by Daniel Hathaway
ON THE WEB TONIGHT:
Three very interesting Northeast Ohio programs debut this evening around the same time, but thanks to on-demand streaming, you can enjoy them later as you choose.
The Cleveland Orchestra is up first at 7:00 pm, with guest conductor Nicholas McGegan leading a program of Handel, Corelli, J.S. Bach, and Mendelssohn from the harpsichord in the fourth episode of “In Focus” on the Orchestra’s Adella platform. McGegan talked with ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin about the program in a wide-ranging conversation that also touched on the conductor’s love of mystery novels. Did you know that some examples of the genre are based in Cleveland?
Then at 7:30 pm, Les Délices debuts its program, “Noel, Noel, carols and poems for Christmastime,” narrated by legendary radio host Dee Perry and featuring Elena Mullins (soprano), Debra Nagy (oboe and recorder), Julie Andrijeski and Allison Monroe (violins), Rebecca Landell Reed (viola da gamba), and Mark Edwards (organ). Read our preview article here.
At the same hour, Oberlin Stage Left spotlights alumna Rhiannon Giddens in traditional Irish and Scottish tunes, as well as blues, bluegrass, gospel, and more with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, with whom she created her most recent recording. Recently named director of Silkroad, Giddens will speak with Oberlin professor Jan Miyake about her varied career and her longstanding commitment to social justice issues. Read more here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
An American poet and two French organist-composers have anniversaries on December 10.
Emily Dickinson, the famous poet-hermit of Amherst, Massachusetts, was born on this date in 1830. Harvard’s Houghton Library, which houses the world’s largest collection of Dickinson’s autograph poems and letters, throws an annual birthday party in her honor. This year’s virtual celebration will be held on Zoom and includes “a distinguished roster of poets, food writers, librarians, scholars, students, and literati who will read their favorite Dickinson poems, share what the poet means to them, and generally wax eloquent on America’s cherished poet and her kitchen prowess.”
That kitchen prowess included the production of her famous 20-pound black cake, which has been re-enacted for the occasion. Festivities begin at 3:00 pm. More information here.
We recognized the death of César Franck in a November diary entry. Today it’s Olivier Messsiaen’s turn, who was born on December 10, 1908 in Avignon.
Probably Messiaen’s most-performed work, the Quatour pour la fin du temps, was written in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. ChamberFest Cleveland has featured it on at least two occasions. Click here for a performance in Mixon Hall at CIM by Cohen with Yura Lee, violin, Gabriel Cabezas, cello, and Orion Weiss, piano in June, 2013. Franklin Cohen talked about the piece in a promotional video before a later performance in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Hall.
Messiaen was also a keen ornithologist who incorporated bird song into such works as his Oiseaux exotiques, which won pianist Angeline Chang, conductor John McLaughlin Williams, and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony a Grammy Award in 2007.
And of course, the composer was also an organist, who played at La Trinité in Paris for more than six decades. Hear him in some of his celebrated improvisations in this video.
Ready for a touch of the bizarre? Here’s a performance of “Dieu parmi nous” from the organ suite La Nativité du Seigneur played on bayan (accordion) by Ukrainian artist Artem Nyzhnyk, and an arrangement for accordion and theremin of the “Louange à l’Éternité du Jésus” from the Quatour performed by Lydia Kavina and Roman Yusipey. Given Messiaen’s embrace of another electronic instrument, the ondes martinot, he probably would have approved.
