by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30, CityMusic Cleveland begins its portable May Orchestra Series at Fairmount Presbyterian Church with a free concert led by Lorenzo Lopez featuring soprano Chabrelle Williams with the CityMusic Community Choir. Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem is the centerpiece, and the program includes William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama, and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walk-Around.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Apollo’s Fire releases details of ¡HISPANIA!, its 2025 Summer Concerts
Performances include May 27 & 28 send-off concerts for the ensemble’s Puerto Rican tour and Countryside Concerts from June 5-9 with Puerto Rican vocalists Sophia Burgos and David Glazman and Mexican-American flamenco guitarist Jeremías Garcia. Download a press release here.
Carillon bells return from the Netherlands
Friends of the University Circle McGaffin Carillon write that “The McGaffin Carillon Bells have cleared customs (with minimal import tariffs) and are on their way to Cleveland. 
The workers from Royal Eijsbouts, the Dutch firm that will reinstall the carillon, will arrive at the tower on Thursday, 15 May.
“On Friday morning, 16 May, bright and early (7 or so), the 20-ft container with 28 bells, all new clappers, and all the new equipment to refurbish the carillon will be delivered. A crane will be here all day Friday to lift the bells into the tower. Feel free to stop by, take photos, cheer on the crew, and see all the excitement. The complete installation will take about three weeks.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi was born either on May 15 or 14, 1567 in Cremona, later serving the household of the Duke of Mantua and the “most serene republic” of Venice, and launching the early Baroque period with a flurry of inventive works including opera, church music, and madrigals.
Jeannette Sorrell and Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, have programmed much of Monteverdi’s music in various halls in Northeast Ohio as well as across the U.S. and Europe. Here are a few videos from their archives:
We’ll start with a collection of secular works from the 2020 program, “L’AMORE — Love and Rejection in Old Italy,” performed at St. Paul’s in Cleveland Heights. It begins with a piece by Barbara Strozzi, then goes on to selections from L’Incoronazione di Poppea, and the Scherzi musicali. Watch here.
of the composer’s monuments is the Vespers of 1610, written for the Mantuan court, and which has required some reassembly, having been published as individual pieces. One of the motets that editors haven’t quite known what to do with but has to be included because of its powerful declamation, Duo Seraphim was sung by tenors Jacob Perry, Nathan Hodgson and Nathan Dougherty at First Baptist Church in October, 2019. Watch here.
Like all Vespers services, Monteverdi’s setting concludes with the “Magnificat.” His bravura setting covers many of the stylistic bases available to the composer, including wonderful echo effects. (I heard a performance years ago in an 18th century church at the Edinburgh Festival where the conductor had the echo tenor sing his part from the Gents’ just off the balcony — a perfect location.)
Apollo’s Fire (pictured) performed the “Magnificat” in Trinity Cathedral in November of 2014 (video here), and opened their 31st season with a complete performance of the Vespers in the fall.
Finally, here’s an exquisite performance by tenor Karim Sulayman of Monteverdi’s Si dolce è il tormento (How sweet the torment) from an Apollo’s Fire “Blues Café 1610” performance on Valentine’s Day of 2015 at the Music Box Supper Club in Cleveland.
