by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
If you planned ahead and booked your seats early, you could be enjoying a concert by Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma tonight at Severance Music Center. It’s sold out, but you can read about the performance in a review by our correspondent Peter Feher in Friday’s Plain Dealer (and on cleveland.com).
February 1 marks the beginning of Black History Month. Check our Concert Listings for special events.
And scroll down to today’s Almanac to celebrate the premieres of works by Puccini and George Walker (pictured) and the birthday of a renowned Black poet on this date in history.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Ideastream Public Media has announced the launch of JazzNEO, “the first and only full-time jazz channel serving Northeast Ohio, “ featuring hosts Dee Perry, Dan Polletta and John Simna. Scheduled to debut on February 26, JazzNEO will broadcast on 90.3 HD2 and livestream on JazzNEO.org.
“In honor of the launch, Ideastream will also host a Sound of Ideas Community Tour on February 26 at The Bop Stop (2920 Detroit Ave.). The Sound of Ideas Community Tour host Mike McIntyre will be joined by JazzNEO host Dan Polletta, along with special guests, to celebrate the new service and discuss what it means to have jazz radio back in Northeast Ohio.”
Click here to read a news release.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Jarrett Hoffman
This date in history was an important one for Giacomo Puccini. The first of February brought the premieres of Manon Lescaut in 1893 and La bohème in 1896, the latter led by a young Arturo Toscanini, with both premieres taking place at the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Bohéme is one of the most frequently performed operas, but it’s interesting to note that at its premiere, critics were divided, and the audience was said to lack enthusiasm. Imagine if that had been the end of it.
Another fun fact about La bohème: Toscanini conducted it again 50 years after the premiere, this time with the NBC Symphony, and the recording made from that occasion is the only one of a Puccini opera led by its original conductor. Listen to the aria “Che gelida manina” from that broadcast, featuring tenor Jan Peerce, cued up here.
Moving forward another 50 years, George Walker’s Lilacs first saw the light of day on February 1, 1996, when it was performed by soprano Faye Robinson and the Boston Symphony, led by Seiji Ozawa. The piece, which sets a text by Walt Whitman written in 1865 after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, earned Walker a Pulitzer Prize.
Speaking of recordings featuring performers from the premiere, Faye Robinson joins Timothy Russell and the Arizona State Symphony Orchestra in Lilacs here.
More recently, soprano Latonia Moore took up the solo role in Lilacs two years ago next month at Severance, joining Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra.
And speaking of poets whose music has been set by Walker, this date in 1901 brought the birth of Langston Hughes, that important figure of the Harlem Renaissance for whom poetry was only one talent — he was also a playwright, novelist, and activist.
Taking a moment to recognize connections to Northeast Ohio, Walker walked the grounds of Oberlin Conservatory after enrolling at age fourteen. And Hughes studied at the first public high school in Cleveland, Central High, during which time he was also active in the Playhouse Settlement, the organization that later became Karamu House.
Many composers have been inspired by Hughes’ writings, perhaps none more so than Margaret Bonds, whose artistic collaboration with the poet was long and fruitful. In the case of Walker, we have his setting of Hughes’ In Time of Silver Rain, and a recording as close to the source as you can get: soprano Alison Buchanan is joined by Walker himself at the piano here, part of the album George Walker: Great American Concert Music.
