by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 2:30 pm in Cartwright Hall, the Kent State Orchestra sponsors a student composers workshop.
Tonight at 7, the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival continues its ancillary events with “American Partita,” featuring Fire & Grace & Ash (pictured). Violinist Edwin Huizinga, guitarist William Coulter and mandolinist Ashley Hoyer will blend the music of J. S. Bach with American fiddle tunes in Gamble Auditorium.
And tonight at 8, visionary flutist Robert Dick and harpist Stephan Haluska will celebrate the release of their new album, Crop Circles in a Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project performance at Convivium 33 Gallery. Read a preview here.
For details, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Ohio Light Opera has announced online orchestral auditions for its 45th season at the College of Wooster. Click here for the application form. Deadline for submission is March 17. Musicians must be in residence in Wooster from May 28 through July 29. Housing is provided, and stipends begin at $2,500. Click here to visit the OLO website.
NEWS BRIEFS:
The New York Times reports today that “The Metropolitan Opera, still reeling from the disruption brought by the pandemic, said on Thursday that it had withdrawn nearly $40 million in additional emergency funds from its endowment as it works to survive one of the most trying periods in its 141-year history.
“The move came after the Met took $30 million from its endowment fund last season to help cover operating expenses amid weak ticket sales and a cash shortfall. Nonprofits usually try to avoid drawing down their endowments, which are meant to grow over time while producing investment income. The Met’s endowment fund is now worth about $255 million, down from $309 million in July.”
In another story in today’s edition, the Times’ Joshua Barone writes that “In an announcement on Thursday, the Boston Symphony said that Andris Nelsons, its music director, would move to a rolling, evergreen contract rather than one with a fixed expiration date, and that he would take on a new, educational role as the head of conducting at Tanglewood.
“Additionally, the orchestra appointed Carlos Simon to a newly created post of composer chair; and announced that it would establish the Boston Symphony Orchestra Humanities Institute, an initiative with the goal of expanding the ensemble’s relationship with Boston outside its storied concert hall.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the fifth and most obscure son of Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach, departed this life on January 26, 1795 in the provincial town of Bückeburg, where he served as harpsichordist beginning in 1750 and as concertmaster from 1759, and where he composed a large number of works in all categories.
Here are three works from his pen that give some idea of what might have been heard in a small town in Lower Saxony during the transitional period from Baroque to Classical at the end of the 18th century.
First, his Lamento, arranged and performed by harpsichordist Jean Rondeau at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and Academy in 2016 — with a link to the full concert in which it was played.
Then, his Concerto Grosso in E-flat from 1792, a keyboard concerto featuring Christine Schornshelm and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.
And finally, his hour-long setting of Psalm 51, Miserere Mei Deus, performed in 1998 by Helmuth Rilling and the Bach Collegium Stuttgart.
Born on January 26, 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who rose out of Venezuela’s El Sistema to become conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolivar (hear them play Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (listen to excerpts from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring from 2019). He was recently named music director designate of the New York Philharmonic
Dudamel’s box office appeal inspired the character of Rodrigo in Amazon Prime’s Mozart in the Jungle series (and the aforementioned Márquez video has been watched 2,037,167 times). As a conductor, he’s equally effective working with professionals and students. Click here to watch part of a rehearsal he led with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra.
And on January 26, 2003, American pianist John Browning died in Sister Bay, Wisconsin. He maintained a long relationship with the music of Samuel Barber, whose Piano Concerto he debuted in 1962 for the opening of Lincoln Center. (Click here to listen to a performance by The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell – you can follow along with the piano score). As an interesting aside, Browning’s last performance was to an invited audience at the U.S. Supreme Court in May, 2002. Imagine!
