by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING  TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 The Cleveland Orchestra presents An Evening with Yo-Yo Ma, featuring the renowned cellist in Antonîn Dvořák’s Concerto in a program that includes Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Overture to Die Fledermaus, Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni, and Dvořák’s Carnival Overture. James Feddeck is on the podium at Severance Music Center.

And tonight at 8 pm, Oberlin Opera Theater begins a four-performance run of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George’s L’amant anonyme in Hall Auditorium, directed by Fenlon Lamb, and conducted by Kelly Kuo. Premiered in 1780, this two-act opéra comique (run time: 90 minutes, no intermission) is the only Bologne opera to survive to the present day.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

This date in music history has brought with it the deaths of German composer and organist Heinrich Schütz (1672 in Dresden), Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1893 in St. Petersburg), and French composer Edgar Varèse (1965 in New York), as well as the births of Belgian instrument inventor Adolphe Sax (pictured, 1814 in Dinant) and American composer and conductor John Philip Sousa (1854 in the nation’s capital). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 6:00 pm, the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts young musicians from Case Western Reserve University’s Historical Performance Practice Program in the Donna and James Reid Gallery

Tonight at 7 pm, CityMusic Cleveland plays its November chamber concert at Praxis Fiber Workshop.

And at 7:30 pm, Joshua Gersen conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Bernard Hermann’s score to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, performed live-to-picture at Severance Music Center.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1494, German Meistersinger Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg. A shoemaker by trade, he wrote over 4,000 Meisterlieder, poems, tragedies, comedies, fables, and religious tracts, having become an enthusiastic follower of Martin Luther. That earned him the opprobrium of the town council — until Nuremberg signed on to join the Reformation. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, organist Owen Metz will play works by Nicolaus Bruhns and Maurice Duruflé on the Tuesday Noon series at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

And tonight at 7:30, CIM “Insiders” Si-Yan Darren Li, cello, Steven Banks, saxophone, Stephen Tavani, violin, Wesley Collins, viola, and Anita Pontremoli, piano, will perform works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Hildegard von Bingen, and Antonín Dvořák in Kulas Hall.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Pianist Retires from Performing

The Violin Channel reports that the 81-year-old Portuguese pianist Maria João will officially step away from the stage.

Pernambuco Wood Ban

In another story today, the Violin Channel reports that musicians are petitioning governments to oppose Brazil’s Proposed Ban on an essential material for bow making.

Pierre Boulez Centenary at CMA

The Cleveland Orchestra, Museum of Art and Cleveland State University will celebrate Pierre Boulez’s centenary with a free concert on Nov. 14 at the Museum. Alex Darus previews the event on Cleveland.com that will feature modernist compositions and honor the renowned French composer. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

INTERESTING READS:

Writing in The New Yorker, Alex Ross notes that “At ninety, Arvo Pärt and Terry Riley still sound vital. Both composers remain intriguing outliers, notable for the stubbornness with which they have held to their youthful convictions.”

And in The Guardian, Emma Thompson speaks of her ‘intense irritation’ with AI. “The actor and screenwriter told late night talkshow host Stephen Colbert that she took issue with Microsoft’s Copilot offering to rewrite her scripts for her.” Although this article is about words, the issue affects all the arts.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German organist and composer Samuel Scheidt was baptized on this date in 1587 in Halle, where he spent his whole career after studying in Amsterdam with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

Just back from heading up the jury for the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, pianist Garrick Ohlsson turns his formidable interpretive powers to the music of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart in performances of the Viennese genius’s Concerto No. 23 with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra. The concerts on Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center will also include Tyler Taylor’s Permissions, and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish.” Tickets are available online.

The Poesis Quartet (pictured) — violinists Sarah Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor, and cellist Drew Dansby — return to their ensemble’s birthplace at the Oberlin Conservatory this week for coachings and a performance of John Adams’ Absolute Jest with Raphael Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra on Friday at 7:30 in Finney Chapel.  Jiménez has more contemporary music planned for this program, including Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, Angelica Negrón’s Campos Flotantes, and Zhou Tian’s Transcend. It’s free, and will also be live streamed. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, pianist Garrick Ohlsson will play the first of three performances of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra. The concerts on Thursday and Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center will also include Tyler Taylor’s Permissions, and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish.”

Mozart’s 23rd piano concerto will also be performed by Antonio Pompa-Baldi in a 7:30 concert this evening by the Cleveland Institute of Music Virtuosi in Kulas Hall, along with the composer’s Divertimento in D, K. 136 and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Todd Phillips leads the ensemble.

NEWS BRIEFS: 

The Guardian writes that the 9th century manuscript for an Easter rite discovered “hiding in plain sight” in a private collection near Philadelphia may now claim to  contain the oldest extant example of Western musical notation. Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1864 American music patroness and composer Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge was born in Chicago. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HONORED:

The Violin Channel reports that Cleveland violist Samuel Rosenthal is one of 37 artists selected from a pool of more than 200 applicants to advance to the semi-final round of Young Concert Artists’ (YCA) Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, “which differ from a competition, as there are no rankings and each candidate competes against a standard of excellence, not each other.” Read Rosenthal’s bio here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Whatever happened to Maria Anna Mozart, “Nannerl,” the composer’s beloved older sister, who died on October 29 in 1829? An accomplished pianist in her own right, she is said to have written music herself, although none survives. Her life was re-imagined in René Féret’s 2010 French language film, Nannerl, la sœur de Mozart. Watch a trailer here, and learn how you can rent the movie. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, The Pandan Quartet plays music by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate and Ludwig van Beethoven on the Tuesday noon series at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

Tonight at 7:30 in Finney Chapel, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series presents VOCES8 (pictured), the globally-touring British a cappella ensemble that performs everything from early Renaissance music to traditional folk song, contemporary and popular music, plus their own arrangements.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Because of his connection to Northeast Ohio — thirteen years as concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell — we’ll focus today on Josef Gingold, the Russian-born violinist who was born on this date in 1909, and became one of America’s foremost pedagogues of his instrument. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, on the Lorain County Community College Signature Series in Elyria, violinist Clara Kim (pictured) plays her program People and Places — six works by JunYi Chow, Jessica Ackerley, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Sarah Gibson, and Christopher Stark, each inspired by a location that shaped their creation.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Let’s start reflecting on October 27 in music history with the inspiring story of German organist and composer Helmut Walcha, born in Leipzig on this date in 1907. Blinded as a result of a smallpox vaccination at the age of 19, Walcha went on to become assistant organist at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, moving on to the Friedenskirche in Frankfurt am Main in 1929, then to the Dreikönigskirche there in 1944, where he spent the rest of his career until his death in 1991. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony three more times this weekend at Severance Music Center — Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm. The famous work can stand alone, but these performances will preface it with Jean Sibelius’ Tapiola.

Cleveland Chamber Choir (pictured) will give two performances of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil in its hour-long version — coupling the Russian composer’s choral masterpiece with Reena Esmail’s A Winter Breviary, which celebrates the movement from winter to spring just as Rachmaninoff marks the progress from darkness to light. Friday’s 7:30 concert is at Trinity Cathedral and Saturday’s in Fairchild Chapel at Oberlin College. Gregory Ristow conducts.

No Exit will open its 17th season of new music concerts with “American Descent” on Saturday at 7 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop. On the menu: Garth Knox’s Viola Spaces, Geoffrey Burleson’s Cryptic Locomotion, June Young Will Kim’s After days of rain, construction fills the air, and the world premiere of Andrew Rindfleisch’s American Descent.

And on Sunday at 2:30, at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra will celebrate its 90th anniversary season with a program featuring Fanny Mendelssohn’s Overture in C, Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures (with mezzo soprano Kira McGirr), Clara-Jane Maunder’s The Coast (U.S. premiere), and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1. Eric Benjamin conducts.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

The prolific keyboard composer Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples on October 26, 1685, the son of composer Alessandro Scarlatti, and the third eminent member of the Class of ‘85 that includes Handel and J.S. Bach. [Read more…]