by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

No Exit’s Year of Surreality presents Piano Dada with Shuai Wang (7pm at CSU’s Drinko Hall), The Cleveland Orchestra led by Fabbio Luisi (pictured) gives the second performance this weekend of the new piccolo concerto commissioned for Mary Kay Fink (7:30, Severance Music Center, repeated Sunday at 3), the Kenyon College Chamber Singers perform on their Spring Tour (7:30 at Fairmount Presbyterian), Les Délices follows Orpheus to the Underworld in the premiere of a new work by Jonathan Woody (7:30 at Akron Civic Theater), and the Western Reserve Chorale & Chamber Orchestra perform Brahms’ German Requiem (7:30 at Lakewood Methodist, repeated Sunday at 3:30 at Church of the Saviour).

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

MERCH FOR WOMEN’S DAY:

Van Magazine is offering a perpetual calendar for International Women’s Day that features 250 female composers. “Hang it on your wall, and automatically refute ‘but there just weren’t any women composers back then’ arguments, no verbal effort required. The best news: this calendar can be reused year after year.” Price reduced to $8.50. Click here to order. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Worth waiting for: Back before COVID came to town, the Cleveland Orchestra commissioned a concerto from Israeli composer Oded Zehavi for Mary Kay Fink, its principal piccolo player. It’s been waiting in the wings for a premiere ever since, but will finally be heard at Severance Music Center today at 7:30 (repeated Friday at 7:30 and Saturday at 8). Fabio Luisi conducts. Read a conversation with Fink here, and an interview with Zehavi here.

Imani Winds at Oberlin: Tonight at 7:30 in Warner Concert Hall, the Oberlin alumni-founded woodwind quintet collaborates with cellist Seth Parker Woods, pianist Cory Smythe, and actor Michael Braugher in a program anchored by Jeff Scott’s Fallen Petals of Nameless Flowers, which tells the stories of four Michiganders who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles. Read a preview here.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At noon, organist Jonathan Moyer will play selections from Johann Sebastian Bach’s German Organ Mass at the Church of the Covenant, and at 7:30, Oberlin faculty duo-pianists Haewon Song & Robert Shannon will put their twenty fingers together in works by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Shostakovich, Kapustin & Gershwin in Warner Concert Hall. You can watch webcasts of both recitals.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Center for Arts-Inspired Learning is offering free lessons in violin, percussion, guitar, and keyboard/voice for Cleveland students from the 3rd to the 12th grade. The Spring Session of Inspiration Through Music runs from March 11 through May 17, and instruments will be provided. Click here for details.

The Violin Channel has announced that the Poiesis Quartet, violinists Sarah Ma (21) and Max Ball (21), cellist Drew Dansby (23), and violist Jasper de Boor (22), are among the 24 soloists and 11 ensembles that have been selected to advance to the semi-final round of the Concert Artists Guild Competition for 2024. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, Cleveland Chamber Choir (pictured, in “Choral Splendor: Old & New, ” 7pm at First Lutheran, Lorain), Contemporary Youth Orchestra (7pm at Tri-C Metro), Akron Symphony (Bruckner’s 4th at 7:30 in E.J. Thomas), Cleveland Philharmonic (with pianist Louis Wang, 7:30 at CSU), Oberlin Baroque Ensemble (7:30 in Fairchild Chapel) & The Cleveland Orchestra (Susanna Mälkki conducting, with pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, 8 pm at Severance).

On Sunday, CIM Opera Theater (Fledermaus at 3pm in Kulas Hall), Cleveland Philharmonic (a repeat of Saturday’s program at 3pm at Westlake PAC), No Exit presents Aether Eos (violinist/composer/visual artist Leah Asher and pianist/composer Christopher Goddard at 3 at Heights Arts), Cleveland Chamber Choir (a repeat of Saturday’s program at 4 at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.), Lakeland Civic Orchestra (4pm at Lakeland Community College), organist David Hurd (4:30 pm in Finney Chapel, Oberlin) & an Oberlin Faculty and Guest Recital (Ross Karre, percussion, the Eris Quartet, and Emily Cornelius, violin, 7:30 pm in Stull Recital Hall).

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

NEWS BRIEFS:

On Thursday on his website, Slipped Disk, British classical musical journalist Norman Lebrecht was the first of several sources to report the latest development from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Read “Cleveland Declares No Confidence in Chiefs” here.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

An 11am matinee at Severance Music Center features The Cleveland Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki, conductor, and Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano.

At 7 tonight, CIM Opera Theater: stages Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and the Cleveland Cello Society presents “Cello Plus One,” featuring six duos for cello plus another instrument.

Tonight at 7:30 pm Raphael Jiménez leads the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in Finney Chapel (webcast available) and at 8, vocalist Connor Bogart O’Brien joins Carl Topilow and Cleveland Pops Orchestra in Champagne & Shamrocks at Severance Music Center.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, Trobár Medieval presents “I Sing a New Song, The Epic Journey of a Traveling Musician in the Middle Ages,” and at 7:30 Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki leads pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and The Cleveland Orchestra in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony at Severance Music Center.

Meanwhile, at Oberlin, tenor Joshua Blue will be featured with the Oberlin Sinfonietta in a program of music by Olly Wilson, Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Frazier & Wendell Logan led by Tim Weiss (webcast available).

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

On Thursday evening, Cuyahoga Community College released the lineup for its 45th Tri-C JazzFest, scheduled for June 20-22, 2024. View or download the press release here.

Ursuline College will honor Apollo’s Fire founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell as the 2024 recipient of its Women Who Light the Way Award “for her contributions to the world of music and her inspiration to women everywhere to pursue their dreams.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At Noon, organist Natalie Mealey plays music by Storace, J.S. Bach, Buxtehude & Frescobaldi at the Church of the Covenant, and at 5:30, Jim Riggs and Tyler Young offer a 50-minute rush hour program of music for organ and saxophone at Fairmount Presbyterian Church.

Tonight at 7:30, Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents cellist Steven Isserlis & pianist Connie Shih at Disciples Church, and the CIM Orchestra  pays a visit to Severance Music Center with guest conductor Leonard Slatkin.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

INTERESTING READS:

British Cellist Steven Isserlis returns to Northeast Ohio tonight, where he studied with Richard Kapuscinski at the Oberlin Conservatory from 1976 to 1978, to play a recital on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series with pianist Connie Shih.

This is a good time to have a look at the multi-talented musician’s biography and involvements, richly detailed on his website. Among them, his writings. Click on “Steven’s Books” to read about Why Handel Waggled His Wig, the sequel to Why Beethoven Threw the Stew. [Read more…]