By Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
The Gesualdo Six, founded at Cambridge University in 2014 for a performance of Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories in Trinity College Chapel, sings a 7 pm concert at Malone University in Canton, joined by the Malone University Chorale.
At 7:30 pm, the University Of Akron presents its annual Collage concert, showcasing students and faculty from its music, art, and dance departments in E.J. Thomas Hall.
And at 8 pm, Oberlin Opera Theater opens a four-performance run of Benjamin Britten’s comic opera, Albert Herring, in Hall Auditorium (pictured: Oberlin’s 2014 production with Daniel McGrew as Albert). Read a preview here.
For details of these and other events, visit our Concert Listings.
INTERESTING READS:
Louis Armstrong Gets the Last Word on Louis Armstrong
“You can name a thousand great instrumentalists or you can name a thousand great vocalists, but he’s the only person you could find who changed the way people played their instruments and the way people sang. Louis does that in a four-year period in the 1920s; by 1930, if you aren’t playing or singing like him, you’re out of work.
“If you had to pick one person to write the history of 20th-century American culture, it would have to be Louis Armstrong.”
Read Ethan Iverson’s article in The Nation.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Some random milestones to recall on November 2 in classical music history,
On this date in 1887, Swedish coloratura soprano Jenny Lind died in England at the age of 67. Having made her mark in opera, she retired at the age of 29 in 1849, but the next year undertook a 93-concert tour of the U.S. under the management of P.T. Barnum. She raised today’s equivalent of nearly $11 million, endowing free schools in her native country and contributing to charities. Lind settled in England in 1852, raised three children, and taught at the Royal College of Music.
Jumping into the mid-20th century, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Piano Concerto had its debut on November 2, 1945 by Rudolf Firkusny and the Boston Symphony with Richard Burgin on the podium. An instrumental work by Menotti, who was known principally as an opera composer? Give it a try in this performance by Earl Wild and the Symphony of the Air under the baton of Jorge Mester.
On this date in 1979, Peter Shaffer’s musical Amadeus, opened in London. Read our review of last summer’s live performance of the music from the film by The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus at Blossom.
And on November 2, 1960, Greek American conductor Dimitri Metropoulos died of a heart attack in Milan while rehearsing Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Orchestra of La Scala. Here’s some footage of Metropoulos rehearsing part of Liszt’s tone poem, Faust, with the New York Philharmonic.
