by Daniel Hathaway
On Wednesday evening, Piano Cleveland announced the names of the six finalists in its VirtuI(al)oso online competition who will play 30-35 minute programs on Friday and Saturday at 7:00 pm. Read the story here.
Tri-C Jazz Fest has added a third day to its 2020 online festival, which now runs from Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August 23. Read more here.
TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:
In the latest episode of Oberlin Stage Left, violin professor Sibbi Bernhardsson introduces the Verona Quartet, Oberlin Conservatory’s quartet in residence for 2020-2021, who will respond with some Beethoven, Adolphe, and Janáček, as well as a little bluegrass.
WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra includes Benno Sachs’ masterful reduction of Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, tailor-made for the age of the pandemic, but actually made to introduce the piece to members of Vienna’s Society for Private Musical Performances (founded in 1918 by Arnold Schoenberg). And the MET Opera will stream a 2016 performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Details in our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1619, composer and singer Barbara Strozzi was baptized in Venice. She survived an outbreak of the plague to become the most-published composer of her era, with eight books of mostly secular songs to her credit.
Click here to listen to her i baci sung by Burning River Baroque sopranos Malina Rauschenfels and Josefien Stopplenburg at St. Alban’s Church in Cleveland Heights in September, 2016, and here to watch Adriana Ruiz sing several of Strozzi’s works at Indiana University as part of Early Music America’s 2018 Emerging Artists Showcase during the Bloomington Early Music Festival.
And on this date in 1945, the United States, with the consent of the United Kingdom, detonated the first of two atomic bombs over the city of Hiroshima, Japan (a second bomb was dropped over Nagasaki three days later.
Click here to watch a performance of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki’s 1960 Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima for 52 string instruments, as performed by Sinfonia Varsovia led by Krzysztof Urbański at Penderecki’s 80th Birthday Celebration in Warsaw in November, 2013.