by Daniel Hathaway
VIRTUAL PIANO COMPETITION:
Piano Cleveland announced this morning that its Cleveland International Piano Competition, postponed until 2021, will be replaced this summer with a special online contest. Virtu(al)oso will allow contestants to record their performances at Steinway Galleries in Cleveland, New York, London, Hamburg, and Beijing for broadcast online from July 30 through August 9. Applications to fill the 30 available slots will be accepted beginning today. Go here for more information.
HAPPY MAY DAY:
Traditionally the occasion for celebrating liberation from winter, May 1 has given rise to traditions both secular and religious. One famous annual event takes place at Magdalen College, Oxford, when the chapel choir usually sings motets and madrigals from the tower at 6 am. Thumbing their collective nose at the pandemic, the choir has arranged a virtual celebration during the University lockdown that seamlessly splices a Zoom performance with footage from 2017. Watch a video here.
For another take on Morley’s Now is the Month of Maying, here’s a performance by the Belgian choir Vox Luminis. (The ensemble has performed several times at Cleveland’s Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.)
TODAY’S FEATURED VIDEOS:
The Cleveland Orchestra’s new principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag is featured in the latest episode of On a Personal Note. At 21, and in only his second week in the Orchestra, he was featured in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in a packed Severance Hall. Watch “First Impressions” here
Reports have it that a lot of people are sleeping in these days, so probably few viewers were up at 5:00 this morning to witness the first live orchestral concert in Germany since the lockdown. The Berlin Philharmonic — in a chamber configuration under Kirill Petrenko — played Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, music by Ligeti, Barber’s Adagio for Strings and a chamber version of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with soprano Christiane Karg to an empty house at the Philharmonie, observing strict physical distancing. Happily, the event will be rebroadcast on Saturday, May 2 at 1:00 pm EDT. Watch here for free.
Contemporary Youth Orchestra teamed up with the indy pop group The Accidentals in December, 2018, to record a new single, Requiem for a Lark. Watch online today, May 1, beginning at 2:00 pm EDT.
TODAY ON THE WEB:
The list includes Lunchtime With The Cleveland Orchestra, the Rana Quartet from CIM, Verdi’s Aïda from the MET Opera’s HD archives, and for those who missed Oberlin’s performances of Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone in January, 2018, there’s a late night video from Los Angeles Opera. See details here.
INTERESTING READ:
Tired of Zoom conversations? Some people have found creative ways to connect with others with the sound turned off. Read an article from The Guardian here.
