by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

SEPTEMBER 5 – FRIDAY

7:00 pm – Japanese film and anime composer Joe Hisaishi will conduct The Cleveland Orchestra in an evening of his concert works including Viola Saga with Antoine Tamestit, a concert suite from The Boy and the Heron (U.S. premiere), and Symphony No. 3 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

SEPTEMBER 7 – SUNDAY

2:00 pm – Wit’s Folly. Citizens, Subjects, and Survivors: Music of the French Revolution. Quartets and quintets by Georg Friedrich Fuchs, Luigi Boccherini, Luigi Cherubini, and more. Hudson Library and Historical Society.

2:00 pm – Song Recital Project. Echoes of the Heart. Jason Fuh, baritone, and John Simmons, piano. Selections of French mélodie written by Henri Duparc, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ song cycle The House of Life. Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art.

7:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony. Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor, and Katelyn Drye, Hollie Hammel, & Julie Williams, vocals. New orchestrations of Dolly’s hit songs accompanied by Dolly on screen. Blossom Music Center.

INTERESTING READ:

The Cultural Kingdom Where Classical Music Still Reigns

Every summer, Salzburg, Austria, becomes the center of the classical music world, attracting some 256,000 visitors for a star-studded festival. Read the New York Times article here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 6:30 pm, the Canton Symphony Summer Serenades presents a Brass Quintet concert in Alliance’s Silver Park.

And at 7 pm, in the first of two special events, Japanese film and anime composer Joe Hisaishi will conduct The Cleveland Orchestra in an evening of his concert works including Viola Saga with Antoine Tamestit, a concert suite from The Boy and the Heron (U.S. premiere), and Symphony No. 3 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. Repeated on Friday at 7.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Anton Bruckner (pictured) was born in Ansfelden, Austria on this date in 1824. Before Mariss Jansons and Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra played three of his immense symphonies in London in 2014, Tom Service wrote in The Guardian that the Dutch visitors

will unleash sounds of orchestral ugliness and visions of existential disturbance that will – that should – have you quaking in your seats. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, the Amethyst String Quartet returns to open Trinity Cathedral’s 2025-2026 Brownbag Concert season. The program features Classical favorites by Mozart, Haydn, Ravel, and others. The selections are gems which continue to inspire modern composers and their movie and video game scores.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Orchestra and Marquee TV have announced a new global partnership featuring investments in original co-productions, special live-streamed events, and six digital productions set to debut on the streaming platform beginning August 29. Click here to read the press release.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

The famous Franco-American harpist, composer, and pedagogue Marcel Grandjany was born on this date in Paris in 1891, and continued his career in the U.S. beginning in 1940. In this documentary video, Grandjany shows us his approach to playing and teaching the instrument. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

Poiesis Quartet wins at Banff

The Violin Channel reports that the Poiesis Quartet has won first prize in the 2025 Banff String Quartet Competition.

“Comprising violinists Sarah Ying Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor and cellist Drew Dansby, The Poiesis Quartet are former Grand Prize winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and winner of the 2024 Concert Artists Guild Competition.

“They currently serve as Graduate Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, studying with the Ariel Quartet. As graduates of Oberlin Conservatory, they were previously mentored by Sibbi Bernhardsson of the Pacifica Quartet and the Verona Quartet.”

Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Today we look back on the life of Rudolf Bing (pictured below), who died on this date in 1997. The famed general manager of the Metropolitan Opera oversaw the company’s move to Lincoln Center in 1963. [Read more…]

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:30 pm – The Concert Truck appears at the Akron Urban League. Presented by Tuesday Musical, pianists Susan Zhang and Maxim Lando will play classical, jazz, world music, Broadway show tunes, and more.

[POSTPONED] 5:30 pm – M.U.S.i.C. at The Van Aken District. Young musicians perform duets, string quartets, solos and vocal works by Boccherini, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Bernstein, and Piazzolla.

6:30 pm – Canton Symphony Summer Serenades brings a brass quintet to Tam O’Shanter Park.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Two string quartets have announced changes in personnel. The Jerusalem Quartet, which performed all of Dmitri Shostakovich’s quartets in April for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, has announced the departure of violist Ori Kam after 15 years with the ensemble. And The Callisto Quartet, founded at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2016, has named Eric Tsai as its new first violinist, replacing Cameron Daly, who has left the ensemble to play with the Seattle Symphony.

Arts Renaissance Tremont has announced that it will return to Pilgrim Church for its 34th season after relocating following the death of founder Christine Haff Paluck. Feza Zweifel has been named artistic director of the organization. Read more here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NOTE: In order to give our staff a late summer break, The Diary will go on hiatus from Monday, August 18 through Wednesday, August 27, and there will be no Thursday Newsletter on August 21.

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Friday at 12:15 noon, Friends of the McGaffin Carillon in University Circle present an all-Italian Lunchtime Carillon Concert by George Leggiero, honoring the carillon’s Little Italy neighbors on the Feast of the Assumption.

At Blossom on Saturday at 7 pm, associate conductor Daniel Reith bids farewell to The Cleveland Orchestra with Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Stephen Tanavi solos in Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and the Orchestra debuts Gabriella Smith’s Rewilding, a co-commission celebrating the 50th anniversary of Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

On Saturday at 7:30 pm, the Canton Symphony Orchestra presents The Hunchback of Notre Dame in concert. Steven Byess, conducts the Players Guild of Canton, and the Canton Symphony Chorus in a semi-staged version of Victor Hugo’s timeless story in Umstattd Hall at Zimmermann Symphony Center,

And at Blossom on Sunday at 7 pm, The Cleveland Orchestra presents a Rodgers & Hammerstein Celebration with Andy Einhorn, conductor, and Scarlett Strallen, Jacob Dickey, & Ben Davis, vocals. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

7:00 pm – Isabelle and Raphael Olivier. This French mother-son duo from Paris share their artistic palette of harp and guitar. Ranging from jazz standards to modern improvisations and traditional French songs, their program will feature original music inspired by the open minds and hearts of the people, places, and moments they’ve experienced. Reithoffer’s, 17711 Ravenna Road, Auburn Township. Tickets available online.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland Arts Prize has announced its current recipients (pictured in the montage above). Click here for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On August 14, 1987, American composer Vincent Persichetti died in Philadelphia at age 72. [Read more…]