by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30, The Lute Society of America’s Cleveland Lute Fest at Case Western Reserve University presents “A Day With Dowland” featuring Nigel North, lute (pictured), Jeffrey Thompson, tenor, and Joanna Blendulf, bass viol.
For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical concert listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
British tenor Peter Pears, the lifelong companion of composer Benjamin Britten, was born in Farnham on this date in 1910.
Pears created many of the major roles in Britten’s operas, and the two frequently collaborated in recitals, like this one, an informal concert of English traditional songs recorded in 1964 at London’s Riverside Studios for an audience of friends.
Britten wrote almost exclusively with specific performer friends in mind. Listen here to a classic recording of his Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with hornist Dennis Brain and Peter Pears — who chose the poetry for this and many other Britten song cycles.
And in 1974, French-born composer Darius Milhaud died on this date in Geneva. Always interested in jazz, Milhaud picked up a taste for South American music when he served for two years as secretary to Paul Claudel, France’s ambassador to Brazil.
He emigrated to the United States in 1940 and joined the faculty at Mills College in Oakland, California, and later at the Music Academy of the West, where Dave Brubeck and Burt Bacharach were among his students.
Many of his operas were performed during the summer season at the Central City Opera House in California, and a Darius Milhaud prize is awarded every year at the Cleveland Institute of Music for a performance of his music.
Watch a documentary of Milhaud’s personal and professional life here, and enjoy a performance of his jazz-inspired ballet score, La Création du Monde performed by the New World Symphony conducted by the late Michael Tilson Thomas (follow along with the score here.)
