by Daniel Hathaway
CONCERT NEWS AND UPDATES:
Piano Cleveland announced today that the 2021 iteration of the Cleveland International Piano Competition will begin online from July 8-25 with preliminary rounds recorded at eight venues across the globe, and culminate with in-person Semifinal and Final Rounds in Cleveland from July 29 to August 4. The final two days will feature contestants in chamber music with the Escher Quartet, and concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra. Read the press release here and keep an eye out tomorrow for a ClevelandClassical.com interview with Yaron Kohlberg, (President) and Marissa Glynias Moore (Executive Director) of Piano Cleveland.
Apollo’s Fire has changed both the dates and repertoire for its April concerts. The previously-announced set featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons will now include J.S. Bach’s Violin Concerto in d, Cantata 51, Jauchtzet Gott in allen Landen, with soprano Amanda Forsyth and trumpeter Steven Marquand, and Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. New dates for the four in-person concerts are April 22-25. Alternatively, patrons may choose to watch a video of the program to be released on May 11.
IN THE NEWS:
Michigan Opera has announced productions for its first season under its new artistic director Yuvan Sharon and associate artistic director — and star soprano — Christine Goere. Read Joshua Barone’s New York Times article “A Malcolm X Opera Will Get a Rare Revival in Detroit” here.
New Music USA announces its New Music Organizational Development Fund, which “offers grants to non-profit organizations, performance groups, dance organizations, festivals, presenters, and venues with a proven track record and impact who need support to sustain their programming of new music, artist development work, and other services in the evolving context of COVID-19. This program is for outstanding organizations which work regularly with, and support the development of, music creators and artists and offer a crucial resource to the community.” Application guidelines here (deadline is April 22).
ONLINE TODAY:
The Baldwin Wallace Symphonic Band and Symphonic Wind Ensemble, the new music ensemble No Exit, and the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra Little Big Band are among tonight’s local streams. And from the West Coast, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra presents violinist Gil Shaham in a performance of music by Arvo Pärt and Chevalier de St-George “set to images and art created and processed in a first-of-its-kind digital studio at Wilhardt + Naud.”
See our Concert Listings for details.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
One debut and three final acts to commemorate today: French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was born on this date in 1925 in Montbrison, while Renaissance composers Heinrich Isaac and Antonio de Cabezon, and German composer Ludwig van Beethoven took their final bows in 1517, 1566, and 1827 in Florence, Madrid, and Vienna, respectively.
Cabezon, who was blind from early childhood, rose to become the first major Iberian composer for keyboard instruments and a member of the Spanish royal household. Listen here to his Diferencias sobre la Gallarda Milanesa played by Arturo Barba Sevillano on the historic organ at Villar de Cañas, Cuenca, in 2013.
One of the most prolific and well-traveled of Renaissance composers, Isaac enjoyed the patronage of the Medicis, whose coat of arms is associated with his Palle palle, played here by Voices of Music.
If you’ve been missing wind music (allegedly the super-spreaders of the COVID-19 era), here’s another Isaac tune, A la battaglia, performed by the Italian Consort.
Beethoven’s music has been in everyone’s ears during the 250th anniversary year of his birth, but maybe not this piece. His Elegischer Gesang for string quartet and four voices dates from 1814 and was dedicated to a friend whose wife had died three years earlier at the age of 24. It’s a lovely way to celebrate the departure of Beethoven as well. Listen to it here performed by the San Francisco Choral Artists.
Lest we become too sentimental, it’s worth remembering that the earthy composer was told on his deathbed that a gift of a dozen bottles of wine had arrived from his publisher. According to his American biographer Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Beethoven’s last recorded words were “Pity, pity — too late!”
And Pierre Boulez enjoyed a special relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra, palpably represented by his performance with them of the Adagio from Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, but also preserved in musicians’ tributes on the occasion of his 90th birthday. And more recently, in Principal Trumpet Michael Sachs’ remembrances in the 10th episode of the Orchestra’s On a Personal Note podcasts.