A new weekly podcast series from Severance Hall will feature personal perspectives and illuminating views about Cleveland Orchestra recordings. Available beginning on Thursday, April 16, the first season of “On a Personal Note” will comprise ten episodes.
In the first program, “The Sound of Crisis,” Music Director Franz Welser-Möst recalls the conflicting emotions he experienced leading the last performance before Severance Hall was shuttered due to the pandemic. On Friday morning, March 13, under the first phase of restrictions ordered by the governor, he conducted Schubert’s “Great” Symphony in C for an audience of a few staff members who heard what was originally supposed to be a public concert. Further limitations on the number of people allowed to gather mandated the cancellation of the rest of the Orchestra’s season.
Welser-Möst described that morning as a surreal experience. “We played in that moment, very aware of the music’s meaning and with the beginning of our understanding about what was happening around us. The ability to share this story in the ‘On a Personal Note’ podcast is a moving opportunity, and a rare time to verbalize the emotions we feel as artists every time we perform.”
Click here to listen to “The Sound of Crisis.”
In the second episode, also available today, hornist Rich King shares his earliest memories of hearing Beethoven’s Third Symphony on the family phonograph, and how the disc ended up shaping his destiny.
Subsequent podcasts will feature violinist Katherine Bormann, principal horn Nathaniel Silbersschlag, cellist Martha Baldwin, assistant concertmaster Jessica Lee, principal trumpet Michael Sachs, principal flute Joshua Smith, and principal clarinet Afendi Yusuf.
The “On a Personal Note” podcast is part of @Home with The Cleveland Orchestra, a series of online offerings providing new or expanded ways for people to connect with The Cleveland Orchestra and each other through musical experiences that bring music and the Orchestra to patrons, no matter where they are, including special Learning@Home resources for families.
These offerings include radio and online broadcasts of Cleveland Orchestra concerts seven days a week in collaboration with WCLV ideastream, Mindful Music Moments meditations with Cleveland Orchestra recordings, performance and education videos by Cleveland Orchestra musicians from their homes, and Learning@Home with The Cleveland Orchestra — a series of education resources for children, educators, parents, and families offering a variety of ways to introduce others to music.
Photo by Roger Mastroianni.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com April 16, 2020.
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