by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
CIM violin professor Jaime Laredo celebrates his 80th birthday tonight at 7 by conducting the CIM Orchestra in works by Prokofiev, Mozart, and Brahms in a hybrid concert you can attend in person (free reservation required) or watch online.
CityMusic Cleveland’s Pantheon Ensemble goes live at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus tonight at 7 with a program featuring the world premiere of Denise Ondishko’s A More Perfect Union: Reflections on American Equality, Justice and Hope, along with pieces by Gershwin, Lili Boulanger, and Dvorák.
Pianist Gerardo Teissonnière joins the belated LvB 250th celebrations with a concert of Beethoven’s last three sonatas tonight at 7 in the Church of the Western Reserve.
More world premieres are on the docket for the first of three fall concerts by No Exit tonight at 8 in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, including works by Derrik Balogh, Giuseppe Desiato, and Jiří Trtík that share the program with pieces by No Exit artistic director Timothy Beyer and Agata Zubel. (Catch later performances at SPACES on October 1 and Heights Arts on October 2 — all are free.)
JOELA JONES TO BE HONORED ON HER RETIREMENT:
The Cleveland Orchestra announced on Thursday that principal keyboard player Joela Jones (pictured above) will retire after performing Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony with the ensemble on October 17. At the performance on October 14, she will be honored with the Orchestra’s Distinguished Service Award. Its longest-serving principal player, Jones joined The Cleveland Orchestra 45 seasons ago in 1967.
In the announcement, the Orchestra noted that “her contributions go well beyond the countless notes played on stage. These were decades filled with Monday night rehearsals, accompanying the remarkable volunteers of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, afternoons or mornings in coaching sessions interacting with conductors and guest vocalists, countless chamber music rehearsals, and many Orchestra committee meetings, working tirelessly for the sake of her fellow musicians and the ensemble.”
Click here to watch a video about Joela Jones’s Distinguished Service Award, and here for more information about the keyboardist who has played piano, organ, harpsichord, celesta, synthesizer, and even accordion when required for nearly a half century.
ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin interviewed Joela Jones in January, 2015 in conjunction with the 90th birthday celebrations for Pierre Boulez. Read that article here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
British conductor and musical scholar Christopher Hogwood died of a brain tumor in Cambridge on this date in 2014. One of the forerunners in the early music revival movement, Hogwood relaunched the 18th-century Academy of Ancient Music in 1973, clearing a pathway for such later conductors as Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardiner and Trevor Pinnock. The AAM eventually outgrew its concentration on Baroque music and recorded the complete symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven, as well as all of Mozart’s piano concertos with Robert Levin.
Hogwood was also noted for transforming Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society into a period instrument ensemble, along with his influential guest conducting appearances with a number of symphony orchestras. His career is detailed in Barry Millington’s obituary in The Guardian.
Click here to watch Hogwood’s performance of Haydn’s last symphony with the NHK Symphony Orchestra (misidentified as the AAM!), and here to watch a performance he led of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 with Robert Levin, who provided his own improvised cadenzas.
To see Christopher Hogwood in action as a musical scholar who served on the faculty of London’s Gresham College, here are two lecture-concerts: London: Music Under the Shadow of Handel, and an analysis of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du Temps.