by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7 in Tri-C’s Metro Auditorium, Kristopher Morron leads the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in a program including Dana Hall’s When Still, which recounts the story of the nine souls who lost their lives in the 2015 shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
At the same hour at Bath Church UCC, Wit’s Folly presents Émigré: French Refugees in the Early United States and the Music They Brought with Them, while Federated Church in Chagrin Falls hosts the Factory Seconds Brass Trio (Cleveland Orchestra second-chair players Jack Sutte, trumpet, Jesse McCormick, horn, and Richard Stout, trombone.
Then at 7:30 in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance, the Cleveland Orchestra’s Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival continues with pianist Conrad Tao in Recital: Power and Influence, joined by cellist Dane Johansen, “a fascinating dialogue between Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Russian and American homes, discussing the power of old world and new, tradition and innovation.”
And tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project launches its Re:Sound 2024 festival — new & experimental music in concert, workshop & installation — at Convivium 33 Gallery (click here for program details).
Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other events.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Following up on Tuesday’s report that Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw was canceling two concerts this week by the Jerusalem Quartet due to “announced demonstrations and the recent developments surrounding protests in Amsterdam:” the Violin Channel reported on Wednesday that “Since news of the cancellation, the British pianist Danny Driver launched a petition calling for the decision to be overturned; to date, the appeal has garnered over 10,000 signatures — including violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, pianist Martha Argerich, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.” Read the full text of the petition here.
Recent Oberlin Conservatory graduate Matthew Straw is among the eighteen emerging conductors chosen by the Solti Foundation for its 2024 Career Assistance Awards. Read the Violin Channel story here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Jarrett Hoffman
Today we remember two famous wind players whose careers ended on this date.
Oboist John de Lancie passed away from leukemia on May 17, 2002 in Walnut Creek, California. (His son is the actor of the same name.) And though he was also born in California, it’s in the City of Brotherly Love where he became most famous, holding the principal chair in the Philadelphia Orchestra for 23 years and serving as director of the Curtis Institute of Music for 8 years — until his controversial forced resignation — in addition to teaching at the school.
Although he didn’t commission or premiere it, de Lancie is forever tied to one of the most important works for oboe. Having served in the U.S. Army in World War II, de Lancie met composer Richard Strauss following the armistice, when his unit was securing the area around Strauss’s Bavarian home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He asked the composer if he had thought about writing a concerto for oboe. The answer was no, but only several months later, lo and behold, Strauss had put the finishing touches on his Oboe Concerto. Listen to de Lancie play it in a recording here.
Quotes about hornist Dennis Brain — who was born on this date in 1921 and died 36 years later in a car crash — can come across as over-the-top, that is until you hear his superb playing. Among the many accomplishments he achieved in his short life are his recordings of Mozart’s four horn concertos with Herbert von Karajan and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Listen here, and be wowed. (The composer himself died at the age of 35).
