by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1914, conductor Frederick Fennell was born in Cleveland (he died in 2004 in Florida). He played timpani in the John Adams High School band before going on to study at Interlochen, then at the Eastman School of Music, where he founded the Eastman Symphonic Wind Ensemble and launched a long career reinventing and directing wind bands. Fennell also studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood (with classmates Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss), and served on the conducting staffs of the Minnesota Orchestra, the University of Miami and the Miami Philharmonic, the Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Dallas Wind Symphony.

One of America’s most-recorded conductors, Fennell’s credits include 29 recordings on the Mercury label. He also made history for his collaboration with Jack Renner and Robert Woods, founders of Cleveland’s Telarc Records, who made the first-ever symphonic digital recording with Fennell conducting the Cleveland Symphonic Winds — including the wind, brass, and percussion sections of The Cleveland Orchestra — in Severance Hall in April, 1978. The recording of Gustav Holst’s Suites for Military Band similarly made history in 1983 when it became part of one of the first recordings to be released in the new compact disc format.

Read the history of making that recording in an article on Engineering and Technology Wiki, and listen to those performances of Holst’s Suite No. 1 in E-flat and Suite No. 2 in F here and here (where you can follow along with the reduced conductor’s score). And watch Frederick Fennell in action rehearsing the Indiana State University Wind Ensemble in 1997.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

At noon, WCLV 104.9 Ideastream features music by Beethoven, Piston, and Mozart on Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra. This evening, Oberlin Stage Left presents David Bowlin and Tony Cho performing Aaron Copland’s Violin Sonata (a conversation with the artists and ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin considers why the work has been neglected and its enduring resonance). And it’s Carmen from the MET Opera Archives this evening, in a performance from 2014. Details here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE MTT TRIBUTE:

The celebration of Michael Tilson Thomas’ retirement from the San Francisco Symphony after 25 years was supposed to be a big public blowout, but all of that changed with the pandemic. Instead, MTT25: An Online Tribute, takes a look back at “25 years of memories with the San Francisco Symphony’s iconic Music Director, Michael Tilson Thomas. Hosted by vocalists Audra McDonald and Susan Graham, the virtual event showcases personal stories, memories, and performances by a star-studded guest list of friends and musical colleagues of Michael Tilson Thomas.” Watch the 75-minute tribute here.

Tilson Thomas brought the San Francisco Symphony to Severance Hall in 2014, and most recently guest conducted The Cleveland Orchestra last February. The photo by Roger Mastroianni shows the conductor with Daniil Trifonov and The Cleveland Orchestra in March of 2018. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

LOCAL NEWS:

The Canton Symphony goes online on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm for an interlocking series of educational programs. This week, on July 1, Assistant Conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz talks in the second program in a six-part series about how music is constructed. The following Wednesday, July 8, in “Beyond the Music,” Executive Director Michelle Charles, Music Director Gerhardt Zimmerman, and Jaroszewicz discuss what goes into creating an orchestral season. Episodes alternate through August 26. Click here for more information and to register for the individual sessions.

Apollo’s Fire goes live for the first time since the shutdown, with a “Blues Café 1610 Renaissance-Folk Jam Session” on July 18 at Music Box Supper Club with Amanda Powell, vocals, Brian Kay, plucked instruments, and Tina Bergmann, hammered dulcimer. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEW ONLINE SERIES FROM EHNES & LES DÉLICES:

Violinist James Ehnes, whose third concert of all the Beethoven sonatas for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society — along with his many other scheduled performances — was nixed by the pandemic, has seized the opportunity to start something new. As he writes on his website,

While giving some online masterclasses in April, I found myself telling students over and over to create their own opportunities to share their music, and how that was more important than ever during these unprecedented times. I realized that for me as well, making my own opportunities was tremendously important, not just to keep artistically engaged, but also to hopefully find a model that can be sustainable for performing musicians during this extended time of upheaval in the industry.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Staying indoors at noon? Tune in to WCLV 104.9 Ideastream for Bruckner, Ravel, and Johann Strauss, Jr. on Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra. Venturing outdoors at mid-day? Stop (or walk around) in University Circle to enjoy a carillon concert by George Leggiero from the McGaffin Tower on Euclid Avenue. This evening, your choice of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, with Kathleen Battle and Luciano Pavarotti from the MET Opera’s HD archives, or a virtual Oberlin Summer Organ Institute concert by Jonathan Moyer and Christa Rakich on four organs in three concert halls. Details here.

VIDEOS OF NOTE:

Social media has been crackling with superlatives about 79-year-old Argentine pianist Martha Argerich’s performance this week of Chopin’s B-Minor Sonata in an empty hall in Hamburg for “Die liebe Erde allüberall” (‘Everywhere the beloved Earth’), an project by the Hamburg Symphony that aims to rethink the relationship between classical music and the Internet. Watch the performance here.

In the latest episode of One on One, Musical America interviews Trey Devey, president of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, about the five interlocking divisions of the Northern Michigan center, and how each is dealing with the pandemic. “Interlochen’s flagship, the Summer Arts Camp, founded in 1928, opens online June 28. The boarding school —  Interlochen Arts Academy — will welcome students in August in person, under a very specific re-entry plan.” Watch here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Today you can have lunch with The Cleveland Orchestra (Wagner and Brahms with Yefim Bronfman), coffee with cornettist Bruce Dickey, and dessert with Ohio Light Opera (selections from Let ‘Em Eat Cake), take a video tour of Oberlin’s organ fleet on Oberlin Stage Left, watch Massenet’s Manon from the MET Opera, and join Northeast Ohio artists in support of UNICEF. Check our Concert Listings for details.

RYAN ANTHONY OBITUARY:

Dallas-based music critic Scott Cantrell’s extensive obituary for trumpeter Ryan Anthony appears in the Dallas Morning News. Read it here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1767, the super-prolific German composer George Philipp Telemann died in Hamburg, where he had earlier used his pending appointment to cantorships in Leipzig to negotiate a raise from the Hamburg authorities (J.S. Bach, Leipzig’s third choice after No. 2 had turned them down, remained a friend). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

IN MEMORIAM RYAN ANTHONY:

Trumpeter Ryan Anthony, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music who taught at Oberlin, played with Canadian Brass, and became principal trumpet with the Dallas Symphony, died on June 23 at the age of 51 after a courageous, 8-year struggle with multiple myeloma. More information will be available on the website of the organization he founded, Cancer Blows.

Among the multiple tributes that have been posted on social media, friends and fans have recommended his performances of Ennio Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe, and the Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

INTERESTING READS:

Today’s New York Times features pianist Spencer Myer and baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco as one of a pair of teams who are recasting a Beethoven song cycle into a “one-on-one telephonic encounter.” Read the article here.

And as food for thought, here are three articles that consider various aspects of the current state of classical music and raise questions about the future:

Writing in Oregon Artswatch, Brett Campbell asks, “in the new reality shaped by declining support for big performing institutions, likely new restrictions on big crowds, and a long overdue need for greater diversity, equity and inclusion in the arts, how should Portland and Oregon support the arts?”

In his article,  “High Culture Brought Low,” in the June 22 issue of New York Magazine, Justin Davidson writes, “The pandemic silenced our symphony halls and grand opera houses. But will the (eventual) restart bring with it a reckoning?”

And on June 21 in The Guardian, Fiona Maddox considered the future of the Arts: “Where are we now? The classical world has been transfigured. It’s still recognisable, but only invention and generosity – of money, imagination, attitude – will save it.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

British tenor Peter Pears, the lifelong companion of composer Benjamin Britten, was born in Farnham on this date in 1910. Pears created many of the major roles in Britten’s operas, and the two frequently collaborated in recitals, like this one, an informal concert of English traditional songs recorded in 1964 at London’s Riverside Studios for an audience of friends.

Britten wrote almost exclusively with specific performer friends in mind. Listen here to a classic recording of his Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with hornist Dennis Brain and Peter Pears — who chose the poetry for this and many other Britten song cycles.

One year after Pears’ birth, the famous organ in John Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia was first played (it’s now part of the Macy’s empire). Enjoy a video that traces its history and evolution here.

On June 22, 1955, Cleveland-based composer Jeffrey Mumford was born in Washington, D.C. Winner of numerous awards and commissions, Mumford currently serves as Distinguished Professor at Lorain County Community College in Elyria. Click here to watch a performance of his 2015 work becoming… performed on March 3, 2019 by the Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble. [Read more…]