by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 12:15 noon, organist Robert Myers plays “Going neo-Baroque” on the Beckerath organ in Trinity Lutheran Church in Ohio City, and at 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera stages Me And My Girl at the College of Wooster.

Three events are in the works at 7:30 tonight:

• the Cleveland Museum of Art’s City Stages presents Wesli (Canada/Haiti) at Transformer Station,

• the Kent/Blossom Festival features violinist William Hagen (pictured) with Stephen Tavani, violin, Afendi Yusuf, clarinet and friends from The Cleveland Orchestra performing Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet and Schubert’s Octet in Ludwig Recital Hall on the Kent State Campus,

• and Apollo’s Fire “Rediscovers” Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at Kirtland’s Holden Arboretum.

And at 8 pm, Classical Revolution rises anew at the Happy Dog on Detroit Ave., on Cleveland’s West Side.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera presents a matinee performance of Rodgers &  Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music (pictured) in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Les Délices has announced details of its 2024-2025 season, which includes an all-Mozart program featuring a band of period-instrument wind players (October 3-6), music by visionary 14th-century composers with vocalists Sophie Michaux and James Reese (November 22-24), Baroque cantatas sung by tenor Nicolas Phan plus a new work by Viet Cuong (February 22-23), and The Mermaid featuring Irish bouzouki player Seán Dagher and soprano Elena Mullins Bailey (April 25-27). Three of the programs will be filmed and released via Vimeo as Virtual Concerts. Read the press release here.

The Violin Channel reports that “The Spanish violist Cristina Cordero has joined the Casals Quartet (Cuarteto Casals), succeeding violist Jonathan Brown, who will be departing the group after 22 years to pursue other music projects. Read more here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Venues are on hiatus this summer Monday. For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

IN MEMORIAM:  LaVert Stuart, 78

Lavert Levin Stuart (pictured), music teacher, and choir director, he was a church musician for almost 60 years and served as minister of music at a number of congregations in Northeast Ohio.” Read an obituary here.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Neighborhood Connections Announces $382,114 in Funding for 121 Projects, 27 co-funded by Cuyahoga Arts  & Culture. Read the press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

July 15 presents a number of noteworthy events beginning with the death of Carl Czerny in 1857 at age 66 in Vienna. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND: 

Ohio Light opera now has five of its six summer shows up and running at Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster. Catch Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers (Friday at 2), Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (Friday at 7:30), Me and My Girl (Saturday at 2), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Sound of Music (Saturday at 7:30) & Franz Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg (Sunday at 2).

On Saturday at 7 at Blossom, guest conductor Domingo Hindoyan leads The Cleveland Orchestra & Blossom Festival Chorus in Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, trumpeter Michael Sachs will be featured in Alexander Arutiuian’s Trumpet Concerto, and the program will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3.

Jodi Kanter’s Stars in the Classics offers two “Summer Music in the Garden” events on Friday and Sunday at 6 in a private garden in Orange Village. Check out the details of “From the Classics to Jazz” and make reservations here.

The McGaffin Carillon in University Circle will get a workout on Friday, with two separate programs by University of Denver carillonneur Carol Jickling Lens at 12:15 and 7 pm.

On Friday at 6:30 pm in Westlake’s Crocker Park, Piano Cleveland Live will present an outdoor concert with Steinway artist Shuai Wang, and a quartet from Cleveland’s Italian folk group, Alla Boara.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The New York Times reports that “Gary Ginstling, the New York Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, abruptly resigned on Thursday after just a year on the job, leaving the orchestra in limbo as it grapples with challenges including heated labor talks and an investigation into its workplace culture after two players were accused of misconduct.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

With the opening performance of Franz Lehár’s Count of Luxembourg at 2 pm and an evening staging of The Sound of Music at 7:30, Ohio Light Opera will have five of its six summer shows running — and its stage crew busy changing sets — from now through July 28.

Read our group interview with members of the team that makes it all happen in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster. And check out our conversation with artistic director Steven Daigle about the last two shows on this summer’s menu.

Meanwhile in Cleveland, The Cleveland Orchestra is reviving its Summers at Severance series, and tonight at 7 will welcome guest conductor Oksana Lyniv & pianist Inon Barnatan to Mandel Concert Hall for music by Janáček, Rachmaninoff, Borys Lyatoshynsky & Stravinsky. Read our preview here.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On July 11, 1937, American composer George Gershwin died of a brain tumor in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 38. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 12:15 Noon, organist Florence Mustric will play Pachelbel and music by Americans Samuel Barber, Derek Healey, and Charles Ives on the Beckerath organ in Ohio City’s Trinity Lutheran Church, and Ohio Light Opera presents a 2 pm matinee performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers at the College of Wooster.

Weather forecasts have forced a venue change for the Cleveland Museum of Art’s 7:30 City Stages concert by Pahua (Mexico), which now moves to the Museum’s Atrium.

And at 7:30 the Poiesis Quartet (pictured) will play the third Kent/Blossom Faculty Concert in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State, surrounding Johannes Brahms’ Third Quartet with contemporary works by Kevin Lau, Joe Hisaischi & Eleanor Alberga. Read a preview here.

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

The League of American Orchestras writes, “This summer, YMCA of the Rockies will host the inaugural Arts at Altitude Music Festival featuring the renowned Cleveland Pops Orchestra, led by founding conductor, Carl Topilow. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Venues are dark on this summer Monday. For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Heights Chamber Orchestra will hold auditions for trombone and all strings positions for their 2024-2025 season on Monday, August 19 at 7:30. Musicians interested in auditioning can find information on the 2024-2025 season, excerpts, and a sign-up form on the orchestra’s website, Questions? Call 216.751.7816.

INTERESTING READ:

NPR writes, “You may not know the name Leslie Bricusse (pronounced Brick’-us), but you very likely hum some of the songs he’s written: “Pure Imagination,” “What Kind of Fool Am I?,” “Talk to the Animals,” Superman’s theme “Can You Read My Mind,” “Goldfinger.”

“Mark Eden Horowitz, a senior music specialist at the Library of Congress, where the Bricusse papers join those of Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rodgers, the Gershwins and others, says that in addition to the scripts, musical scores, notes for ideas on shows that never came together, recordings and other items, what’s remarkable about this particular collection is Bricusse’s notebooks.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND: 

Kent/Blossom Festival Young Artists performances begin in a number of locations on Friday (2 pm at Hudson’s Laurel Lake Retirement Community & 7:30 in Ludwig), Saturday (2 pm at Hudson Library) & Sunday (2 pm at CIM’s Mixon Hall & 7:30 in Ludwig).

Banjo sensation Béla Fleck (pictured) joins conductor Brett Mitchell & The Cleveland Orchestra on Saturday at 7 at Blossom for Fleck’s own arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, plus American music by Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber & William Grant Still.

Ohio Light Opera continues its rotation of its first three productions in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster: The Sound of Music (Friday at 2 & Sunday at 2), Guys and Dolls (Saturday at 2 & Tuesday at 2) & Me and My Girl (Saturday at 7:30).

A Lunchtime Carillon Concert by Sheryl Modlin begins at 12:15 Friday from the McGaffin tower in University Circle.

And a concert at 3 pm Sunday at Lake View Cemetery Community Mausoleum celebrates Cleveland’s forgotten composer, guitar hero, and abolitionist, Justin Holland with 280 years of chamber music by Black composers performed by Damian Goggans (guitar) & Cleveland Orchestra members Liyuan Xie & Isabel Trautwein (violins), Eliesha Nelson (viola) & Tanya Ell (cello).

For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.

[Read more…]