This week the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts series will present three musically diverse concerts in Gartner Auditorium.
On Thursday, December 11 at 7:30 pm, The Tallis Scholars make their CMA debut with a program of Renaissance choral music by William Byrd, Josquin des Prez, and Edmund Turges. Director Peter Phillips founded The Tallis Scholars in 1973. Through recordings and concert performances, the ensemble has established itself as the leading exponent of Renaissance sacred music throughout the world. Phillips has worked with the group to create, through good tuning and blend, the purity and clarity of sound that he feels best serves the Renaissance repertoire, allowing every detail of the musical lines to be heard. It is this resulting beauty of sound for which The Tallis Scholars has become so widely renowned.
The “Christmas Truce” of 1914, the famous, spontaneous cessation of hostilities on the Western Front during “The Great War,” has inspired The Singers’ Club of Cleveland’s 2014 Christmas program, “A Season of Peace.”
We continue our preview of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s concert on Sunday, December 7 at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, with a conversation with Stefan Podell, whose Concerto for Two Violas and Orchestra, will receive its premiere that evening with Lynne Ramsey and Jeffrey Irvine as soloists.
Since its founding, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra has given world premieres of over two hundred works, and this weekend’s concert is no exception. On Sunday, December 7 at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, CYO will begin its twentieth anniversary season with a concert honoring composer Bernard Rands.
“I’m very excited to be conducting CityMusic’s Holiday Concerts this year,” Peter Bennett said during a telephone conversation. “And I am particularly pleased to be able to work with the La Sagrada Familia Choir to bring Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla to Cleveland audiences for the first time.” On Wednesday, December 3 at 7:30 at La Sagrada Familia Church, CityMusic will present the first of five free performances featuring Ramírez’s Misa Criolla. (See our concert listings for times and locations.) The concert also includes Antonio Sarrier’s Overture in D, and Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto with CityMusic principal bassoon Laura Koepke as soloist.
“How could I possibly enter into our twentieth season without him being a major part of this concert?” Contemporary Youth Orchestra Music Director Liza Grossman exclaimed over the phone. The man Grossman is referring to is Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands. On Sunday, December 7 at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, CYO will present a concert honoring the composer.
The Juilliard Quartet, just back from a series of concerts in Europe, are next up on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s series at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The group will play quartets by Anton Webern, Joseph Haydn and Franz Schubert on Tuesday, December 2 at 7:30 in collaboration with the Winter Chamber Music Festival of the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) has announced that it will invest $27,183,242 in grants to 196 arts and culture organizations in Cuyahoga County through its 2015-16 General Operating Support and 2015 Project Support grant programs. The grant award amounts were approved by CAC’s Board of Trustees during its meeting and celebration event on Monday afternoon, November 24 at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
As part of its Close Encounters chamber music series, Heights Arts will offer master classes with Cleveland Orchestra cellist Tanya Ell on January 11 and with TCO’s associate concertmaster Amy Lee on April 19. Master classes are open to students in grades 6 through 12 and will be held in Heights Arts’ gallery at 2175 Lee Road on Sundays at 11 am.
The new music ensemble No Exit will launch their 2014-15 concert season next week by shining a spotlight on the works of area composers, including the debut of two world premiere pieces. The performances will take place on Saturday, November 22 at 8:00 pm in Spaces Gallery and on Monday, November 24 at 8:00 pm in Cleveland State University’s Drinko Auditorium.