by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Doug Droste conducts the Baldwin Wallace Symphony with violist Ashley Gordon, founder, Castle of our Skins (Gamble Auditorium, at 7), Les Délices presents Moonlit Mozart — wind band music including serenades and opera selections (First Methodist in Akron at 7:30), Canton Symphony musicians join rapper Marcus Smith for a hip-hop and R&B-influenced program at The Auricle, and a huge cast of performers including the Tulsa Ballet, Cleveland Ballet, Cleveland Pops, tap dancers, and vocalists will invoke the golden age of Hollywood (7:30 at Key Bank State Theater).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of upcoming performances.

NEWS BRIEFS:

WFMT reports that “Giancarlo Guerrero has been announced as the new artistic director and principal conductor of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival. [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

If you’re free around lunchtime today, you’re in luck, with two musical offerings at 12:00 noon.

At Trinity Cathedral’s Brownbag Concert Series, hear from the Cleveland Institute of Music Guitar Studio of Jason Vieaux. Or, venture slightly west to Ohio City and another Trinity — Trinity Lutheran Church — for Music Near the Market. Organist Florence Mustric (pictured) will perform “simply perfect” music by composers ranging from Pachelbel to Mendelssohn and Grigny to Demessieux.

For more details on these concerts and more, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’s ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Composer, keyboardist, and choral director R. Nathaniel Dett, a champion of the use of African American folk songs and spirituals in composing for the concert stage, died of a heart attack in Battle Creek, Michigan on this date in 1943. He was on tour with a Women’s Army Corps chorus of the United Service Organization, having joined the USO as a choral advisor to support American troops during World War II. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Two organ programs to highlight today,

At 12 Noon, Charlotte Beers Plank plays 17th and 18th century music on the Newberry organ at the Church of the Covenant.

And tonight at 7:30, organist David von Behren, who earned his undergraduate degree at CIM while serving as organ scholar at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, and now serves as assistant organist and choirmaster at Harvard University’s Memorial Church, plays a recital on the Schantz organ in Fairmount Presbyterian Church in partnership with the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. His program includes solo works and his own transcriptions for violin and organ (he plays both at the same time).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of upcoming performances.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1965, French composer Paul Dukas was born in Paris. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

• 12 Noon – CIM Museum Melodies, one-hour programs featuring pianists from the Cleveland Institute of Music at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
• 7:00 pm – Chagrin Arts & Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association present “Freedom Rocks,” a concert to end wrongful conviction, featuring trumpeter Dominick Farinacci at Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association
• 7:00 pm – Nightingale Opera. Jake Heggie’s Two Remain, based on the true stories of Holocaust survivors Krystyna Żywulska, a political dissident, and Gad Beck, a Jewish gay man, at Congregation Mishkan Or
• 7:30 pm – Oberlin Sinfonietta with soprano Katherine Jolly (pictured) in Warner Concert Hall
• 7:30 pm – CIM Faculty Recital: Gerardo Teissonnière plays the complete Impromptus of Schubert at the Maltz
• 7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra with Elim Chan, conductor and Yefim Bronfman, piano, at Severance Music Center.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of upcoming performances.

SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT:

Heights Arts has announced details of its new season, including its intimate Close Encounters chamber music series and community-focused ARTbar and Gallery Concerts. Read an announcement here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At Noon, organist Christa Rakich plays original works & music by J.S. Bach at the Church of the Covenant.

And three concerts are on the docket for tonight, all beginning at 7:30.

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society launches its 75th season with the all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer (pictured). “Music of a Silent World,” at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church celebrates the music of nature in works by Majel Connery, William Byrd, Heinrich Isaac, Robert Schumann, Tom Petty, Lawrence, and Ayanna Woods, and a gala reception follows.

Meanwhile, two masters of the keyboard go head to head. The London-based, Siberian-born pianist Pavel Kolesnikov will present J.S. Bach’s complete “Goldberg Variations” in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Music Center, and British-born organist David Briggs, currently artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, will make the Holtkamp organ in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, sound orchestral in a program that includes his own Improvised Symphony in 4 Movements.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of upcoming performances.

SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT:

No Exit New Music has announced details of its 16th season, “New Season, New Sounds,” which begins with performances from October 17-19 at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Auditorium, Waterloo Arts, and SPACES. See the detailed schedule here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND: 

On Friday at Noon, CIM Museum Melodies, brings one-hour programs featuring pianists from the Cleveland Institute of Music to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Tonight at 7:30, the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble makes its first appearance this season under conductor Timothy Weiss in Warner Concert Hall. Same day and time, the  temporarily venueless Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra visits John Hay High School Auditorium with guest conductor Anthony Parnther.

On Saturday at 7, led by Domenico Boyagian, the Suburban Symphony joins the Cleveland Chorale at First Baptist Church, and at 7:30 in E.J. Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony will host pianist Gabriela Martinez. Same day and hour, conductor and Oberlin alum James Feddeck leads the Oberlin Orchestra in Finney Chapel. And Saturday at half past 7, The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra inaugurates its “Pops” series with “Sinatra at the Coliseum: Celebrating 50 Years.”

On Sunday at 3, Osmo Vänskä (pictured) and The Cleveland Orchestra repeat last Thursday’s program at Severance Music Center, and the rescheduled “Evening With John Legend” — interrupted by storms in August — will try again at Blossom (but without The Cleveland Orchestra).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of upcoming performances. [Read more…]