by Mike Telin
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 12:15 pm enjoy the McGaffin Carillon Concert & Live Stream with George Leggiero. The playlist includes a Telemann violin fantasia arranged for the bells, three Baroque dances from an 18th century carillon notebook, two Mozart waltzes and two traditional English folk songs dreaming of springtime. Parking is free in the lot in front of the tower on Euclid Avenue & on Bellflower Rd. behind the tower, or tune in to the live stream. The event is free.
At 7:00 pm CityMusic Cleveland presents “Tales and Scenes”. The program features Johann Sebastian Bach’s Piano Concerto in f with Elizabeth DeMio, Maurice Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye, Joaquín Turina’s Escena Andaluza, Manuel de Falla’s “Fire Dance” from El Amor Brujo, and Elena Ruehr’s World Premiere (commissioned by CityMusic Cleveland) Shrine Church of St Stanislaus, 3649 E 65th St, Cleveland, OH 44105. The concert is free.
IN THE NEWS:
Because of concerns about the safety of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus (COYC, pictured) gathering and rehearsing amid the continued steady increase of Covid-19 cases, the Cleveland Orchestra has announced a program update and time change for the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s (COYO) concert on Sunday, February 20. The concert is now a matinee, beginning at 3:00 p.m. Trumpeter Dasara Beta, one of the winners of the ensemble’s annual concerto competition, will perform Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto, replacing the previously announced music by Beethoven and Mozart featuring COYC. Contact the Ticket Office at 216-231-1111 for ticket information. Find Severance’s updated Health and Safety Policy regarding Covid-19 here.
Do you want to play the piano but aren’t sure where to start? Do you know how to play some piano and want to take your skills to the next level? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, The Music Settlement in partnership Piano Cleveland has a class for you. The Keys to Musicianship, a new ten-week course, will teach students the basics of keyboard technique while increasing their skills in notation, theory, and musical creativity. First session runs from March 10 through May 19 at the Settlement’s Ohio City Campus.
The deadline to apply for Tuesday Musical’s 2022 Annual Scholarship Competition is January 31. Applications are accepted on-line HERE.
Musical America’s Susan Elliott writes: “since our last One to One with Afa Dworkin in July 2020, she has seen some progress in performing arts organizations’ efforts to diversify, but, as she now puts it, “not enough.” As president and artistic director of the Sphinx Organization, this month honoring its 25th year of “transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts,” Dworkin should know.
During the conversation Dworkin maintains that the only way to overcome “centuries of systemic, intentional, and implicit exclusion” in the performing arts is for every member of an organization, be it one devoted to opera, theater, ballet, or classical music, to get on board. It’s not just a “top-down” issue, she tells Elliott, calling on conservatories to join the crusade, but perhaps more importantly, a “bottom-up” one. Click here to watch.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Today we celebrate the births of a quartet of American composers. While they may not be household names, they have all had fruitful careers.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1891, Timothy Mather Spelman studied with Harry Rowe Shelley and later with Albert Spalding and Edward Burlingame Hill at Harvard University. From 1913 to 1915 his studies took him to the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich where he was a student of Walter Courvoisier.
After returning to the United States, the composer accepted a post as assistant director of training for band musicians under the United States Department of War. Spelman and his wife, poet Leolyn Louise Everett, returned to Europe and eventually settled in Florence, Italy.
His music, a mixture of Impressionism and European Romanticism, was performed far more in Europe than in the United States. Spellman’s catalogue includes three operas and many songs set to texts by his wife. Click here to listen to pianist Phillip Sear play “Timgad” from Barbaresques, a suite for piano (1922).
Born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1898, Avery Claflin was trained in law and business and served as the president for the French American Banking Corp. He also studied music at Harvard University and was a business associate of Charles Ives. Most of his musical output came after his retirement in 1954, including his most famous work, Lament for April 15, which uses instructions for an Internal Revenue Service tax form as it’s text. The work was premiered in 1955 at Tanglewood, and on April 15, Karl Haas, played a recording of the piece during his Public Radio show, Adventures in Good Music. Click here to read a New York Times obituary and here to listen to pianist Gísli Magnússon perform Claflin’s Piano Concerto with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under the direction of William Strickland.
Born in Montana in 1937, George Flynn studied and taught at Columbia University. From 1977 to 2001 he headed the Department of Composition at DePaul University. Flynn’s music includes everything from symphonies to electronic compositions — the music journal Tempo called his 114-minute piano cycle Trinity a “masterpiece.” As the title implies, the work is in three parts: “Kanal,” “Wound,” and “Salvage,” each of which can be performed as a single piece.
The fourth member of the American composer quartet is (Frank) Neely Bruce, born on this date in 1944. Bruce currently holds the John Spencer Camp Professorship in Music and American Studies at Wesleyan University. His 800-plus works catalogue includes three full-length operas. He also holds the distinction of being one of the seven keyboard players to perform the premiere of John Cage’s HPSCHD in 1969. Bruce was also the first pianist to perform the complete song catalogue of Charles Ives. Click here to read more about the project and here to listen to pianist Paul Orgel perform Bruce’s Geographical Preludes.