by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7, Trobár Medieval presents “I Sing a New Song, The Epic Journey of a Traveling Musician in the Middle Ages,” and at 7:30 Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki leads pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and The Cleveland Orchestra in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony at Severance Music Center.
Meanwhile, at Oberlin, tenor Joshua Blue will be featured with the Oberlin Sinfonietta in a program of music by Olly Wilson, Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Frazier & Wendell Logan led by Tim Weiss (webcast available).
Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
On Thursday evening, Cuyahoga Community College released the lineup for its 45th Tri-C JazzFest, scheduled for June 20-22, 2024. View or download the press release here.
Ursuline College will honor Apollo’s Fire founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell as the 2024 recipient of its Women Who Light the Way Award “for her contributions to the world of music and her inspiration to women everywhere to pursue their dreams.” The event will be held on Thursday, March 15 at the Dodero Center for Performing Arts at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills. Click here for details and tickets (RSVP by March 3).
In an Akron Beacon Journal article, Kerry Clawson writes, “Slowly but surely, the University of Akron is building up its jazz program faculty. The latest active musician to join the teaching roster is jazz guitarist Dan Wilson, who tours regularly and earned a Grammy nomination working with jazz great Joey DeFrancesco. The Bath native and Revere High School graduate was recruited by friends and fellow musicians Chris Coles and Theron Brown, full-time professors who’ve been revamping UA’s jazz program since fall 2022.” Read the story here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Gioachino Rossini was born on February 29 in 1792, making him eligible for that elite club whose members will technically always be only one-quarter their age. (This is a good time to watch Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, where this calendar curiosity is an essential element in the plot. Here’s a video of the full show from Massachusetts’ Valley Light Opera.)
Rossini wrote his first opera at the age of 18, and a total of 34 stage works before either burning out or ceding the field to Meyerbeer. After finishing Guillaume Tell in 1829, he laid his pen down for the next 40 years, having amassed enough of a fortune to sustain a life of luxury in which he inspired the invention of such truffle and foie-gras-rich culinary excesses as Crema alla Rossini, Frittata alla Rossini, and Tournedos Rossini.
His final composition, the Petite messe solenelle, for chorus, soloists, two pianos and harmonium (which has been described as ‘neither small nor solemn’), was completed in 1863, whereupon the composer drafted a note to the Deity:
Dear God, here it is finished, this poor little Mass. Is it sacred music I have written, or damned music? I was born for opera buffa, as you know well. A little technique, a little heart, that’s all. Be blessed then, and grant me Paradise.
Click here to watch a live performance of the Mass from December, 2015 by the Accademia Corale Vittore Veneziani at the Teatro Comunale Claudio Abbado in Ferrara.
