by Daniel Hathaway
Imagine sitting in Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church on the afternoon of Good Friday, 1724 and hearing the stirring opening chorus of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion at its debut performance. You can re-imagine that experience this Friday — Good Friday, April 3 at 7:30 at Trinity Cathedral, when Todd Wilson will lead the Trinity Consort of 16-some singers, soloists, the Trinity Cathedral Choir, and an ensemble of period instruments in the first of Bach’s two extant settings of the story of the arrest, suffering and execution of Jesus.
“It’s a signal piece in his whole output,” Wilson said in a telephone conversation. “Its drama, its pacing, its depth of feeling. It’s extra-emblematic of everything Bach stood for, especially at that time in his life.” [Read more…]
[Editor’s note: Stephanie Blythe withdrew from her recital due to illness less than two hours before the performance. We regret that there was no time to post a notice to that effect.] Bass-baritone John Relyea, who was scheduled to perform on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series this weekend, has withdrawn due to illness. He will be replaced by the renowned mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, who will be joined by the originally-announced collaborative pianist Warren Jones. The concert will take place in Oberlin’s historic Finney Chapel on Thursday, April 2 at 8:00 pm, when Ms. Blythe will sing music by Francis Poulenc, Léo Ferré, Jacques Brel, Benjamin Britten and Noël Coward. Program and ticket details 
Since forming in 2001, the clever, innovative contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound has gone on to become one of the most successful composer-musician collectives touring today. The group is the resident ensemble at the Mizzou International Composers Festival at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Each year the festival features eight world premieres by emerging composers.
[Editor’s note: John Relyea was forced to cancel his appearance due to illness. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe agreed to step in for him, but fell ill herself and cancelled shortly before the performance on April 2.] Choosing repertoire for a solo recital is not an easy task when you’re a bass-baritone. “The bass voice is often put into dramatic dark territory, and maybe that’s because of the way people heard the color of the voice lending itself to the mood of the poetry,” bass-baritone John Relyea said during a telephone conversation. “I’m always looking for songs to sing that have more positive, less depressing texts.”
When NEOSonicFest presents its fourth concert on Tuesday, March 24, at 7:30pm in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony (CCS) will pay tribute to its founder, the late Edwin London. The two-part musical evening will feature pieces by CCS’s 2015 Young and Emerging Composers competition winners, as well as a side-by-side performance with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO) of Bernard Rands’ London Serenade.
Since its formation in 2008, the Mivos Quartet has amassed an impressive list of accomplishments in the world of contemporary classical music. In edition to an active touring schedule, the Quartet regularly commissions new music for string quartet and works in close collaboration with composers for extended time periods. The group is dedicated to advancing careers of emerging composers through their Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize and their I Creation/Mivos Quartet Prize, a competition designed to promote works by emerging composers of Chinese descent worldwide.
The 2015 edition of NEOSonicFest will end with a bang when FiveOne Experimental Orchestra (51XO) presents an innovative program on Saturday, March 28 at 8:00 pm at Zygote Press. Along with other surprises, the evening will include music by Marc Mellits, David Crowell, and Ted Hearne as well as a 51XO Zygote Jam.
Mention Francis Poulenc’s piano concerto and most musically savvy people will ask, “Don’t you mean the two-piano concerto?” In fact, there’s another one that came later than the 1932 d-minor work for two pianos and orchestra. In 1949, Poulenc wrote a solo piano concerto on commission for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That piece will be performed by Emanuela Friscioni and Heights Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Mark McCoy, on Sunday, March 29 at 3:30 pm at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. (Also on the program are Gounod’s Funeral March for a Marionette and Schubert’s sixth symphony.)
“I’m really excited to be back in Cleveland this weekend. It is an honor, and a very important step in my career to be making my Severance Hall debut with The Cleveland Orchestra,” pianist Daniil Trifonov said during a telephone conversation. “Of course I’ve been to Severance Hall on numerous occasions to hear concerts as a listener, but this is a dream that is finally coming true.”