by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, pianist Alexandre Kantorow will play works by J.S. Bach, Medtner, Chopin, Scriabin, & Beethoven, and Apollo’s Fire will reprise its Fencing Match program as a pre-tour send-off at Avon Lake UCC. At the same hour in Mixon Hall, CIM Perspectives will present cellist Timmy Mesa and pianist Michelle Michelle Cann in works by Debussy and Rachmaninoff.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
On Wednesday, The Cleveland Orchestra announced its 2026-2027 Season, which marks music director Franz Welser-Möst’s 25th and final year with the ensemble. Read the press release here.
R.I.P. jazz pianist Dan Wall, 72
Oberlin Conservatory Dean William Quillen writes that “The Oberlin community mourns the loss of Dan Wall, beloved professor of jazz piano, who passed away at 72. A gifted musician and teacher, Wall served on the Oberlin faculty from 2001 until his retirement in 2025. He inspired generations of students through his mentorship, generosity, and unwavering dedication to the art of jazz. “Information regarding a memorial service will be shared when available.’
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Among its many quirks, the ClevelandClassical.com Diary is a rich source of cultural trivia. Did you know that American silent film icon Charlie Chaplin was actually born in England on this date in 1889, composed most of the music for his own films, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975? (“Sir Charles!”)
Or that American composer Henry (Enrico) Mancini was a native Clevelander, born on this date in 1924 in Little Italy, whose first instrument was the piccolo? Or that he auditioned (successfully) for Juilliard in 1942 with a Beethoven sonata and an improvisation on Cole Porter’s “Night and Day?” Or that he made a cameo appearance in the first season of Frasier as a call-in patient to Dr. Frasier Crane’s radio show, followed by the playing of Moon River?
Tuck those useful factoids away while viewing Chaplin’s 1940 film, The Great Dictator here (or watching just its final scene where Chaplin is moved to speak on screen).
Tunes from Mancini’s scores to such films as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Pink Panther are surely still circulating in our ears. The latter is played here by a combo with the composer at the piano, and Swiss organist Guy Bovet was moved to make the theme into a cheeky polyphonic piece in his Fuga sopra un sogetto.
Final tribute of the day: the birth of Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks in Aizpute on this date in 1946. Cleveland Orchestra solo English horn Robert Walters performed his concerto for that expressive instrument with Andrey Boreyko and the Orchestra in February of 2011, and talked about it in a preview. And Polish guitarist Marcin Dylla, who has appeared twice on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series, plays Vasks’ The Sonata of Loneliness here.
