by Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. Grandma’s classical playlists revisited
. Sirena Huang wins Indy violin contest, two live concerts (on Monday!) in Rocky River & Elyria
TODAY’S EVENTS:
Normally, Eric Charnofsky spends Mondays from 2-4 pm hosting a program “Not your Grandmother’s Classical Music” on the air from Case Western Reserve University.
Today, the lecturer, composer, and pianist turns that formula on its head and celebrates his grandmom’s birth anniversary with music by composers she actually knew or met — Leonard Bernstein, Dmitri Shostakovich, Elie Siegmeister, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Paul Robeson. As a bonus, music by George Gershwin celebrates his own natal day. Click here to listen to the WRUW internet feed, which is studded with rarities.
Mondays are traditionally nights off for musicians, but there are two interesting live programs to choose from tonight,
At 7:30, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society presents Boston’s Balourdet String Quartet (above) in Debussy’s Quartet in g (1893), Nina C. Young’s Memento Mori (2013) & Brahms’ Quartet No. 2 in a (1873) at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, 20401 Hilliard Blvd. in Rocky River. It’s free. Click here for a live stream.
And in a free concert at the same hour in the Cirigliano Studio Theatre at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, pianist Steven Beck will play all five of George Walker’s Piano Sonatas.
WINNERS’ CIRCLE IN INDIANAPOLIS:
28-year-old Violin Channel Young Artist Sirena Huang has won the Gold Medal at the Indianapolis International Violin Concerto. Following her performance of the Dvorak concerto with Leonard Slatkin and the Indianapolis Symphony, she was awarded a $USD 75,000 cash prize, a Carnegie Hall recital debut, a professional CD recording and website, plus four years of career management, guidance and international concert engagements.
In 2011, Huang received First Prize and the Audience Award at the Thomas & Evon Cooper International Competition in Oberlin.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On September 26, New England composer William Billings died in Boston in 1800, French conductor Charles Munch was born in Strasbourg in 1891, and American composer and trombonist William Dawson was born in Anniston, Alabama in 1890.
Billings departed the scene too early to have left recordings, but Ross W. Duffin and Quire Cleveland brought his infectious motet I Am the Rose of Sharon (“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples…”) to life in a concert at Historic St. Peter’s Church in April, 2014. Watch here.
Here’s a clip of a performance of “The Shepherds’ Farewell to the Holy Family” from Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ with Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony, Harvard Glee Club, and Radcliffe Choral Society in December of 1966, a luminous performance of a work that should be heard more frequently (the entire oratorio is available on DVD — see the notes).
William L. Dawson brought the Tuskegee Institute Choir to such a level that the ensemble was invited to sing six daily performances at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall in 1932. His arrangements of spirituals are classics, and his Negro Folk Symphony was premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934. Here’s a performance of Dawson’s arrangement of I Wan’ to be Ready by the Cleveland State University Chorale, Brian Bailey, director, at an April, 2019 Brownbag Concert at Trinity Cathedral.