by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

Guest conductor Tito Muñoz (pictured) leads the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra tonight in a program of two staples: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. That’s at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center.

Admission is free, but register online for tickets. CIM student Zachary Brandon is the featured violinist.

For more details on this and more upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Prague Summer Nights Young Artists Music Festival will be holding live auditions next Wednesday, February 5, from 5:40 – 7:40 pm at Oberlin Conservatory. The month-long program in the Czech Republic will put on four orchestra concerts and six fully-staged operas between June 16 and July 14. Application information is available here.

INTERESTING READ:

“Morgiane” — maybe the oldest existing opera by a Black American — was never staged after composer Edmond Dédé completed it in 1887. Until now.

The history of the 545-page epic, its relatively recent discovery, and the composer’s connection to Black opera in 19th-century New Orleans are all chronicled in a recent feature for the New York Times.

Kevin O’Brien writes: “Now, almost 125 years after Dédé’s death, an unlikely team, including a historian, an antiquarian music dealer, two librarians, and a pair of New Orleans natives, has come together to salvage Dédé, make relevant his legacy and stage his greatest work for the first time.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at Noon, Oberlin organ major and Covenant music intern Owen Metz will play Nicolas de Grigny’s Veni Creator Spiritus (Livre d’orgue, 1699) & Max Reger’s  Phantasie über “Wie schön leuchtet uns der Morgenstern” at the Church of the Covenant, 11205 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Click here for the live stream. Freewill offering.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

CIM graduate Sam Rosenthal won first prize in the UK’s Lionel Tertis International Competition for violists aged 19 to 30, performing in the final round with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. The competition, held concurrently with the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead from 19-25 January, was live streamed, and videos are available to watch on The Violin Channel. (Above: photos of Aronowitz winner Xunyu Zhou and Sam Rosenthal by Thomas Jackson).

New digital releases available beginning today on The Cleveland Orchestra’s Adella platform include concerts led by Thomas Adès with violinist Pekka Kuusisto, and Barbara Hannigan with soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou, and in case you missed it, the January 19 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration concert (accessible through January 30).

Click here to read Stephanie Manning’s interview with Emanuel Ax on the Oberlin Conservatory website about his Oberlin Artist Recital Series concert next Tuesday with clarinetist Anthony McGill. [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

LOOKING AHEAD:

No concerts to open this week, but the coming days feature offerings from the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, the Chicago early music group Schola Antiqua (pictured), the Resonance Project, and many more.

For more details and see what else is on the calendar, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Anniversaries on this particular date in classical music history go on and on — the birth of Mozart (Salzburg, 1756) and the death of Verdi (age 87 in Milan, 1901) just scratch the surface.

Given that January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day — chosen for the date in 1945 when the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps — we’ll turn our focus to Czech pianist and composer Gideon Klein, who died on that same date in 1945 at age 25. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, Snowbelt Symphony plays in Chardon at 4, violinist Chad Hoopes & pianist Wu Qian perform on the Wayne Center series in Wooster at 7, David Hayes conducts the Canton Symphony at 7:30, and Cleveland Jazz Orchestra & The Musical Theater Project collaborate for “The Gershwins Are Girl Crazy” at the Maltz at 7:30.

Sunday’s lineup includes a 2 pm Tri-Classical Piano solo recital by Roman Rabinovich (pictured), a 2 pm Cleveland Cello Society lecture-recital by Liam Battle at Judson Park Auditorium, the 21st annual Northeast Ohio Band Invitational at 2 pm at Severance Music Center, the Suburban Symphony in Beachwood at 3:30, and Oberlin’s Winter Term Opera (The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace)  in Warner Concert Hall at 7:30.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Question: “Ada, Countess of Lovelace and Lord Byron’s daughter, has been asked to help Charles Babbage with his work on the Difference Engine. Can she pursue her love of mathematics while upholding her reputation?”

Find out when Oberlin’s Winter Term Opera, The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace, with score by Kamala Sankaram and libretto by Rob Handel, opens in Warner Concert Hall for two performances on Friday and Sunday at 7:30. Cara Consilvio stage directs, Daniel Michalak is music director, and Matthew Brown conducts. Tickets  here.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Arts Tax: Today’s “The Wake Up” from Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer notes that “When Cuyahoga County Council agreed to send a cigarette tax increase to the ballot last fall, their support came with a warning to the arts community to find a more sustainable funding source long-term. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

The Northeast Ohio classical music calendar is blank for this Thursday, but while Cleveland audiences are busy keeping snow, ice, and subzero wind chills at bay, The Cleveland Orchestra is in Miami preparing for the first concert of their 2025 residency on Friday.

Click here to find out more about the Orchestra’s activities during the three weeks they’ll spend this season in the Sunshine State.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Cleveland Jazz Orchestra is offering its patrons a sneak peek at the program for its concert with the Musical Theater Project on Friday at the Maltz. Click here to save a tree and download a pdf of the program for “The Gershwins are ‘Girl Crazy.’”

The Cleveland Institute of Music has announced that faculty pianist Geraldo Tessionniér will again lead its Young Artist Piano Seminar this summer from July 6-12. [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

Harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, upright bass, guitar, and maracas are just some of the instruments played by Larry & Joe, who perform at 7:00 pm this evening. The Cleveland Museum of Art presents the duo’s blend of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk traditions at Transformer Station in Ohio City. Tickets available online.

For more details, visit our Concert Listings.

BLOSSOM SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT:

We’re especially looking forward to summer during this bitterly cold week, and The Cleveland Orchestra has now revealed the classical and pops programs coming as part of the 2025 Blossom Music Festival.

Repertoire highlights include Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony, and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Returning faces like conductors Osmo Vänskä and Elim Chan appear as well as artists making their Blossom debut, including conductor Jonathon Heyward, violinist Veronica Eberle, and pianist Alessio Bax.

Individual tickets are now available — learn more in the press release here. [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

Welcome back from the long weekend. Tonight at 7:30 pm, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents flutist Emmanuel Pahud (pictured) and pianist Alessio Bax, who will play music by César Franck, Clara Schumann, J.S. Bach, and more.

That takes place at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights — tickets available online. Stay warm out there!

For more details and to check out what else is coming up this week, visit our Concert Listings.

MLK CONCERT REPLAY:

If you missed The Cleveland Orchestra’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Concert on Sunday, you can stream it for the next nine days on Youtube (here) or on the Adella platform. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, CityMusic Cleveland presents its January chamber music concert at 2 pm at Hudson Library, Minnesota’s Zeitgeist (“Spirit of the Times”), joins Cleveland’s No Exit at 7 at Heights Arts for the last of three joint concerts, Christopher Wilkins, pianist Theron Brown and the Akron Symphony celebrate the centennial of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at 7:30, and at the same hour, The Cleveland Orchestra welcomes violinist Augustin Hadelich and conductor Elim Chan to Severance Music Center for the third performance of a program featuring Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto and Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra.

On Sunday, Erik Ochsner leads the Youngstown Symphony at Stambaugh Auditorium at 2:30, and at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Chorus, Daniel Reith & William Henry Caldwell, conductors, take the audience on a journey through the life of civil rights leader and author Coretta Scott King, the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured: the first MLK celebration concert, photo by Roger Mastroianni).

And on Monday, Severance Music Center welcomes the community to an open house with activities and performances for the MLK holiday. Click here for the schedule. At Noon, classical guitarist Damian Goggans plays works by African diasporic composers, arrangers, and musicians in the Cleveland Museum or Art’s contemporary art galleries.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Minnesota’s Zeitgeist (“Spirit of the Times”), will join Cleveland’s No Exit for the second of three appearances tonight at 7 at the Bop Stop. On the agenda are world premieres by Christopher Goddard, Luis Daniel Jiménez, James Praznik & Timothy Beyer as well as works by John Cage and Jin Hi Kim.

And at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra welcomes violinist Augustin Hadelich (pictured) and conductor Elim Chan to Severance Music Center for the second of three performances of a program featuring Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto and Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

In London’s Daily Advertiser on January 17, 1745, George Frideric Handel advertised the return of three-fourths of the costs to subscribers of his concert series, indicating that he can’t please them. They responded with renewed support, and concerts resumed a week later. [Read more…]