by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

The Summer Solstice will occur today at 4:51 pm EDT when the sun reaches its most northern point in the sky during the year.

Before that happens, at 2 pm Ohio Light Opera will present the opening performance of Me and My Girl in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster, and at 7 pm, a new series, Third Thursdays at Transformer Station, will feature Ideastream’s Amanda Rabinowitz and Talons’ — the event is sold out. And The Canton Symphony has canceled its 6:30 pm Summer Serenade at the Canton Garden Center due to extreme heat.

Even though summer will have officially begun, tonight at 7:30, ChamberFest Cleveland will continue its series with “Rite of Spring,” a program featuring duo-pianists Roman Rabinovich & Yaron Kohlberg (pictured) & percussionists Tom Sherwood & Alexander Cohen in an arrangement of Stravinsky’s iconic work along with many other vernal selections in CIM’s Mixon Hall.

Meanwhile, at 7:30 pm in Akron’s Goodyear Theater, Nightingale Opera will present Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon, a take on the beloved fairytale of Cinderella (repeated on Friday). And this evening at 8, Tri-C JazzFest, will kick off a busy weekend with a performance by Take 6 in Playhouse Square’s Mimi Ohio Theatre. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

From 7 to 9pm at  CLE Urban Winery in Cleveland Hts., ChamberFest Cleveland presents “Cello Dualities with Oliver Herbert.” Happy Hour begins at 7 pm with CFC artistic directors and festival musicians, followed by a 8 pm solo cello performance when Herbert will play J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3, Sofia Gubaidulina’s Preludes for Solo Cello & Paul Desenne’s Jaguar Songs.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On June 18, 1818, French composer Charles Gounod was born in Paris. Instead of linking to one of his popular operas or symphonic masses, here’s his Petit symphonie pour vents in honor of all orchestral wind players. The Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France performs it in January, 2018 at the Maison de la Radio in Paris. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

June festival events continue on Saturday with Ohio Light Opera’s Sound of Music at 2 pm & Guys & Dolls at 7 (Freedlander Theater, College of Wooster), ENCORE Chamber Music Institute’s “Voice of the Whale” at 7:30 (Cleveland Natural History Museum), and ChamberFest Cleveland’s “Fantastic Tales” (7:30 in Mixon Hall at CIM).

Also on Saturday, conductors Dr. Henry Panion, III and Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz (pictured) lead the Canton Symphony in Gospel Joins Symphony (7:30 in Umstattd Hall).

On Sunday, ChamberFest Cleveland goes al fresco with performances along the trails, youth activities, and food & beverages from EDWIN’s (11am to 1 pm, Nature Center at Shaker Lakes), ENCORE Chamber Music Institute stays indoors for “Earth Makes Us Equal” (3 pm, Harkness Chapel at CWRU), and carillonneur Keiran Cantilina plays classical, traditional, film, and popular music (6 pm, from the tower of St. Paul’s Church, Cleveland Hts.)

INTERESTING READ:

Organist Paul Jacobs laments in BBC News the decision to install another digital organ in the New York Philharmonic’s Geffen Hall during its most recent renovation. Read ‘Why Doesn’t New York’s Geffen Hall Have a Real Organ?” here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Two summer chamber music festivals will go head-to-head in 7:30 pm concerts this evening.

In Harkness Chapel at CWRU, ChamberFest Cleveland will present “Mystical Reveries,” featuring violinist Alexi Kenney (pictured) in Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Mystery Sonata, “The Annunciation,” along with works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Robert Schumann, John Adams & Johannes Brahms performed by a long list of his colleagues.

And in Warner Concert Hall at Oberlin, ENCORE Chamber Music Institute will present “Director’s Carte Blanche” with violinists Jinjoo Cho and Mathieu Herzog, and pianist Hyunsoo Kim performing works by George Frideric Handel (arr. by Johan Halvorsen), Edvard Grieg & Wolfgang Amadé Mozart.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Today, June 14, Naxos will release an album of Margaret Brouwer’s orchestral masterworks performed by Marin Alsop and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera debuts its 2024 production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster, and puts the show into its summer rotation. Visit our Concert Listings for more information.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

June 13 marks anniversaries for Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez, who was born in Mexico City in 1899, and American composer David Diamond, who died in Rochester, NewYork in 2005. Although each of them have been championed by individual conductors, their music awaits wider attention.

A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music who taught for years at Juilliard, Diamond’s works — along with those of other mid-century tonal composers — were overshadowed by the rise of atonal music. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

On Sunday evening following the final round of the James Stroud Youth Classical Guitar Competition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the following winners were announced: Elle Davisson (16, first place), Micah Montgomery (14, 2nd place), Hilbert Chen (15, third place), and Preston Hong  (15, fourth place). Watch a video of the final round performances here.

Venue Change: The June 14 ENCORE Chamber Music Institute concert by Jinjoo Cho, Mathieu Herzog, and Hyunsoo Kim at the Oberlin Conservatory, originally scheduled for Kulas Recital Hall, has been moved to Warner Concert Hall. Senior Naturalist Dr. Chris Stanton from the Lorain County Metroparks will open the program with a talk reflecting the festival theme: Planet Earth. The concert program includes works by Handel/Halvorsen, Grieg and Mozart. Tickets are available online.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Composer Richard Strauss was born on this date in 1864 in Munich, and so was Polish composer and pianist Aleander Tansmann (in Lodz in 1897), American composer George Frederick McKay (in Harrington, WA in 1899) and American opera composer Carlysle Floyd (in Latta, SC in 1926). The sole departure was French organist and composer Théodore Dubois in Paris in 1924 at the age of 86. [Read more…]