by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: clarinet-viola-piano trios in Rocky River
•Announcements: Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund, Karamu Summer Arts Intensive, and Cuyahoga Arts & Culture asks County Council to approve cigarette tax increase to fund arts
•Featured video: Jeff Scott’s Nǐ de mìngyùn, wǒ de mìngyùn (“Your Destiny, MyDestiny”) from Cleveland Chamber Choir
•Almanac: Alfred Humphreys Pease, George Perle, and Victoria Bond
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society will feature clarinetist Afendi Yusuf, violist Wesley Collins, and pianist Dawoon Chung in trios by Bruch, Mozart, and Robert Schumann. Read a preview article by Mike Telin here, and click here for the livestream.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Applications are now open for Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund, a grant of up to $4,000 to help small to medium-sized organizations contract with a professional artist and offer activities to the community. The intent-to-apply deadline is May 23. Read more here.
“Board members of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the government agency that distributes cigarette tax money to the arts, voted unanimously on Monday to ask Cuyahoga County Council to approve a November ballot item that would enable county voters to increase the tax from 1.5 cents to 3.5 cents per cigarette,” Steven Litt writes for cleveland.com. Read the article here and read the CAC press release here.
Karamu Arts Academy is holding in-person auditions on May 24 (4:00-7:30) and May 25 (11:00-3:00) for its Summer Arts Intensive, to be held June 17 through August 11 on weekdays from 9:00-3:30. For those who cannot audition in person, video submissions will be accepted. Scholarships are available for City of Cleveland residents. More information here.
FEATURED VIDEO:
Jeff Scott’s Nǐ de mìngyùn, wǒ de mìngyùn (“Your Destiny, MyDestiny”), commissioned by Cleveland Chamber Choir, was premiered by the ensemble in March — and a video of the fourth movement, taken from the premiere, is now on YouTube. You can also hear the entire work tonight at 8:00 on WCLV Ovations (tune in via radio or online). To learn more about the piece, read a conversation between Scott and ClevelandClassical’s Mike Telin here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Mike Telin
Today we celebrate the births of three Americans who made their debuts on May 6: pianist/composer Alfred Humphreys Pease in Cleveland, Ohio in 1838, composer George Perle in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1915, and composer/conductor Victoria Bond in Los Angeles, California in 1945.
Although Alfred Humphreys Pease showed an aptitude for music and drawing at an early age, his parents had other career goals in mind for their son, and encouraged him to focus on classics. At the age of sixteen Pease entered Kenyon College where his paintings and drawings caught the attention of a young German artist who convinced Pease’s parents to allow him to move to Berlin where, in addition to languages, he studied piano with Theodor Kullak, composition with Richard Wüerst and orchestration with Wilhen Wieprecht and later with Hans von Bülow.
After returning to the United States, Pease toured the country as a pianist and was praised for his brilliant technique, quality of tone and musical expression. As a composer, Pease wrote nearly 100 songs as well as orchestral works and a piano concerto. Sadly, Pease died of alcoholism in 1882 in St. Louis.
After graduating from DePaul University, George Perle served in the United States Army during World War II and later earned his doctorate at New York University in 1956. As a composer, Perle employed his own technique that he called “twelve-tone tonality” — which is somewhat related to the technique used by composers of the Second Viennese School. In 1968, along with Igor Stravinsky and Hans F. Redlich, Perle co-founded the Alban Berg Society. His work on that composer’s music included documenting the third act of Lulu.
After retiring from Queens College, Perle became a professor emeritus at the Aaron Copland School of Music and in 1986 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Fourth Wind Quintet as well as a MacArthur Fellowship. Perle also served a three-year appointment as composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Symphony, and authored several books including The Listening Composer. Click here to listen to the Dorian Wind Quintet’s performance of the Fourth Wind Quintet, and pianist/composer Michael Brown performs Perle’s Toccata here.
Born into a musical family, Victoria Bond has long been a leading voice in classical music as a composer, conductor, lecturer, and artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts. The first woman awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School, her teachers included Ingolf Dahl and Roger Sessions (composition); William Vennard (voice); Jean Morel, James Conlon, Sixteen Ehrling, Leonard Slatkin, and Herbert Blomstedt (conducting).
In 1978 Bond became the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony and in 1986 was invited to conduct the Houston Symphony for the premiere of her work Ringing. She has served as artistic director of the Bel Canto Opera Company in New York, music director and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Southwest Virginia Opera, the Harrisburg Opera and the New Amsterdam Symphony. Her opera Mrs. President was premiered in 2012 in Anchorage, Alaska. Click here to visit her website and here to listen to Bond discuss her life in music.