by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon today, organist Steven Kuerbitz will play music by Joseph Jongen, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and J.S. Bach at the Church of the Covenant. Click here for the live stream.

IN MEMORIAM: 

Friends and colleagues of Cleveland composer H. Leslie Adams (pictured) have reported his passing on May 24 at the age of 96. Read his bio on the American Composers Alliance website here, and on the Cleveland Arts Prize website here (on the occasion of his Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015).

JAZZFEST OUTDOOR SCHEDULE:

On Friday, Tri-C JazzFest announced the schedule for its outdoor concerts in Playhouse Square on June 21 & 22. Download the press release here.

INTERESTING READ:

“Memo to Orchestras: Do More Opera.” New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe saw a Cleveland Orchestra performance of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” last week and wrote that the production was “a reminder that ensembles can help fill the gap as opera grows harder to find.” Read his review here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti was born on this date in 1923 in Dicsöszentmartin, Transylvania. [Read more…]

The Diary will return on Tuesday, May 28.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, No Exit New Music wraps up its Year of Surreality: Breaking the World at Heights Arts, and at 7:30 Leila Josefowicz joins The Cleveland Orchestra for Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. Franz Welser-Möst fills out the program with Mozart’s Serenade No. 10, “Gran Partita,” and the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On May 23, 1885, Paraguayan composer Agustín Barrios Mangoré was born in San Bautista de las Misiones. The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society presented Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas in a 2020 online concert devoted to his music, including special guests Paquito D’Rivera (clarinet), Milagros Caliva (bandoneon), and Marcelo Enrique Barrios (the composer’s great-grandson). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 6 pm this evening, the Cleveland International Piano Competition presents its 2005 First Prize winner Chu-Fang Huang in CIPC Piano at the Pub at Forest City Brewing.

And at 7:30, Samuel Gordon leads Singers Companye (pictured left at the Maltz) in its program Jubilate Deo  at First Methodist in Cuyahoga Falls.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On May 22 in 1874, Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem was first performed at the church of San Marco in Milan, ending a long requiem saga for the composer, who had originally proposed a collaborative work by several Italian composers to honor Gioachino Rossini after his death in 1868. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, the Cleveland Museum of Art presents a free Chamber Music in the Atrium recital by Chu-Fang Huang, who won first place in the 2005 Cleveland International PIano Competition, and the Church of the Covenant’s Tuesday Organ Plus concerts presents Kaori Hongo, organ, and Tim Tavcar, reader, in Petr Eben’s Job (live stream available).

NEWS BRIEFS:

The $22 million, 15-month-long renovation of Kulas Hall, the main performance space at the Cleveland Institute of Music, officially got underway on Monday when CIM trustee Kevin Stein took a symbolic sledgehammer swing to the back wall of the stage. (Photo: Timothy Bates/Cleveland Institute of Music). Read a press release about the project here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

Update: The Strad reports that Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw has reinstated one of the two performances by the Jerusalem Quartet that it canceled last week due to security concerns. Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1896, the curtain came down on Clara Wieck Schumann’s career in Frankfurt am Main at the age of 76. Take a deep dive into her complete works for solo piano here (duration: 3 hours, 41 minutes) as recorded by Belgian pianist Jozef De Beenhouwer.

By Mike Telin

It’s always interesting to scroll through the list of musicians born on any single day and see who catches your attention. Although I found today’s list to be a bit sparse, aside from singers Joe Cocker and Cher, one name particularly caught my eye. On May 20, 1927, composer and teacher Walter Aschaffenberg was born in Essen, Germany. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday: Wit’s Folly plays at the Brownhoist at 3, Franz Welser-Möst conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Mozart’s Magic Flute at 7 at Severance, Alex Bevan performs with the Akron Symphony at 7:30, and the Re:Sound Festival continues at 7:30 at Convivium 33 Gallery.

Sunday: Cleveland Composers Guild features young composers at 3 at the Music Settlement, harpsichordist Sean Kleve plays at Rocky River Methodist at 3, Suburban Symphony features competition winners at 3:30 at Beachwood High School, Singers Companye (pictured) sings at the Maltz at 4, St. James in Lakewood hosts chamber music at 4, and the Re:Sound Festival wraps up at 7:30 at Convivium 33 Gallery.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other events.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

May 18:

German composer and conductor Gustav Mahler died in Vienna on this date in 1911, leaving nine-and-a-half monumental symphonies that were performed during his lifetime, but languished until their revival later in the century, notably by Leonard Bernstein. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7 in Tri-C’s Metro Auditorium, Kristopher Morron leads the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in a program including Dana Hall’s When Still, which recounts the story of the nine souls who lost their lives in the 2015 shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

At the same hour at Bath Church UCC, Wit’s Folly presents Émigré: French Refugees in the Early United States and the Music They Brought with Them, while Federated Church in Chagrin Falls hosts the Factory Seconds Brass Trio (Cleveland Orchestra second-chair players Jack Sutte, trumpet, Jesse McCormick, horn, and Richard Stout, trombone.

Then at 7:30 in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance, the Cleveland Orchestra’s Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival continues with pianist Conrad Tao in Recital: Power and Influence, joined by cellist Dane Johansen, “a fascinating dialogue between Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Russian and American homes, discussing the power of old world and new, tradition and innovation.”

And tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project launches its Re:Sound 2024 festival — new & experimental music in concert, workshop & installation — at Convivium 33 Gallery (click here for program details).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other events. [Read more…]