Imperial Ballet School with the traditions of Broadway and Hollywood to create the neoclassical style that became his signature as co-founder and director of the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet. One of his early works in collaboration with Igor Stravinsky is a perfect example of his approach. Apollon Musagete, later simply called Apollo, was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 1937. Watch a Canadian broadcast of the ballet from 1960, featuring Jacques d’Amboise as Apollo, Diana Adams as Terpsichore, Jillana as Calliope, and Francia Russell as Polyhymnia.

by Mike Telin

IN-PERSON CONCERTS:

At 7:00 pm Steven Plank will lead the Oberlin Collegium Musicum in an outdoor performance at Mudd Learning Center’s Patio. The free concert includes  Palestrina’s Three Verses to the Magnificat, John Sheppard’s Christ Rising Again, Tallis’ Two Psalm Tunes from the Archbishop Parker Psalter and Sanctus & Gloria from the Mass for Four Voices. Click here for details.

At 8:00 pm the Dana School of Music will present a performance by students in the string orchestra, chamber orchestra, and large chamber group. The free concert in Youngstown’s Stambaugh Auditorium includes Darius Milhaud’s Creation of the World, Henryk Górecki’s Quasi una Fantasia, Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and Fion Gillespie’s Tam Lin. Facemasks and social distancing will be enforced.

STREAMED CONCERTS:

Today’s list includes concerts from San Francisco Performances, Colburn School, Adelphi University, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Detroit Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Check our Concert Listings for details

Interesting Reads: Today’s New York Times Arts Section highlights the “Scandinavian Cello School” in Lund, Denmark. Although the Headline —  When the Cellos Play the Cows Come Home — and the captivating photo might lead you the laugh it off, don’t. Founded by British cellist Jacob Shaw, the school offers residencies to students from around the world to hone the development of their musical and professional skills — all the things they don’t teach in conservatory. Yes, part of that does include playing for the cows.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

When researching births and passings for the Daily Diary it’s always interesting to see who pops up. Today, April 29, presented a list of seven interesting artists. What quickly became apparent is that the group presented the opportunity to create a playlist perfect for people whose musical tastes are all over the map — like mine.

First up is Russian composer, teacher, and conductor Anatoly Liadov, who was born on this day in 1855 in St. Petersburg. His best-known orchestral works include the tone poems Baba Yaga, Kikimora, and The Enchanted Lake. To hear a 1963 studio recording by George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra of The Enchanted Lake, click here.

In 1879 conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet graced the world with his presence in St. Helens, Lancashire, England. Born into a wealthy industrial family, Beecham used the family fortune to finance his passion for opera, staging seasons at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. A champion of works by composers he felt were neglected in Britain, he was a strong advocate for the music of Delius. Click here to listen to Beecham lead The Royal Philharmonic in the composer’s On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.

Born in Washington D.C. in 1899, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington would go on to become a celebrated composer, pianist, and band leader. During his long career, Ellington garnered a national and international profile through his orchestra’s appearances at Harlem’s Cotton Club and on European tours.

In 1989 Gunther Schuller wrote: “….[Music was Ellington’s] total life and his commitment to it was incomparable and unalterable. In jazz he was a giant among giants. And in twentieth century music, he may yet one day be recognized as one of the half-dozen greatest masters of our time.” Click here to listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing Ellington’s Mood Indigo.

Next up is Belgian jazz harmonica player Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans, better known as Toots Thielemans. Born in 1922, his first professional performances were with Benny Goodman’s band when they toured Europe in 1949 and 1950. His list of collaborators is a Who’s-Who in jazz. In 2009 Thielemans was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. To listen to Thielemans perform Bluesette in Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2009, click here.

Born in Abbott, Texas in 1933, musician, actor, and social activist Willie Hugh Nelson earned critical success for his albums Shotgun Willie (1973), Red Headed Stranger (1975), and Stardust (1978). Additionally, Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in promoting the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana. Click here to listen to Nelson’s version of Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies.

Conductor Zubin Mehta entered the world in Mumbai, India, in 1936. He received his early musical training from his father, the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Mehta has served as music director of the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. All in all, not a bad career. To listen to Zubin Mehta lead the New York Philharmonic in Offenbach’s Overture to “Orpheus in the Underworld,” click here.

Rounding out the list of April 29 birthdays is singer/songwriter China Forbes who entered the world in 1970 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While studying visual arts at Harvard University, Forbes met pianist Thomas Lauderdale. Later while he was living in Portland, Oregon, Lauderdale asked Forbes to sing with his new band Pink Martini, a group he  had created to perform at political fundraisers. Today she remains one of the ensemble’s lead singers. Click here to listen to Forbes perform her song Hey Eugene with Pink Martini.

by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY ON THE WEB:

Turn the light on in both sides of your brain with an intriguing mix of concerts and discussions happening from noon to night. Topics and focuses include Shakespeare’s lesser-known collaborative side (Kronberg Academy), the possibilities of two harps in the hands of two principal players (Salzedo Duo / Trinity Cathedral), peace in the Middle East through music (West-Eastern Divan Orchestra / Carnegie Hall), the array of ensembles that make up a school of music (University of Akron), and finally, the dual concept of home as both a source of comfort and the “call home” of death (multi-instrumentalists Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi / Carnegie Hall). See our Concert Listings for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

In honor of Iowa-born, Grammy-winning, University of Michigan faculty composer Michael Daugherty’s 67th birthday, let’s look back on some memorable performances of his music in the area. We can begin in December of 2015, when Liza Grossman and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra gave the Cleveland premiere — as well as the first performance by a youth orchestra — of all five movements of the Superman-inspired Metropolis Symphony.

Mike Telin gave a sense of the work’s stylistic variety, as well as its excellent performance, in a review:

Throughout the 40-minute piece, Daugherty brilliantly interweaves scatterings of jazz, rock, funk, and avant-garde with the symphonic.…Grossman led the young musicians in a first-rate performance of the demanding work.

(As a side note, musical variety and pop-culture influence were present in the composer’s life from the beginning: his dad was a jazz and country-music drummer, his mom was an amateur singer, and his grandma played piano for silent films.)

In the review, Telin walks us through the landscape of “Lex,” “Krypton,” “MXYZPTLK,” “Oh Lois!” and “Red Cape Tango” before noting the audience’s clear appreciation, including that of the composer himself, who was present. Too bad we can’t go back in time to revisit that performance, but here’s a worthy substitute on YouTube from the Toledo Symphony under the direction of Alain Trudel.

Grossman, the founder of CYO and its music director for a quarter century up until her departure last year, has a clear affinity for Daugherty’s music. As she told Telin in a 2018 conversation,

I love Michael’s work — it’s Americana, understandable, and well-written for orchestra. I think that whether an audience member has heard his music before or not, they will walk out feeling as if they understood what he was saying. I think that it brings happy memories to people.

On that occasion, she and the orchestra were gearing up to present Daugherty’s Route 66, which she said conjures up the idea of driving down the highway, wind in your hair. There aren’t any local recordings, but you can’t go wrong with Marin Alsop, who leads the Bournemouth Symphony in that musical road trip here.

Daugherty’s list of compositions is long and full of highlights, but one that can’t be overlooked is Dead Elvis for bassoon and ensemble. Here’s a Rice University student performance (parts one and two) from 2010 by TK DeWitt (who three years later joined the Kansas City Symphony). The music doesn’t start until a minute in, but don’t miss his entrance — in costume, of course — or the delivery of his bassoon from offstage.

Another musical luminary to celebrate today is János Starker, the famed Hungarian-American cellist, who died on this date in 2013. For 57 of his 88 years on earth, he taught at Indiana University, which brings up one Ohio connection: it’s there that he mentored now-Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower (during which time Kosower got his first taste of the music of Ginastera, as he told Daniel Hathaway in 2016).

Enjoy Starker’s 1988 recital performance (location not specified) of two unaccompanied cello suites — one by Bach, one by Gaspar Cassadó — plus Kodály’s solo sonata. Then listen to his 1980 appearance at Blossom Music Festival, where he joined Eduardo Mata and The Cleveland Orchestra in Bloch’s Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Only a single event to report today, but an important one: the first of three end-of-season, in-person concerts sponsored by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society features ChamberFest Cleveland favorite, violinist Alexi Kenney, with pianist Renana Gutman in works by J.S. Bach, Strozzi, Messiaen, Kurtág, Schumann, and Mozart. The performance, which can also be viewed online, introduces a new venue for CCMS, St. Paschal Baylon in Highland Heights, which offers more than enough elbow room for effective social distancing. But don’t forget your face mask. Details in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

We’ll begin by noting the recent passing of mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig on April 23 at the age of 93. A fixture with the Vienna State Opera for more than 30 years, Ludwig enjoyed a stellar career in opera, oratorio, and art song. In a Guardian obituary, Barry Millington writes,

She habitually named three conductors from whom she had learned everything she needed to know about music: Karl Böhm for precision, Herbert von Karajan for beauty of sound and legato, and Leonard Bernstein for the expressive quality and joy of music.

A few examples of Ludwig’s art show the range of her voice and interpretive talent. First, a 1962 recording of “Erbarme dich” from Bach’s Matthew-Passion with Otto Klemperer.

Then, “Der Abschied” from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Leonard Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic in 1972.

And from the other side of Bernstein, the tango “I am easily assimilated” from his Candide, recorded with the London Symphony at the Barbican in 1989, the composer conducting.

Finally, here’s a complete recording of her last concert at Vienna’s Musikverein in 2003 with Charles Spencer at the piano.

On this date in classical music history, Russian-American musicologist, composer, conductor, and (according to himself) standup comedian Nicolas Slonimsky, was born in St. Petersburg in 1894. And on April 24, 1915, Russian composer Alexander Scriabin died of blood poisoning at the age of 43.

Slonimsky, who died in 1995, was one of the great characters of the 20th century. As editor of Baker’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, he penned priceless autobiographies as prefaces to various editions, and edited such compendia as The Lexicon of Musical Invective, a collection of critical assaults on composers since Beethoven’s time. Watch the documentary, A Touch of Genius here, and enjoy his appearance on the Johnny Carson Show in 1986 at the age of 92, where Slonimsky “speaks about Frank Zappa (4:40​), demonstrates conducting quintuple time with one hand and duple time with the other (7:21​), tries to demonstrate his perfect pitch (10:51​) and plays Chopin’s “Black Key” Étude with an orange (12:08​).”

Scriabin made an impressive splash in the Russian piano world during his brief lifetime, but was almost as quickly forgotten. His pieces regularly show up in piano competitions. Martin James Bartlett, winner of Piano Cleveland’s Virtu(al)oso Competition, played Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata in the final round (watch here).

2013 Cleveland International Piano Competition second-place winner Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev also included Sonata No. 4 in his semi-final round program, prefacing it with Scriabin’s 5 Preludes, Op. 16.

And Martina Filjak, 2009 CIPC Gold Medalist, knocked everyone’s socks off in her semifinal round with Scriabin’s Nocturne for the Left Hand.

Scriabin’s amazing Poème de l’Extase has been recorded by The Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. Listen here.