by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S FEATURED VIDEO:
This coming Wednesday, April 22, marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a celebration which risks getting lost in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. So this seems like a good time to revisit Margaret Brouwer’s oratorio, Voice of the Lake, an impassioned work about environmental issues that affect our own Great Lake, Erie.
The first of its four parts, ‘At the Lake,’ opens with a joyful tribute to the lake. “Children swim and play in the water, a fisherman is fishing and the soprano sings of rejuvenating time at the lake. They notice an article in the newspaper about a toxic blob of sediment that was created by dumping the dredged Cuyahoga riverbed into Lake Erie. The article says the toxic blob is nearing the city water intake valve. A storm approaches, moving swiftly across the lake.”
Watch Part I here in a performance by Brouwer’s Blue Streak Ensemble and Chamber Singers with Angela Mortellaro, soprano, Sarah Beaty, mezzo-soprano, Brian Skoog, tenor, and Bryant Bush, bass and the CIM Children’s Choir in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on October 19, 2018. Domenico Boyagian conducts.
APOLLO’S FIRE DOCUMENTARY ON FILM FESTIVAL FEED:
Playing With Fire, a documentary about Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire by Allan Miller, is streaming through April 28 from the Cleveland International Film Festival, which has moved online. Watch a trailer here, and stay tuned for interviews later this week.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this day in 1961, The Federal Communications Commission granted its approval for FM stereo broadcasting. Good news for classical music fans, although The Cleveland Orchestra had been sending its concerts out over the airwaves since November 10 of 1922 — only a few months after the Detroit Symphony had been the first orchestra to put its performances on the radio.
Read a history of Cleveland Orchestra broadcasts written by orchestra archives intern Kate Rogers with illustrations and sound files here. And click on this link to view the Orchestra’s Home Listening Guide that details the schedule of archival broadcasts from Severance Hall during April and May over WCLV 104.9 Ideastream, standing in for its cancelled live performances.
