by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
One live and one virtual event to highlight today.
German organist Mirjam Laetitia Haag will give a recital at St. Paul’s in Cleveland Heights tonight at 7. The program includes pieces by Muffat, J.S. Bach, Liszt, Dupré, Reger, Mendelssohn, Hermann Schröder, Ian Farrington and Franck, as well as original improvisations. A freewill offering will be received.
Several musicians familiar to Northeast Ohio audiences will be featured on a live feed from the Seattle Chamber Music Festival tonight at 10 pm. James Ehnes and Stephen Rose are in the ensemble that will perform Florence Price’s String Quartet in G, and pianists Andrew Armstrong and Orion Weiss will share the keyboard for Schubert’s Fantasie in f. Purchase $25 tickets and access the feed here, either at concert time or on demand.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Cleveland Arts Prize announced its 2021 awardees yesterday in a press release. The list includes the collective Mourning [A] BLKstar, Happy Dog proprietor Sean Watterson, and two Cleveland Orchestra figures: Clara Rankin, and Franz Welser-Möst. The 61st annual award ceremony will be held on October 13 at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
This is a good time to mention that Welser-Möst’s recently published book, From Silence, is now available in an English edition from the Cleveland Orchestra store.
Cleveland Pops Orchestra will play an outdoor family concert on Sunday, August 15 at 2 pm on the grounds of the Mandel JCC. Vocalists Connor Bogart and Lauren Berry will join conductor Carl Topilow in Disney favorites and music by ABBA, Queen, and Elvis. Blankets, lawn chairs and picnic lunches are welcome, and kosher drinks and snacks will be on sale. Click here for free tickets and details.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1880, African American concert violinist, composer and educator Clarence Cameron White (pictured above) was born in Clarksville, Tennessee. He attended the Oberlin Conservatory, from which his mother had graduated, from 1896 to 1901, then studied composition with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in England, and violin in Paris. He succeeded R. Nathaniel Dett as head of the music department of the Hampton Institute from 1932-1935. White’s compositions include a ballet (A Night in Sans Souci) and an opera (Ouanga), two works based on Haitian themes for which he collaborated with playwright John Matheus.
Click here to watch a recent performance of White’s Suite Spirituale for Clarinet Quartet (at Clarinettissimo 2020), and here to watch an online video of his Levee Dance, Op. 27, No. 4 (performed by violinist Augustin Hadelich, and pianist Joyce Yang).
And on this date in 1909, Leo Fender, one of the pioneers of the electric guitar, was born in Anaheim, California. While this new, 20th century invention became synonymous with rock virtuosi like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, it also gained something of a foothold in classical music. Click here to read Christopher Fox’s article, “How The World Plugged into the Electric Guitar” in The Guardian, and here to read Anastasia Tsioulcas’ NPR article, “Electric Guitars Amp Up New Classical Music.”
Click here to listen to Bang on a Can All-Star Mark Stewart play Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, written in 1987 for Pat Metheny. And click here to hear the electric guitar introduction to s aria “Here Where Footprints Erase The Grave” from Missy Mazzoli’s 2012 chamber opera Song from the Uproar.
