by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
7:30 pm – Oberlin Organ Academy. Guest Recital. Kirk Rich, organ (pictured). Warner Concert Hall. Free.
For details, addresses, and ticket information, please visit our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1887, American teacher and conductor John Finley Williamson was born in Canton. He died in Toledo in 1964 after an illustrious career that included the founding of the Westminster Choir School in Dayton. After a move to Princeton, NJ, the institution, renamed Westminster Choir College, became part of Ryder University. After merges and changes in ownership, its future is uncertain.Williamson’s Westminster Choir performed frequently with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and made world tours. Listen to a performance of Mozart’s Laudate Dominum by the 1957 World Tour Choir.
And on this date in 1924, English folk music and dance collector Cecil Sharp died in London. Initially heralded for his work in preserving folk traditions (Ralph Vaughan Williams, a collector himself, used many of Sharp’s discoveries in his own compositions), he later worked in the United States, collecting Appalachian folk music, for which he was criticized for cultural appropriation. Watch a documentary of his life here.
