HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30 in Warner Concert Hall, faculty soprano Martha Guth (pictured) will be featured with the Oberlin Sinfonietta, Tim Weiss, conducting, in Soomin Kim’s Four Love Songs, the premiere of Chloe Arnold’s Shattered, and the nonet version of Johannes Brahms’ Serenade No. 1 in D, Op. 11.
Also at 7:30, the 11-member vocal ensemble Voctave will perform seasonal favorites from the Disney screen to the Broadway stage in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On December 11, 1918, Russian conductor Nikolai Sokoloff led the debut concert of The Cleveland Orchestra in Grays Armory. The program, a benefit for St. Ann’s Church, included Liszt’s Les Préludes, Victor Herbert’s American Fantasy, Bizet’s Carmen Suite, excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and Liadov’s Enchanted Lake.
The Grays, whose third building on Bolivar was completed in 1893, deserve a bit of historical background. Founded in 1837 as The Cleveland City Guards, the organization dated from the era when the militias referenced in the Second Amendment to the Constitution were foundering due to neglect from state politicians.
The private military company’s purpose was both to assist local law enforcement and to defend the city should Canada’s Rebellions of 1837 cross the border and instigate a new war with the United Kingdom. After serving in the Civil and Spanish American wars, and with the reorganization of the U.S. Military, the Grays were subsumed into the Ohio National Guard, and their participation in military operations ended with World War I.
The Armory, now a museum, subsequently became a center for Cleveland social and cultural events — like early concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra. In the summer of 1970, a Wurlitzer cinema organ from the Warner Theater in Erie, PA was reinstalled in the armory, and concerts have been scheduled from time to time by the Western Reserve Theatre Organ Society. (Watch a brief clip here.)
