by Daniel Hathaway
NEWS BRIEFS:
On Thursday, The Cleveland Orchestra sent out a video message from President and CEO André Gremillet updating patrons on its plans for the summer and beyond (much is still up in the air), and announced “Cleveland Orchestra Classics,” a new summer series of full-length concert rebroadcasts. The Orchestra also noted the release of the latest podcast in its “On a Personal Note” Series. In “Resolution,” second clarinet Robert Woolfrey talks about finding peace in Brahms’s German Requiem and its power to connect the past with the present.
The Vienna Philharmonic is resuming public concerts with limited audiences present in the Musikverein. Read an article here.
ON THE WEB TODAY:
If you tuned in to the Stockholm Symphony’s live stream on Wednesday (with no audience present), you may be interested in hearing what the orchestra’s CEO and artistic director, Stefan Forsberg, has to say about the Swedish ensemble’s policies during the pandemic. He speaks with Susan Elliot on Musical America’s “One to One: Keeping the orchestra playing”. Listen here.
Today’s scheduled streams of local interest include Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra (Bruckner, Mozart, and Brahms with Julia Fischer), a house concert with pianist Spencer Myer ($), an encore screening of the MET Opera’s recent At-Home Gala featuring 40 artists around the world, and an episode in the Ohio Light Opera’s Virtual Summer Festival where OLO veterans and current company members trade messages and songs.
Musical America’s list of streams features a number of interesting feeds for Friday. Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page for all the possibilities MA recommends.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1813, Sir Arthur Wellesley, who later became the Duke of Wellington, drove the French army out of Spain near the Basque city of Vitoria, inspiring Ludwig van Beethoven to write his controversial “Battle Symphony,” Wellington’s Victory.
San Francisco commentator Robert Greenberg considers the status of Beethoven’s Op. 91 in his engagingly opinionated series, Music As a Mirror of History. Watch his talk here, and click here to watch a performance by Switzerland’s Argovia Philharmonic in the Old Riding School in Aarau.
And on June 12 in 1952, composer Scottish composer Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow. Leila Josefowicz, who played his violin concerto with Susanna Mälkki and The Cleveland Orchestra in February, performs his Reflection during “Celebrating Olly,” an evening at London’s Royal Academy of Music that memorialized the late composer’s life in December, 2018.
As a conductor, Knussen made two recordings with The Cleveland Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon. One of them features orchestral arrangements by Leopold Stokowski, including Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Click here to listen to the album on Spotify.
INTERESTING READS:
In a New Yorker interview, jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins talks about the pandemic, protests and music. Rollins made a major gift to the Oberlin Conservatory’s jazz program in 2017, which recognized the institution’s long legacy of access and social justice advocacy and established a jazz ensemble in his name. Membership would be determined by an audition for Oberlin’s jazz faculty, evidence of academic achievement, thoughtful response to a question about the place of jazz in the world, and service to humanity. Read more here.
