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Cooper International Violin Competition Moves from Summer to January

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By Mike Telin

Now that the new calendar year is upon us, it’s interesting to see which of the area’s classical music organizations are going to be leading the way into 2025.

When it comes to competitions, that honor goes to Oberlin’s Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, which alternates annually between piano and violin.

Usually held in August, due to construction at the Conservatory this year’s violin competition needed to find an alternative time period. “We wanted the competition to happen so we moved it to January as a one-time thing,” competition director and jury chair Sibbi Bernhardsson said during a telephone conversation.

[Read more…]

A Message from Daniel Hathaway

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As I write this end-of-calendar-year letter, I’m pleased to announce the renewal of our San Francisco Conservatory grant “to support the publication of classical music reviews, previews, profiles, and features” as one of the publications supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

We’re delighted to continue being part of a distinguished group of publications that includes the Boston Globe, the Dallas Morning News, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Baltimore Sun, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Chicago Tribune, who are keeping the great tradition of classical music journalism alive amid drastic changes in the industry.

That said, we would be nothing without the outstanding local musicians who provide us with such interesting topics to write about. In addition to a full concert calendar, look out in the new year for features about the 15th anniversaries of Blue Water Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir, the Grammy-nominated classical producers of the year, Erica Brenner and Elaine Martone, and the 2025 edition of the Cooper International Violin Competition. And that’s just at the beginning of January.

ClevelandClassical.com provides a unique service to Northeast Ohio’s vibrant classical music scene, a valuable source of information for presenters, musicians, and audiences alike.

If you use and appreciate what we offer, we hope you’ll consider making a tax-exempt gift to ClevelandClassical as we close out 2024. Click here for easy ways to do that.

With grateful thanks and best wishes for 2025,

Daniel Hathaway
President

Cleveland Chamber Choir: “Little Match Girl Passion”

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by Mike Telin

Cleveland Chamber Choir will present a program centered around David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion on December 20 and 21 at the Cleveland School of the Arts. Artistic Director Gregory Ristow has curated a playlist of Christmas music to precede Lang’s piece — a modern day retelling of the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen story influenced by J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion — and followed by his own arrangement of Good King Wenceslas, the classic Christmas Carol about supporting those in need.

In a recent interview Ristow said, “The Little Match Girl Passion has become a piece that’s performed a lot around the holidays — a time that a lot of us take a moment to stop and think about people who are in need and our and society’s role in supporting them.” The concerts are presented in partnership with Northeast Ohio Food Bank. Register for free tickets for the 7:30 pm performances here.

[Read more…]

Sibbi Bernhardsson brings Mozart’s “most perfect” violin concerto to CityMusic Cleveland

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by Stephanie Manning

Enduringly popular ever since it was written in 1775, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 is a staple in any violinist’s catalog.

“ It’s a concerto that we all have to learn and teach,” Sibbi Bernhardsson said in a recent interview. “But this will actually be my first time performing it with an orchestra, so I’m really, really excited.”

The violinist will join the CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra for a series of free performances beginning on December 12 at venues around the city. Conductor John McLaughlin Williams will lead the group in a program that also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Leó Weiner’s Serenade for Small Orchestra. More information on locations and times is available here.

Bernhardsson, who serves on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory, has performed with CityMusic twice before, once as a member of the Pacifica Quartet and once as part of the group’s chamber music series. But he’s known about the ensemble for more than 20 years.  [Read more…]

Vocalist Jimmie Herrod joins The Cleveland Orchestra to celebrate the Holiday Season

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by Mike Telin

“This is a really positive moment for me career-wise,” vocalist Jimmie Herrod said during a recent telephone conversation. “Not just performing with any orchestra, but one of the Big Five. It’s beyond prestige and I’m really looking forward to it.”

On Wednesday, December 11 at 7:30 pm, Herrod will join conductor Sarah Hicks, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and the Blossom Festival Chorus for the first of twelve holiday concerts at Severance Music Center. Performances run through December 22. Tickets are available online.

Herrod said that although a handful of songs he will sing are ones that everyone knows, there are a few that are lesser-known. “We’re doing a version of ‘Jingle Bells’ that was famously done by Barbara Streisand. It’s all over the place tempo-wise and it keeps changing keys. We’re also doing ‘My Grown-Up Christmas List.’”

[Read more…]

Oberlin to present Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Ables’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar

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by Mike Telin

“What makes that document so remarkable is that it is a window into a world that we don’t talk about and that we don’t teach about, and it’s just miraculous that it survived,” composer Rhiannon Giddens told Martha Teichner during a Spoleto Conversations interview. “We have so few of these documents and each one holds multitudes in it. We have so little and it’s a miracle that we have it at all.”

The document that Giddens is referring to is the 1831 autobiography of Omar ibn Said, the only known autobiography written by an enslaved person during their enslavement, and the only document written in Arabic by an enslaved person.

During that same interview, composer Michael Ables noted that the document was written at a time when it was illegal to teach enslaved people to read and write. “And why is that? Because they knew that knowledge is power, and Omar’s power to speak to us today is expressed through the fact that he was educated.”

[Read more…]

David Robertson to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program of Americana

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by Mike Telin

While many performing organizations take time off during the Thanksgiving weekend, The Cleveland Orchestra will continue its tradition of playing concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon at Severance Music Center. “I think this is a wonderful program to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday,” guest conductor David Robertson said during a Zoom call.

On Friday at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm, Robertson will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in an All-American program that includes Aaron Copland’s Suites from Appalachian Spring and The Tender Land. Pianist Marc-André Hamelin will be the featured soloist in George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Duke Ellington’s New World A-Comin’. A free concert preview with James O’Leary, Associate Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College and Conservatory, takes place in Reinberger Chamber Hall one hour before each performance. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Tuesday Musical presents “Kings ReJoyce!” with Joyce DiDonato, Kings Return, and Craig Terry

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by Mike Telin

With the month of December almost upon us, it’s always interesting to see which of Northeast Ohio’s music organizations will lead the way with holiday programs.

On Tuesday, December 3 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall, Akron’s Tuesday Musical will present “Kings ReJoyce!” with celebrated mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, the sensational a capella group Kings Return, and pianist Craig Terry. The Akron performance is the first stop on a seven-city tour. Tickets are available online.

DiDonato’s first-ever holiday show features a treasure trove of seasonal favorites, including “Carol of the Bells,” “Christmas Waltz,” “O Holy Night,” “Sleigh Ride” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” as well as a Motown medley, two versions of “Ave Maria,” and a vocalized “Nutcracker Suite.”

Because of time zone conflicts we were unable to connect with Joyce DiDonato by phone, but she graciously agreed to answer questions by email.

[Read more…]

Finding the Joy with Seckou Keita: Senegalese kora player visits the Oberlin Artist Recital Series

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by Stephanie Manning

Reposted with the permission of Oberlin Conservatory

The kora, a West African stringed instrument akin to a harp or guitar, doesn’t appear in most orchestral works. So Seckou Keita wrote his own.

Creating African Rhapsodies — which he released in 2023 with the BBC Concert Orchestra — was an “amazing” endeavor, he says. But his entry into the world of opera later that year was another thing entirely.

“When you have classical music meeting the kora, it’s amazing. But then when you have opera on top of that, it’s something else,” says the UK-based Senegalese musician. “That made me really excited.”

The opera he’s referring to is Omar’s Journey, a shortened version of Rhiannon Giddens’ Omar scored for voices and chamber ensemble. Keita was among the small group of musicians who performed Omar’s Journey at the Ojai Music Festival last year. “It kind of confirmed to me that voice is one of the really pure instruments in life. All those other instruments in the world have been made by humankind — but this, people are born with it,” Keita says.

Keita is no stranger to using his voice either, singing to accompany his playing in much of his solo material. And Oberlin audiences have a chance to experience his music making on December 7 at 7:30 pm, when he performs in Finney Chapel as part of the Artist Recital Series. [Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film & Colloquium: Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life

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by Mike Telin

When Mahtab Nadalian was asked to create a score for the film Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life, the Pittsburgh-based santour player was intrigued by the idea. “I’ve never played a live accompaniment for a silent film, so it sounded like a very interesting project,” she said during a recent telephone conversation.

On Saturday, November 23 at 7:00 pm at the Cinematheque, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium will present Merian C. Cooper’s and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1925 documentary film complete with an original score composed and performed by Mahtab Nadalian. The film will be introduced by Evan A. Liberman, Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Interactive Media at Cleveland State University. Tickets are available online.

Considered one of the earliest ethnographic documentary films, Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Lurs in Persia as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures.

[Read more…]

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