by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

Poiesis Quartet wins at Banff

The Violin Channel reports that the Poiesis Quartet has won first prize in the 2025 Banff String Quartet Competition.

“Comprising violinists Sarah Ying Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor and cellist Drew Dansby, The Poiesis Quartet are former Grand Prize winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and winner of the 2024 Concert Artists Guild Competition.

“They currently serve as Graduate Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, studying with the Ariel Quartet. As graduates of Oberlin Conservatory, they were previously mentored by Sibbi Bernhardsson of the Pacifica Quartet and the Verona Quartet.”

Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Today we look back on the life of Rudolf Bing (pictured below), who died on this date in 1997. The famed general manager of the Metropolitan Opera oversaw the company’s move to Lincoln Center in 1963. [Read more…]

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:30 pm – The Concert Truck appears at the Akron Urban League. Presented by Tuesday Musical, pianists Susan Zhang and Maxim Lando will play classical, jazz, world music, Broadway show tunes, and more.

[POSTPONED] 5:30 pm – M.U.S.i.C. at The Van Aken District. Young musicians perform duets, string quartets, solos and vocal works by Boccherini, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Bernstein, and Piazzolla.

6:30 pm – Canton Symphony Summer Serenades brings a brass quintet to Tam O’Shanter Park.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Two string quartets have announced changes in personnel. The Jerusalem Quartet, which performed all of Dmitri Shostakovich’s quartets in April for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, has announced the departure of violist Ori Kam after 15 years with the ensemble. And The Callisto Quartet, founded at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2016, has named Eric Tsai as its new first violinist, replacing Cameron Daly, who has left the ensemble to play with the Seattle Symphony.

Arts Renaissance Tremont has announced that it will return to Pilgrim Church for its 34th season after relocating following the death of founder Christine Haff Paluck. Feza Zweifel has been named artistic director of the organization. Read more here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NOTE: In order to give our staff a late summer break, The Diary will go on hiatus from Monday, August 18 through Wednesday, August 27, and there will be no Thursday Newsletter on August 21.

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Friday at 12:15 noon, Friends of the McGaffin Carillon in University Circle present an all-Italian Lunchtime Carillon Concert by George Leggiero, honoring the carillon’s Little Italy neighbors on the Feast of the Assumption.

At Blossom on Saturday at 7 pm, associate conductor Daniel Reith bids farewell to The Cleveland Orchestra with Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Stephen Tanavi solos in Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and the Orchestra debuts Gabriella Smith’s Rewilding, a co-commission celebrating the 50th anniversary of Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

On Saturday at 7:30 pm, the Canton Symphony Orchestra presents The Hunchback of Notre Dame in concert. Steven Byess, conducts the Players Guild of Canton, and the Canton Symphony Chorus in a semi-staged version of Victor Hugo’s timeless story in Umstattd Hall at Zimmermann Symphony Center,

And at Blossom on Sunday at 7 pm, The Cleveland Orchestra presents a Rodgers & Hammerstein Celebration with Andy Einhorn, conductor, and Scarlett Strallen, Jacob Dickey, & Ben Davis, vocals. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

7:00 pm – Isabelle and Raphael Olivier. This French mother-son duo from Paris share their artistic palette of harp and guitar. Ranging from jazz standards to modern improvisations and traditional French songs, their program will feature original music inspired by the open minds and hearts of the people, places, and moments they’ve experienced. Reithoffer’s, 17711 Ravenna Road, Auburn Township. Tickets available online.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland Arts Prize has announced its current recipients (pictured in the montage above). Click here for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On August 14, 1987, American composer Vincent Persichetti died in Philadelphia at age 72. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Music Settlement announces that registration is currently open for all its programs, including private music lessons, the Suzuki program, ensembles, and group classes. View the Fall Course Catalog here.

Tuesday Musical announces that all tickets are now on sale for TMA’s 2025-26 Akron Concert Series — including soprano Renée Fleming, jazz and classical saxophonist Branford Marsalis, a 300th anniversary celebration of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons by France’s Les Arts Florissants, and Christmas with Cantus. Click here for more information.

More from Tuesday Musical: The Concert Truck — a traveling music venue (pictured) complete with its own lights, sound system and piano — is rolling into Greater Akron neighborhoods in late August for a series of free outdoor concerts. Presented by Tuesday Musical, the genre-bending concerts will feature classical, jazz, world music, Broadway show tunes, and more performed by pianists Susan Zhang and Maxim Lando.

“Local musicians will perform before and during some of the concerts. No tickets needed. Simply come, bring seating and picnics if you wish, and enjoy the music.” Click here for the schedule.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1655, German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner was born in Leipzig. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Molly Walsh reports on Cleveland.com that The Ohio Arts Council has awarded nearly $182,000 in grants to arts organizations in Lake and Geauga counties as part of a record $23.3 million funding round for the agency.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1612, Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli died in Venice. He advanced the tradition of polychoral music at the Basilica of San Marco to the point where northern composers like Heinrich Schütz paid extended visits to study with him and take his techniques back home.

These works have provided great material for modern brass ensembles, as you can hear in the 1969 recording The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli, reissued in 1996 and featuring brass players from the Chicago Symphony, and the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced that single tickets for the 2025-2026 season will go on sale today for subscribers, donors, and membership club members, and will be available to the general public on Wednesday, August 13 beginning at 10 am. View the announcement here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1873, American composer J. Rosamond Johnson (pictured) was born in Jacksonville, Florida. Trained at the New England Conservatory and in London, he’s best known for his setting of Lift Every Voice and Sing, the poem by his brother, James Weldon Johnson, that has come to be known as the Black National Anthem. During his active career in show business, he produced several Broadway operettas, and edited two volumes of Spirituals in the mid-20s.

Click here to hear three of Johnson’s Spirituals sung by the late Cleveland soprano A. Grace Lee Mims.

And on August 11, 1996, Czech conductor, composer and pianist Rafael Kubelik died in Lucerne, Switzerland. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

IN MEMORIAM: 

David A. Tidyman, 73, who passed away on August 4, was a significant presence in Cleveland liturgical music for over 45 years as organist, harpsichordist and choral conductor. He was Music Director at Parma Lutheran and Rocky River Presbyterian early in his career. Appointed Director of Music at St. Angela Merici Parish in Fairview Park in 1995, he served there until retirement. For several years afterward, he served at St. Mel Parish in Cleveland. Read an obituary here.

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

FRIDAY: 12:15 Noon – Friends of the McGaffin Carillon Lunchtime Concert by George Leggiero | 7:30 Apollo’s Fire Fencing Match: dueling double concertos at the Bath Church.

SATURDAY: 3 pm & 7:30 Apollo’s Fire Fencing Match: dueling double concertos at Harkness Chapel, CWRU | 3 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. Lorain filmmaker John Baumgartner’s War Story (2001), followed by Charlie Chaplin’s beloved short Sunnyside (1919). both screened with a live original score performed by pianist Mike Petrone. Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium, main Cleveland Public Library | 7:00 pm — The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom, Elim Chan, conductor, and Christiane Karg, soprano. Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.

SUNDAY: 4 pm – First Annual Katherine Plank Memorial Benefit Concert featuring the Aidan Plank Big Band. All donations go to the ALS Association. First Church in Oberlin | 4 pm – Apollo’s Fire Fencing Match: dueling double concertos at Rocky River Presbyterian. | 7 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom. The Music of Billy Joel. Stuart Chafetz, conductor, and Tony DeSare, piano & vocals.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2025–2026 Family Concert Series and Music Explorers Series at Severance Music Center, “designed to introduce children and families to the magical world of classical music.” Read a press release here. [Read more…]