by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Burning River Brass plays its Holiday Pops program at the Bath Church in Akron tonight at 7 pm.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s live-to-picture screening of Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol is sold out.
For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The annual Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition alternates between pianists and violinists. This year young violinists ages 13-18 will compete in the event, which moves from the summer to January. After the drawing for performance order on January 5, live rounds at the Oberlin Conservatory will begin on Monday, January 6 and conclude with Concerto Finals with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra on Friday, January 10. Each round will be open to the public and will be streamed live.
Click here to view the slate of participants.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
French composer, organist, and harpsichordist Louis Nicholas Clérambault was born on December 19, 1676 in Paris. Oberlin Baroque performed one of his cantatas, Orphée, as part of Early Music America’s 2017 Young Performers Festival at the Boston Early Music Festival. Watch here.
268 years later, American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie was born near Buffalo, NY. After graduating from Harvard in art history and studying with Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale, he moved to France to found Les Arts Florissants, taking French citizenship and becoming one of the principal gurus of French Baroque music of our time. Here’s a performance Christie led of Jean-Philippe Lully’s Te Deum. And click here to watch a 2013 artist interview moderated by John Heilpern interspersed with harpsichord demonstrations.
And on this date in 1958, British cellist Steven Isserlis was born in London, later crossing the pond to study at Oberlin with Richard Kapinsky. His colorful career as a cellist is enhanced by his other interests, which include writing such books for children as Why Beethoven Threw the Stew: And Lots More Stories about the Lives of Great Composers (2002) and Why Handel Waggled His Wig (2006), and other titles including Anthem Guide to the Opera, Concert Halls and Classical Music Venues of Europe (2007), 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die (2008), Robert Schumann’s Advice to Young Musicians Revisited by Steven Isserlis (2016), and The Bach Cello Suites: A Companion (2021).
Click here to watch Isserlis work with Oberlin graduate Aaron Wolff on Thomas Adés’ Lieux retrouvés as part of a cello master class recorded live at Juilliard’s Paul Hall on December 7, 2018.
