by Daniel Hathaway
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Tuesday Musical writes, “Violist Kiarra Saito-Beckman and organist JoEllen West won the two top awards in Tuesday Musical’s 2025 Annual Scholarship Competition Final Round/Winners Concert on May 4 at the University of Akron. Pianist Philippe Gagne won the People’s Choice Award. (Winners pictured above.)
“Saito-Beckman, a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, won the $2,000 Arden J. Yockey Scholarship. West, a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, won the $1,000 Arden J. Yockey Scholarship.
“Gagne, also a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, garnered the most audience votes to win the $500 John M. Ream Jr. DDS People’s Choice Award.
“The final-round judges were conductor Dean Buck, composer Margi Griebling-Haigh, and retired journalist and music critic Elaine Guregian.
Karel Paukert, the longtime curator of musical arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art and organist and choirmaster of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Hts. passed away on April 30 at the age of 90. Read an obituary here.
A service in celebration of Paukert’s life will be held on Saturday, June 28, at 11 am at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2747 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Heights, followed by a reception.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Karel Paukert Memorial Music Fund at St. Paul’s.
HAPPENING TODAY:
7:30 pm – Rocky River Chamber Music Society. Nathaniel Silberschlag & Friends. Genevieve Smelser, violin; Nathaniel Silberschlag, horn; and Alicja Basinska, piano. Charles Koechlin’s Quatre Petites Pieces for violin, horn, and piano, Op. 32a, and Johannes Brahms’ Three Songs (arr. Smelser and Silberschlag) & Trio in E-flat, Op. 40. West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church.
7:30 pm – Sollertinsky Piano Trio. Jack Naglick, piano, Jeremy Foster, violin, and Peter O’Malley, cello. Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat, Op. 97, “Archduke,” and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2747 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Heights.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On May 5 of 1891, New York’s Carnegie Hall opened its doors with a gala concert featuring guest conductor Pytor Ilych Tchaikovsky. Watch a video in which archivist Gino Francesconi talks about the opening exercises, and a second video where Francesconi delves into the connections between the Russian composer and the iconic New York concert venue.
And on this date in 1867, British organist Thomas Tertius Noble was born in Bath, his unusual middle name indicating that he was the third Thomas to be born into his family.
Noble made a name for himself in posts at Ely Cathedral (1892-1898) and York Minster (1898-1913) before being lured across the Atlantic to become organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on New York’s Fifth Avenue. During his 35-year tenure, he established a choral program in the Anglican cathedral tradition and founded the St. Thomas Choir School for boys in 1919, an institution which is currently in jeopardy.
Perhaps Noble’s most lasting legacy is his 1912 edition of Handel’s Messiah, which has continuously been reprinted by G. Schirmer even as performance traditions have changed.
