by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Ohio Light Opera presents the opening performance of Rodgers and Hart’s The Boys from Syracuse (2pm in Freedlander Theatre, College of Wooster), M.U.S.i.C. – Stars in the Classics presents Chris Neiner’s Tales of Euclid Beach Park (pictured) with instrumental ensemble & dancers (6:30 at Cleveland History Center), and Akron Symphonic Winds wish Happy Birthday to America! with works by John Williams, John Phillip Sousa, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein (6:30 at The Maltz Museum in Beachwood),
Also this evening, ChamberFest Cleveland presents ten artists in Flights of Fancy — Joseph Haydn’s Piano Trio in E-flat, Hob. XV:36, Michelle Barzel Ross’ Birds on the Moon for, and Reynaldo Hahn’s Piano Quintet in f-sharp (7:30 in Mixon Hall, CIM), The Lute Society of America’s Cleveland Lute Fest hosts The Queen’s Noyse, a faculty lute quartet and broken consort featuring Lucas Harris, Jason Priset, Laudon Schuett, and Mark Rimple (7:30 in Harkness Chapel at Case), and Tri-C JazzFest gets underway with Sheila E. (7:30 at the Key Bank State Theatre in Playhouse Square).
For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical concert listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1767, the super-prolific German composer George Philipp Telemann died in Hamburg, where he had earlier used his pending appointment to cantorships in Leipzig to negotiate a raise from the Hamburg authorities (J.S. Bach, Leipzig’s third choice after No. 2 had turned them down, remained a friend).
Click here to watch a performance of Telemann’s funeral cantata, Du aber, Daniel, gehe hin by the Oberlin Conservatory HIP Baroque Ensemble on Early Music America’s Young Performers Festival in June, 2011 at First Lutheran Church in Boston. Coached by Webb Wiggins and Kathryn Montoya, the group included students who have gone on to distinguished careers in historical performance.
For a funereal work on a lighter subject, watch bass Jeffrey Strauss sing (and act out, with props) Telemann’s Funeral Cantata for an Artistically Trained Canary-Bird Whose Demise Brought the Greatest Sorrow to its Master.
On June 25,1940, African American composer William Grant Still’s choral ballad And They Lynched Him on a Tree was first presented in New York’s Lewisohn Stadium. Cleveland Orchestra music director Artur Rodzinski conducted the New York Philharmonic with the Schola Cantorum and Wen Talbert Choir. Philip Brunelle later recorded the work with William Warfield, the Hilda Harris Choir, VocalEssence, and the Leigh Morris Chorale. Listen to the 2010 recording here.
And on this date in 1983, Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera died in Geneva. Yolanda Kondonassis performed his Harp Concerto with Raphael Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra in October, 2016. Watch that performance from Finney Chapel here. The performance was later released on Oberlin Music as part of the CD Ginastera: One Hundred.
Cleveland Orchestra Principal Cello Mark Kosower has been a strong advocate of Ginastera’s music. In advance of his performance of the Second Cello Concerto in October, 2018, the Orchestra released two short promotional videos. In the first, Kosower discusses the work and plays excerpts. The second is a short clip of a rehearsal led by guest conductor Gustavo Gimeno.
Kosower recorded the complete concerto with his former orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, led by Lothar Zagrosek. Listen here.
