by Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. New episodes of SalonEra & Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, Rowley returns to BW
. R.I.P. YSU’s Stephen L. Gage, Cleveland Orchestra releases Blossom schedule, Apollo’s Fire adds a performance
. Almanac anniversaries: Sor, Wagner & Kleinsinger
HAPPENING TODAY:
Les Délices releases SalonEra 3.5: Finding Lisette. Baritone/scholar Jean-Bernard Cerin traces the history of the Haitian Creole song “Lisette quitté la plaine” and explores how the song becomes a lens through which we can explore the dynamic, fraught history of Haiti and its occupiers.
From 2-4 pm, Eric Charnofsky hosts Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, featuring music by David Dzubay, Douglas Lilburn & Arthur Bliss
And at 7:30 pm, Baldwin Wallace welcomes back its distinguished graduate, soprano Jennifer Rowley (pictured as Tosca), for a solo recital, and CIM sponsors a Music for Food Concert to benefit the Cleveland Kosher Food Pantry. See our Concert Listings for details.
NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS:
R.I.P. Stephen L. Gage, 66
Youngstown State University’s Cliffe College of Creative Arts mourns the loss of Stephen L. Gage, former Director of Bands and Orchestras, who died in Indianapolis on February 5. Read the announcement here.
Apollo’s Fire has added an extra Concert on April 7 to its Vivaldi European Sendoff performances. Information here.
The Cleveland Orchestra has released the schedule for its classical concerts at Blossom this summer. Click here to download the press release.
ALMANAC FOR FEBRUARY 13:
February 13 marked the baptism of Spanish composer Fernando Sor in Barcelona in 1778, the final curtain call of German composer Richard Wagner in Bayreuth in 1883, and the birth of American composer George Kleinsinger in 1914.
Sor is well-known to classical guitarists, who have probably improved their playing technique through the composer’s pedagogical works. Watch Jason Vieaux giving a lesson here on Sor’s Etude No. 6 in D, which requires “a spidery left hand.” And listen to Judicaël Perroy, who teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory and has performed in Northeast Ohio, play Sor’s Fantaisie élégiaque, Op. 59.
Wagner’s music is so ubiquitous that it hardly needs an introduction, and probably the less you know about the composer’s personal life, the better. Fans of Wagner’s Ring Cycle of operas who would prefer hearing the music without singers have former Cleveland Orchestra music director Lorin Maazel to thank for assembling The Ring Without Words. Reviewing Maazel’s Telarc recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, a Gramophone critic wrote, “…audiophiles who like blazingly spectacular sound and plenty of adrenalin flowing in the music-making, should find this worth trying. Certainly the heavy brass sounds are very tangible.” Listen here.
And George Kleinsinger, born on this date in 1914 in California, was responsible for writing an unforgettable tune for the children’s classic Tubby the Tuba. Paul Tripp wrote the story in 1942 while serving in the Army, and Kleinsinger supplied Tubby’s luminous melody for a recording in 1946 that sold eight million copies. Read the story behind the story in a Library of Congress publication, and sing along here.
