by Mike Telin
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.
For Opera Circle Cleveland, Voices of Canton Incorporated, The Bohemian National Hall, and the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, the time to present a fully staged production of Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride has arrived. On Sunday, October 18 in Canton’s Timken High School Auditorium, and Sunday, October 25 in Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall, audiences can enjoy Smetana’s comic opera about an arranged marriage gone awry.
“For us this project has been nine years in the making,” Opera Circle Cleveland co-founder and executive director Dorota Sobieska said over coffee in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood. “It is a very difficult opera in every respect, and the only way for us to produce it would for it to become a large-scale community collaboration.” [Read more…]
It all started with a disastrous fire on August 28, 2014 that destroyed Lorain’s First Lutheran Church and its historic John Brombaugh organ. Brian Wentzel, the church’s music director, was crushed by the loss. While waiting until a new church and organ could rise from the ashes, he decided to dedicate some of his time to learning all 48 preludes and fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier.
For the past five months the Akron Symphony Orchestra and composer Clint Needham have been asking people one question: what does Akron sound like to you? The Symphony and Needham are currently working with the community to create a collaborative symphony using sound submissions from the public. Needham will use these as the inspiration for a new work that will be premiered by the Akron Symphony at E.J. Thomas Hall under the direction of Christopher Wilkins on April 16, 2016.
“Creating an ensemble dedicated to the performance of music for large string ensemble is an idea that has been circulating in my thoughts for some time,” conductor, cellist, and viola da gambist David B. Ellis said during a recent telephone conversation.
Since January of 1978 the free Brownbag Concert series at Trinity Cathedral has provided a mid-week respite from everyday life for music lovers of all ages. On Wednesday, October 7 at 12:10 pm, Music and Art at Trinity will kick off their new season with a return visit of saxophonists Jake Swanson and Sarah Marchitelli, more popularly known as “Jake and Sarah.”
The Cleveland Chamber Music Society will welcome one of its largest groups of the season, the Chamber Ensemble of London’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, to open its 66th season on Tuesday, October 6 at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The performers will include Tomo Keller and Harvey de Souza, violins, Robert Smissen, viola, Stephen Orton, cello, Lynda Houghton, double bass, Timothy Orpen, clarinet, Lawrence O’Donnell, bassoon, and Stephen Stirling, horn.
CLEVELAND — The warm fall sun shone brightly on the University Circle district on Sept. 27 as 1,000 people gathered to celebrate the opening of Case Western Reserve University’s new Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at The Temple-Tifereth Israel. The centerpiece of the afternoon was a concert by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst featuring violinist Shlomo Mintz. At the same time, the event launched Violins of Hope Cleveland — a four-month, multifaceted celebration of the triumph of the human spirit through the voices of violins that survived the Holocaust.
Following a series of sold-out concerts at Tanglewood and in England (London and Aldeburgh) and Italy, Cleveland’s baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire is busy putting the finishing touches on the eight programs they are planning around the area this season. We reached founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell to chat about last summer’s experiences and her plans for the season to come.
On Sunday, October 18 at 2:00 pm, pianist Peter Takács will present the first of three recitals titled The Beethoven Experience in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as part of the new Key Pianists concert series, conceived by pianist Terry Eder to fill a void in New York concert life.
Youngstown University’s Dana School of Music will collaborate with the University of Akron’s Kulas Concert Series to present a piano festival comprising seven events both in Youngstown and Akron between October 4 and 7.