by Stephanie Manning

LOOKING AHEAD:

This rainy start to the week has no concerts in store, but there’s plenty to look forward to coming up. Here are some highlights.

The Cleveland Orchestra opens their 2025–26 season on Thursday with Ravel’s Bolero. Franz Welser-Möst takes the podium, marking the beginning of his penultimate year as music director. (Photo credit: Extraordinaire Photos)

University concerts abound, with free offerings from Oberlin, CIM, and Baldwin Wallace. Plus, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival presents F.W. Murnau’s Faust, reimagined with a live heavy metal score. For more information, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Since it’s Monday, most Broadway theaters are dark today, observing the traditional day off given to cast and crew. But in 1964, September 22 was a Tuesday — show day along the Great White Way. That evening, the lights went up on the premiere of a new musical: Fiddler on the Roof, the now-classic adaptation of Sholem Aleichem’s Yiddish stories about “Tevye the Dairyman.” [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The fall concert calendar is officially in full swing. Kicking off their seasons on Saturday night: the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, with their 2025 Showcase Concert (pictured), and the Akron Symphony, with Mahler’s “Titan.”

Also in the orchestral realm, the Oberlin Orchestra presents a Saturday night program anchored by Beethoven’s Sixth. And on Sunday afternoon, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony presents works for small ensembles, as does the Cleveland Chamber Collective.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival continues with Friday evening’s showing of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925), a Saturday afternoon double bill of avant-garde films by René Clair, and a Sunday afternoon showing of Go West (1925). All concerts are accompanied by live music and take place at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

In the mood for new music? On Friday night, the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble presents works by Samuel Adams (world premiere) and Olly Wilson. Then, the CIM New Music Ensemble celebrates the 100th birthday of Luciano Berio (pictured) on Sunday afternoon.

Also on Sunday, pianist Jeffrey Siegel presents a program all about Beethoven, and Rocky River Presbyterian Church presents chamber music by Vivaldi. And rounding out Saturday’s schedule is an organ recital at Pilgrim Christian Church, a one-night-only presentation of Faust at Opera Western Reserve, and Suburban Symphony’s “epic” outdoor concert. [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

INTERESTING READS:

Jane Austen Loved Music. What Was on Her Playlist?

“The novelist’s sheet music collection reveals new perspectives on her life and work.” Read Eleanor Stanford’s New York Times preview about this year’s Jane Austen Festival here.

He Left the Prejudice of America. But His Music Came Home.

“The centennial of Robert Owens, a composer who worked abroad and assimilated into German culture, is being celebrated with a festival in Nebraska.” Read Hannah Edgar’s New York Times article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Daniel Hathaway

On this date in 1818 (or perhaps on September 17), French composer Charles Gounod was born in Paris. Known today principally because of two of his twelve operas (Faust and Romeo et Juliette remain solidly in the repertory), he also wrote much religious music (he thought about becoming a priest). One of his most charming works is the Petite Symphonie for winds, viewable here in a 2017 performance by Camerata Pacifica at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7 pm, the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists presents its annual members’ recital and installs its new officers. The free event includes music by J.S. Bach, Florence Price, Charles Tournemire, and William T. Allen played by seven chapter members on the new Schantz organ in Our Lady of Peace Roman Catholic Church. It’s free, and the public is welcome.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On September 17, 1803, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, student of Mozart and Salieri who was entrusted by Mozart’s widow with the unenviable task of completing his teacher’s Requiem, died in Vienna. That’s how we remember Süssmayr today, but in his own era, he was a well-regarded composer who wrote church music and opera, as well as a concerto for Mozart’s favorite clarinetist, Anton Stadler, left unfinished but later completed by Michael Freyhan. Give Süssmayr’s piece a listen here in a performance by Dieter Klökker and the English Chamber Orchestra.

American composer, pedagogue, and pianist Charles Tomlinson Griffes was born on this date in 1884 in Elmira, New York, and died of influenza in New York City during the 1918 pandemic. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, the Church of the Covenant resumes its Tuesdays at the Covenant series with a recital of music by J.S. Bach and Franz Liszt by organist Jonathan W. Moyer.

At 7:30 pm, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society opens its 76th season with a recital by violinist James Ehnes and pianist Orion Weiss of music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Paul Hindemith and Edvard Grieg at Disciples Christian Church.

And at 8 pm, the Oberlin Conservatory hosts saxophonist Branford Marsalis in both classical and jazz pieces in Finney Chapel.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

By Stephanie Manning

Composing, conducting, and pedagogy — Nadia Boulanger did all three, and she did them all well. Born on this date in 1887 in her home country of France, Boulanger is well-known for influencing an entire generation of composers, with her list of students including Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Astor Piazzolla. Her conducting career was equally impressive, as she was the first woman to conduct the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and other major ensembles. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight as 7:30 the Rocky River Chamber Music Society hosts the Verona String Quartet in music by Felix Mendelssohn, Dmitri Shostakovich and selections of jazz tunes from Twenties Tunes Suite at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Churcht

Also at 7:30, Les Délices presents a program of ballad tunes, jigs, and reels that crossed the Atlantic and traveled up through the Cuyahoga Valley to Lake Erie in the late-18th and early-19th centuries at Lorain County Community in Elyria.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On September 15, 1890, Swiss composer Frank Martin was born in Geneva (he died in the Netherlands in 1974, where he spent much of his career). Martin developed a lean compositional style influenced by Schoenberg’s 12-tone theories, but never abandoned tonality altogether. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The first busy weekend of the fall has much to offer.

On Friday at 6 pm, the Emily Cornelius & Ross Karre Violin and Percussion Duo play at Café Indigo, and at 7:30, pianist Polina Osetinskaya (pictured) makes her Cleveland debut with a recital of transcriptions of works by J.S. Bach and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at Severance Music Center.

On Saturday at the main Cleveland Public Library, Les Délices plays a 2 pm program of ballad tunes, jigs, and reels that crossed the Atlantic and traveled up through the Cuyahoga Valley to Lake Erie in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, Latin jazz icon Sammy DeLeon y su Orquesta give a free Hispanic Heritage Month concert at Severance Music Center at 7 pm, and at 7:30 in Finney Chapel, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series presents the American Patchwork Quartet, which binds American folk songs with jazz, country, West African, and East Asian musics. And at 8 pm at Gallery 33, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project hosts vocalist Alex Koi and cellist Kirin McElwain, who perform a synthesis of acoustic and electronic music, followed by singer-songwriter Marzi Margo performing solo experimental music under the name Let’s Fight!

On Sunday at 2 pm, Local 4 Music Fund presents She Roars!, an afternoon of chamber music by living female composers, featuring the music of Margaret Brouwer at The Bop Stop, and at 3 pm, Cleveland Silent Film Festival screens The Phantom of the Opera (1925) with its original score performed live by American Musical Productions’ 17-piece orchestra led by Joseph Rubin in Gartner Auditorium, at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The weekend comes to a thrilling conclusion with a 4 pm concert in which the brass and percussion sections of the Canton Symphony Orchestra join forces with the 72-rank Schantz organ in Canton’s Christ Presbyterian Church for music by Richard Strauss, George Frideric Handel, Giovanni Gabrieli, and Modest Mussorgsky.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Here’s a local figure to celebrate this weekend. Cleveland is a hub for musical talent from all over, but many fine musicians were born and raised in the city itself. Such is the case with Johann Heinrich Beck, who was influential in the Cleveland music scene in the late 1800s. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

6:30 pm – Canton Symphony Summer Serenades presents music for flute and hap in Magnolia’s Fry Family Park.

7:30 pm – Oberlin Conservatory presents the Verona Quartet with guest saxophonist Steven Banks, saxophone (pictured) in works by Albert Hay Malotte, Felix Mendelssohn, Claude Debussy, Leoš Janáček, Mozart, Steven Banks, Reena Esmail, and Christopher Theofanidis in Warner Concert Hall.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Estonian-born composer Arvo Pärt was born on this date in 1935. One of the truly original voices of the 20th century, Pärt invented what he called the tintinnabuli style, a minimalist approach influenced by chant. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Composer, pianist, and bandleader Omar Sosa (pictured) premieres his new trio, Outside the Box, featuring Yosvany Terry on saxophone and Julian Miltenberger on drums in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland.com reports that EDWINS restaurant is bringing jazz back to the former Nighttown space in Cleveland Heights, with internationally acclaimed trumpeter Dominick Farinacci curating a new concert series.

INTERESTING READS:

5 Highlights From a Model Maestro’s Recording Career

Christoph von Dohnányi, who died on Saturday, was a conductor of clarity and poise, as evidenced especially in his output with the Cleveland Orchestra. (David Allen, NY Times)

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1684, German organist and composer Johann Rosenmüller died at Wolfenbüttel, where he ended his career as choirmaster at the ducal court. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway 

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

British organ virtuoso Edwin H. LeMare (pictured) was born on the Isle of Wight on this date in 1865. After establishing his credentials as a concert organist in England, he embarked on a 100-recital tour in the United States and Canada, and spent the rest of his career in North America. He died in Hollywood in 1934.

For a sampling of his performances of those adaptations as well as items from the standard organ literature, visit his family’s memorial website and listen to some rolls LeMare made on the Welte Philharmonic Organ.

LeMare stood head and shoulders among other performers in the era when huge crowds turned out to hear mainly transcriptions of orchestral music played on gigantic instruments often located in municipal halls. [Read more…]