by Daniel Hathaway
The singers of Quire Cleveland will spend next weekend’s concerts vocally chasing each other through eight hundred years’ worth of rounds and canons — those clever contrapuntal constructions that produce their own textures and harmonies by combining a tune with itself at different intervals of time, and sometimes at different pitches.
“Sing You After Me: Wondrous Canons” will be presented on Friday, November 7 at 7:30 pm at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland, and repeated on Sunday, November 8 at 4:00 pm at Painesville United Methodist Church. A freewill offering will be received at both events.
Growing up in a musical family will often cause children and younger siblings to reject music or embrace it fully. Luckily for audiences around the world, Croatian guitarist Ana Vidović did the latter. On Saturday, October 24 at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church, 
Since 1995 conductor, clarinetist, and entertainer Carl Topilow and his Cleveland Pops Orchestra have delighted audiences with performances that inventively blend light classical, swing, jazz, Broadway, Dixieland, and Klezmer music. On Saturday, October 24 at 8:00 pm in Severance Hall, Topilow will kick off the Orchestra’s new season with a program entitled “Big Band and All That Jazz.”
On Sunday, October 25 at 3:00 pm, Arts Renaissance Tremont will continue its 25th anniversary season at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Tremont. The concert will feature clarinetist Franklin Cohen, violist Kirsten Docter, cellist
The Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals will continue the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s 66th season at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Tuesday, October 27 at 7:30 pm with a program of string quartets by Joseph Haydn, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
On Tuesday, October 27 at 7:30 pm, pianist Wu Han, violinist Philip Setzer, and cellist David Finckel will return to the Tuesday Musical Series at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron to present the second and final installment of their project to perform all six of Ludwig van Beethoven’s trios for piano, violin, and cello in two concerts.
Canadian pianist Tony Yike Yang, who won first prize in Oberlin’s Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition in 2014 at the age of 15, is among the ten finalists competing in Poland’s 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition from October 18-20 in Warsaw.
French-born bassoonist Marc Vallon will be one of the featured soloists during Apollo’s Fire’s first set of concerts this season. “Splendor of Venice: An Orchestral Extravaganza,” which runs from October 15-18 at venues in Fairlawn, Cleveland Heights, and Rocky River, will highlight solo and multiple instrument concertos by Antonio Vivaldi and Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco.
Without a doubt, Johannes Brahms’s Violin Concerto is one of the greatest works in the instrument’s concerto canon. Filled with lush melodies and Gypsy dances, the work is nonetheless formidable, placing many technical demands on the soloist. Lasting around forty minutes, it also tests the performer’s stamina.
Sometimes one simply must wait for the right time to assemble all of the collaborators necessary in order to bring an opera production to fruition.