by Stephanie Manning
HAPPENING TODAY:
The Ohio Light Opera opens their sixth and final show of the season, The Arcadians, at 2:00 p.m. this afternoon at Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster. It will run three more times before the end of the month. Tickets available online.
July’s edition of The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Third Thursdays at Transformer Station begins at 7:00 p.m. Ideastream Public Media’s Bill O’Connell will host the Cleveland-based ensemble Opus 216 (pictured). This free event is already sold out.
Gearing up for the start of their 50th anniversary competition, the Cleveland International Piano Competition hosts a recital from their most recent (2021) Mixon First Prize Winner, Martín García García. The 7:00 p.m. event at Heights Theater is free, but reservations are required. Learn more about what’s in store with the CIPC this year in our recent feature here.
And if you feel like getting out into nature — the Canton Symphony’s Summer Serenades series hosts a woodwind quintet in Hartville’s Quail Hollow Park (6:30 p.m., free), while Apollo’s Fire presents the nature-themed “Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Rediscovered” in Kirtland’s Holden Arboretum (7:30 p.m., tickets available online.)
For details of upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Jarrett Hoffman
German conductor Kurt Masur was born on July 18, 1927, and American composer Nkeiru Okoye followed suit on this date in 1972.
Among his posts, Kurt Masur was Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and music director of the New York Philharmonic, leading politically significant concerts with both ensembles: in Leipzig, a performance of Beethoven 9 to celebrate German reunification, and in New York, a performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem following the September 11th terrorist attacks. (Click here to listen to a recording of the Brahms by Masur and the Philharmonic). He is also known for the role he played in helping to keep the peace amidst protests in East Germany in 1989.
Masur was considered an “old-style” conductor. According to former Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, Masur’s “demanding and intense” style brought about an important change within the orchestra. “…just by his sheer intensity of his personality, I think it sort of transformed most of us,” the violinist said.
A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, Nkeiru Okoye is known for exploring American history in her compositions, including in her 2014 opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom, with both music and libretto by Okoye. Click here to watch the premiere, which took place in 2014 at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn, NY.
The Guggenheim award will go towards the creation of a new opera, A Truth Before Their Eyes, again with music and libretto to be written by Okoye. As Erich Burnett writes, the opera “chronicles the experiences of two Black women who struggle to be heard in their small community, where Black Lives Matter garners headlines while everyday incidences of racial bias continue with alarming frequency.” Read more about the work in Burnett’s article here.
