by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
At Noon, organist Christa Rakich plays original works & music by J. S. Bach at the Church of the Covenant.
And three concerts are on the docket for tonight, all beginning at 7:30.
The Cleveland Chamber Music Society launches its 75th season with the all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer (pictured). “Music of a Silent World,” at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church celebrates the music of nature in works by Majel Connery, William Byrd, Heinrich Isaac, Robert Schumann, Tom Petty, Lawrence, and Ayanna Woods, and a gala reception follows.
Meanwhile, two masters of the keyboard go head to head. The London-based, Siberian-born pianist Pavel Kolesnikov will present J.S. Bach’s complete “Goldberg Variations” in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Music Center, and British-born organist David Briggs, currently artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, will make the Holtkamp organ in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, sound orchestral in a program that includes his own Improvised Symphony in 4 Movements.
Visit our Concert Listings for details of upcoming performances.
SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT:
No Exit New Music has announced details of its 16th season, “New Season, New Sounds,” which begins with performances from October 17-19 at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Auditorium, Waterloo Arts, and SPACES. See the detailed schedule here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
British conductor and musical scholar Christopher Hogwood died of a brain tumor in Cambridge on this date in 2014. One of the forerunners in the early music revival movement, Hogwood relaunched the 18th-century Academy of Ancient Music in 1973, clearing a pathway for such later conductors as Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardiner and Trevor Pinnock. The AAM eventually outgrew its concentration on Baroque music and recorded the complete symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven, as well as all of Mozart’s piano concertos with Robert Levin.
Hogwood was also noted for transforming Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society into a period instrument ensemble, along with his influential guest conducting appearances with a number of symphony orchestras. His career is detailed in Barry Millington’s obituary in The Guardian.
Click here to watch Hogwood’s performance of Haydn’s last symphony with the NHK Symphony Orchestra (misidentified as the AAM!), and here to watch a performance he led of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 with Robert Levin, who provided his own improvised cadenzas.
To see Christopher Hogwood in action as a musical scholar who served on the faculty of London’s Gresham College, here are two lecture-concerts: London: Music Under the Shadow of Handel, and an analysis of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du Temps.
Before the novel coronavirus blew into the music world in 2020, bringing with it what he calls “the Great Silence,” violinist Andrew Sords was among the busiest touring soloists and chamber musicians in the industry. He reckons that he spent nearly 200 days on the road in 2019, compared to 40 this year.
You’d think that two instruments that create their sound by plucking strings might not provide enough variety to sustain interest over the course of a whole program, but guitarist Colin Davin and harpist Emily Levin have news for you.
ON TODAY:
CONCERTS TODAY: