by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concerts at the Church of the Covenant resume  today with a recital by organist Oziah Wales. If the weather turns out to be an impediment, you can click here for the live stream.

Tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society hosts pianist Marc-André Hamelin and the Takács Quartet at Disciples Church for piano quintets by Florence Price and Antonín Dvořák, plus Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade. Come at 6:30 for a pre-concert lecture by Emily Laurance.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

The New York Times reports today in both its digital and print editions on The Cleveland Orchestra’s performances last weekend at Carnegie Hall. Click here to read Oussama Zahr’s “Critic’s Notebook” entry “The Cleveland Orchestra Says a Lot, but Only Through Music.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

This date in 1894 saw the first performance of Antonin Dvorák’s own arrangement of Stephen Foster’s Old Folks at Home with vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh at a  concert of African American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in New York City. [Read more…]

by Max Newman

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The Canton Symphony performs “Celtic Celebrations” (Amy Beach’s “Gaelic Symphony” & Felix Mendelssohn’s “Scottish Symphony”) under Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz (pictured, Saturday at 7:30), & the Youngstown Symphony features conductor Lawrence Loh and violin soloist William Hagen in the Beethoven Concerto (Sunday at 2:30).

Other performances include the Cleveland Cello Society Scholarship Winners Recital (Judson Manor on Saturday at 4), the rescheduled four-hand piano recital by Emanuela Friscioni & Julia Russ (St. Francis of Assisi in Gates Mills, Saturday at 6), two Apollo’s Fire Baroque Bistro series events — “The Wandering Minstrels” with Anna O’Connell and Friends (at Akron’s BLU Jazz+ Saturday at 8 and Cleveland’s Music Box Supper Club Sunday at 12:30), & a Cleveland Composers Guild Chamber Music Concert featuring works by Collegiate Competition Winners, including Gracelynn Jack’s Less Than Ten Days (Sunday at 3, Fairmount Presbyterian).

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

IN THE NEWS:

“Conde Nast Is Folding Pitchfork Music Magazine Into GQ And Laying Off Staff. The move will result in an undetermined number of layoffs at the website.” Read the article here.

Tuesday Musical‘s executive director Cyndee Snyder reminds us that applications for the 2024 Annual Scholarship Competition are open through February 1, 2024. “Some categories fill up fast, so don’t wait.” Apply here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NOT HAPPENING TODAY:

The concert by pianists Emanuela Friscioni & Julia Russ (pictured) at St. Francis of Assisi in Gates Mills has been RESCHEDULED for Saturday, January 27 at 6pm due to weather. The recital by organist Joshua Stafford on the Schantz instrument at Christ Presbyterian in Canton has been POSTPONED due to weather.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

IN THE NEWS:

Turmoil continues at Cleveland Ballet. Ideastream reports that “The Cleveland School of Dance is now Cleveland Ballet Theatre. It was started in 2000 by Gladisa Guadalupe, who subsequently founded Cleveland Ballet in 2015. The two entities later became partners, but are now severing any ties. Earlier this month, Guadalupe dismissed instructors connected to the Cleveland Ballet. The company responded with the announcement of its own in-house school, the Academy of Cleveland Ballet. Read the story here.

And Chicago is losing an early music ensemble. The Chicago Tribune reports that Third Coast Baroque is ceasing operations. Read story here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, in a repeat of Wednesday’s program, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in three symphonies: Sergei Prokoviev’s Second & Fifth, and Anton Webern’s only. Come early for a Concert Preview lecture by Eric Charnofsky. (Read our review of Wednesday’s performance on Cleveland.com.)

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

PETER SCHICKELE, 88

“Peter Schickele, an American composer whose career as a writer of serious concert music was often eclipsed by that of his antic alter ego, the thoroughly debauched, terrifyingly prolific and mercifully fictional P.D.Q. Bach, died on Tuesday at his home in Bearsville, a hamlet outside Woodstock, N.Y. He was 88.” Read the New York Times obituary by Margalit Fox here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Perhaps the most interesting anniversary on this date is not of a birth, a death, or a premiere, but of a dinner. The host was John F. Kennedy, the featured guest was the 79-year-old Igor Stravinsky, and the setting in 1962 was The White House.  [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

No events on the concert calendar, but view upcoming performances in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

“The Cleveland Orchestra presented its 2024 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Service in the Arts Awards on Sunday to Darelle Hill, community programs manager at the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning; Christopher Jenkins of the Oberlin College and Conservatory and The Music Settlement; and the Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland. The awards presentation was part of the Orchestra’s 44th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Concert at Severance Music Center.” Read the press release here.

The Violin Channel reports that French conductor and composer Nadia Boulanger’s only opera, La ville morte, written in 1910, will receive its American premiere from April 19-21 at NYU’s Skirball Center, following performances this month by the Greek National Opera. (Boulanger pictured below.) [Read more…]

by Sicily Xiao

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

JANUARY 13

On Saturday at 12:30 pm, the MET Opera Saturday Broadcast presents Puccini’s La Bohème, Marco Armiliato, conducting. WCLV, 90.3FM & online.

At 7:30 pm, Christopher Wilkins conducts the Akron Symphony with the Theron Brown Quartet and EarthQuaker Devices (rehearsal photo above). The program features Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite.

Also at 7:30 pm, Oberlin Sonny Rollins Jazz Ensemble gives a preview of the music the ensemble will perform on tour in San Francisco.

At 8 pm, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the third of three concerts featuring Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3 (arranged for string orchestra) and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin.

Also at 8 pm, CUSP presents the Joo Won Park Laptop Ensemble in original pieces for computer, melodica, drum machine, no-input mixer, and laptop ensemble. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Back in town, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the second of three concerts featuring Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3 (arranged for string orchestra) and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin (repeated on Saturday).

Also on Friday, CityMusic Cleveland will take you (via the Praxis Fiber Workshop) on an excursion to sunny Italy, where Pytor Tchaikovsky escaped the Moscow winter to compose his Souvenir of Florence.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Most will retire in 2027 after his 25th year on the job. “That’s one year longer than George Szell, who made the Cleveland Orchestra famous, reports Zachary Lewis. ‘I never thought I would stay this long. It’s important now for the institution to get some fresh ideas,’” the conductor said. Read the cleveland.com story here.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

BREAKING NEWS: Franz Welser-Möst announces the conclusion of his tenure as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra in 2027. Read the press release here.

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra raise the curtain on their winter season with Ernst Krenek’s Kleine Symphonie, Gustav Mahler’s Adagio from Symphony No. 10, and a double dose of Béla Bartók  — his String Quartet No. 3 arranged for string orchestra, and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin. Tickets available online.

IN MEMORIAM:

In an obituary tribute in today’s print edition, the New York Times writes:

Alice Parker, whose arrangements of hymns, folk songs, and spirituals were used in concert halls and churches across America, and who composed 11 song cycles and four operas, died on Dec. 24 at her home in Hawley, Mass. She was 98. [Read more…]