HAPPENING TODAY:
2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera presents Damn Yankees in Freedlander Theatre at The College ofWooster.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Composer and conductor Gustav Mahler was born on this date in Kalischt, Bohemia. Instead of remembering him with one of his enormous works, why not watch cellist Oliver Herbert and pianist Teddy Abrams play Abrams’ lovely arrangement of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 at WQXR New York’s Greene Space on June 3, 2019.
Conductor, composer, and double bass virtuoso Giovanni Bottesini left the world on this date in 1889. He took up the instrument that made him famous in order to win a scholarship to the Milan Conservatory, later endearing himself to opera patrons by playing fantasies on opera tunes from the stage at intermission of shows he conducted. Enjoy a rare performance of his Gran Duetto No. 1 played by Cleveland Orchestra principal Max Dimoff and his student Russell Thompson in 2013 at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Opera composer Gian-Carlo Menotti was born on July 7, 1911 in Cadegliano, Italy. His 25 theater pieces (including The Telephone, The Medium, The Consul, and Amahl and the Night Visitors) are well-known, but not so often performed is his delightful “Madrigal fable,” The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore for chorus, dancers and chamber ensemble. In the era when network television was interested in cultural programming, the piece was telecast in November of 1957. A more recent performance in 2019, featuring Boston’s Metropolitan Chorale and the Callithumpian Consort, led by Music Director Lisa Graham, was accompanied by masked performers, puppet unicorns, a giant gorgon and other medieval beasts brought to life by Brookline’s Puppet Showplace Theater.
And on this date in 1968, American composer and organist Leo Sowerby died in Port Clinton, Ohio while teaching at a summer choir camp. The Grand Rapids, Michigan native made his career in Chicago, where his works appeared on programs of the Chicago Symphony every season from 1917 through 1945, save two. As organist and choirmaster of Chicago’s St. James Cathedral for 35 years, and as founding director of the College of Church Musicians at Washington Cathedral from 1962-1968, he produced a large body of organ and liturgical music.
Watch a St. James Cathedral video narrated by Stephen Buzard celebrating the 150th anniversary of Sowerby’s birth in May of 2020, and check out a performance of his organ work, Pageant, by the fleet-footed Ken Cowan at St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego.
