by Daniel Hathaway
Oberlin Conservatory will open its concert season with a performance of John Luther Adams’ Sila that deploys more than 50 brass players and percussionists all over Tappan Square. The 6:30 pm event is free, masks required, and physical distancing is built into the plan.
And at 12:15 noon today, University Circle carillonneur George Leggiero will ascend to his office in the McGaffin Tower to play Baroque and Baroque-inspired music on the 47-bell carillon. It’s free, and you can listen from various greenswards or remain in your car (honking = applause). Details of both events here.
CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA REMEMBERS 9-11 IN PODCAST:
Lisa Wong, director of choruses at Severance Hall, “reflects on the healing power of John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls after 9-11 and the human voice as medicine for the soul” in the just-released second episode of the second season of the podcast series “On a Personal Note.” Watch here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Estonian-born composer Arvo Pärt was born on this date in 1935. One of the truly original voices of the 20th century, Pärt invented what he called the tintinnabuli style, a minimalist approach influenced by chant.
Frequent ChamberFest Cleveland violinist Alexi Kenney joined his colleague Stefan Jackiw and Boston’s A Far Cry chamber orchestra in a live performance of “Silentium,” the second movement of Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, in Jordan Hall in 2017. Watch here. And listen to the Estonian Chamber Choir sing Pärt’s 1989 Magnificat under the direction of Paul Hillier.
French composer, organist, and harpsichordist François Couperin “Le Grand” died in Paris on this date in 1733. QinYing Tang included the 18th Ordre from his Troisième livre de pièces de clavecin on her doctoral recital at the Cleveland Institute of Music in April, 2015. And in the same month, Les Délices played his La Sultanne on its program in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.