by Mike Telin
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30 pm Apollo’s Fire will present Violin Fantasy — Tracing the Path from Biber to Bach. Co-director and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell, and co-director and violinist Alan Choo, will lead works by Buxtehude, Biber, Pachelbel, Weiss, Reinken, J.S. Bach, Pergolesi, and transcriptions of their music. Rebecca Myers, soprano and Elisa Sutherland, mezzo-soprano are featured soloists. First Methodist Church, 263 E. Mill St., Akron. Tickets are available online. The program will be repeated around Northeast Ohio through Sunday. Check out Concert Listings page for locations and times.
Also at 7:30 pm, Thierry Fischer conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Messiaen’s Les Offerandes Oubliées, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with Tom Borrow (pictured) as soloist, and Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Mandel Hall at Severance, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Tickets are available online. Click here for COVID-19 protocols. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 3:00.
At 8:00 pm Oberlin Opera will present Handel’s Acis & Galatea at Hall Auditorium. Jonathon Field directs and Matilda Hofman conducts the Oberlin Orchestra. “Handel’s stirring adaptation of the ancient Roman myth explores the ways in which we are transformed by loss—and how we cling to hope amid the pain.” Runtime: 2 hours, including one intermission. Tickets are available online. Click here to read a preview article. Performances continue through Sunday.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, an armistice brought World War I to an end. In yesterday’s Washington Post, Michael E. Ruane wrote: “The catastrophe of the Great War, as it was then called, had claimed 116,000 Americans, through combat, disease and other causes, and killed millions more people around the world.” Read the full article here.
Armistice Day was first held at Buckingham Palace one year later. Since then many countries have renamed November 11 Remembrance Day, while the United States chose the name Veterans Day in 1954, following World War II and the Korean War. Today, this federal holiday honors those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces in war or peace, whether they’re living or deceased, provided they have not been dishonorably discharged.
Perhaps no place honors those who answered that call to serve more appropriately than Arlington National Cemetery. And no location within the Cemetery honors those who lost their lives more poignantly than the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Today marks the centennial of the first soldier to be laid to rest in the Tomb of the Unknown, and in honor of the occasion, D.C.-based opera company UrbanArias commissioned a song cycle from composer Shawn Okpebholo and poet Marcus Amaker. The film version of their new cycle, UNKNOWN, is now available online.
Another newly-created work honoring veterans that is being screened nationwide this weekend is Modern Warrior LIVE. The immersive narrative and musical experience chronicles one man’s journey — U.S. Army Veteran and Warren, Ohio native Jaymes Poling, who shares the story of his three deployments in Afghanistan and subsequent transition back home. The film, with its dramatic musical underscore, honors those who have served and highlights resilience and post-traumatic growth.
The artistic team includes trumpeter Dominick Farinacci, broadcast journalist and Vietnam War Veteran Leon Douglas Bibb, theatrical creator and storyteller Emmett Murphy, vibraphonist, pianist, composer and arranger Christian Tamburr, lighting designer Garrett Caine, vocalist Shenel Johns, pianist and pastor Dr. Lafayette Carthon Jr., poet and spoken-word artist Orlando Watson, vocalist and composer Will Blaze, percussionists Jamey Haddad and Salar Nadar, drummer Gabe Jones, and bassist Walter Barnes Jr.
On-demand screening is available today through November 14. Click here for ticket information.
