by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: Cleveland Orchestra & Oberlin Orchestra
•Interesting reads: Rachmaninoff at 150
•Job listings: Senior Strategist (Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy) at City Hall, and Conservatory Event Publicity and Marketing Specialist at Oberlin
•Honors for a CWRU composer
•Almanac: Carlos Salzedo, André Previn, Igor Stravinsky, Ray Charles
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Rafael Payare (pictured) leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and Bernstein’s Second (“The Age of Anxiety”), which features pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet as soloist. Tickets are available here.
And at that same hour at Finney Chapel, pianist Annie Qin, one of the winners of Oberlin Conservatory’s Concerto Competition, will play Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto with the Oberlin Orchestra, led by Raphael Jiménez. The program also includes Pierre Jalbert’s Passage and the world premiere of Michael Frazier’s la flor nopal. It’s free, and you can catch the stream here.
INTERESTING READS:
Speaking of Rachmaninoff and his Second Piano Concerto, that composer’s 150th anniversary arrived just days ago — and Kirill Gerstein is releasing a recording of that concerto this month with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko. With that occasion in mind, the pianist spoke to The New York Times about Rachmaninoff’s legacy.
“Let’s take it seriously not just as music produced by a virtuoso but also a serious composer. We’ve tried various ways of dismissing it, and it’s not going away, so possibly we can say: Well maybe it’s not just because it’s pretty and it’s popular, but because it has a real core of aesthetic value.” Read the article by Joshua Barone here.
JOB LISTINGS:
The City of Cleveland Mayor’s Office is hiring a Senior Strategist (Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy). The position will lead a strategic planning effort to determine a sustainable infrastructure for the arts at City Hall, and will lead strategic policy initiatives to position the city as a leading world cultural center with enhanced neighborhood vitality. More information here.
And Oberlin College & Conservatory is looking for a Conservatory Event Publicity and Marketing Specialist — a full-time, in-person, continuing 12-month position responsible for promoting free and ticketed events to the campus community and to patrons, and assisting the director of conservatory communications. Apply here.
HONORS:
Earlier this week, we shared news of three local groups that were announced as semifinalists of the American Prize in Band/Wind Ensemble Performance. Adding on to that list, Case Western student Juniper Duncan (left) is a semifinalist in the category of choral composition, college/university division.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Daniel Hathaway
Two birthdays and two passings to highlight in today’s calendar. French-American harpist and composer Carlos Salzedo (official name, Charles Moïse Léon Salzedo) was born in 1885 in Arcachon. And German American conductor, composer, and pianist André Previn entered the world in Berlin in 1929 (under a slightly different name: Andreas Ludwig Priwin).
Russian composer Igor Stravinsky took his final curtain call in New York on this date in 1971 (he was buried in Venice), as did the great blind American singer-songwriter Ray Charles in Beverly Hills in 2015 (official name: Ray Charles Robinson).
Salzedo single-handedly created the role of the modern virtuoso concert harpist, establishing a summer harp colony in Camden, Maine, founding the harp department at the Curtis Institute of Music, and teaching at the Juilliard School. Listen to the master himself play his Variations on a Theme in Ancient Style, as well as to Debussy’s Danse Profane performed by Alice Chalifoux, and to a performance of his Steel by the Salzedo Harp Duo (Nancy Lendrim and Jody Guinn) on the April 11, 2018 Brownbag Concert at Trinity Cathedral.
If Stravinsky needs any introduction, here’s one that Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst provided before the Orchestra’s all-Stravinsky concerts in Severance Hall in March of 2017. And anyone concerned about the younger generation carrying the classical music torch forward should give a listen to Brett Mitchell leading the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in the 1947 version of Petrushka in March 2016.
Equally at home in symphonic music, Hollywood scores, and jazz, Previn had serial relationships with the London and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and the Los Angeles, Royal, Oslo, and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras.
His opera based on Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire was produced by Scott Skiba and Cleveland Opera Theater in December 2015. Listen to Benjamin Czarnota singing Stanley Kowalski’s aria “It’s gonna be all right” here. And here’s a recording of Previn’s live performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on a 1966 episode of the Bell Telephone Hour.
Ray Charles was blinded by glaucoma in childhood, but he didn’t let that hold him back in his distinguished career. Watch him here rehearsing in Bourges, France in 1987, introducing Nat “King” Cole at the 2000 Rock Hall Induction Ceremony, and joining Gospel diva Sarah Jordan Powell in “Christmas in Ettal” in Germany in 1979.