by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Today at 12 Noon, organist Andrew Johnson plays works by Hugo Distler, Dietrich Buxtehude, Vincent Persichetti, Louis Vierne, and Horatio Parker at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.
And tonight at 7:30 pm, Daniel Sáñez, principal organist for the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia, plays a recital on the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.
NEWS BRIEFS:
R.I.P. Bernard Rands, 92
The Chicago-based, British American composer left a catalog of 100 works. His wife, Augusta Read Thomas, a prolific composer herself, survives him. Read the Violin Channel obituary here.
Hoopes to join CIM faculty
Violinist Chad Hoopes, an alum of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program, will join the faculty of his alma mater as an associate professor of violin. Beginning in Fall 2026, he will take on a limited number of students as he maintains his studio at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Read more here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Jarrett Hoffman
Pablo de Sarasate, who was born on March 10, 1844, is known for his virtuosic and pure-toned violin playing, as well as the pieces he wrote to show it off. Most famous among those is his Zigeunerweisen. Listen to that piece in two versions: first, as written for violin and orchestra, from Itzhak Perlman and the Lawrence Foster-led Abbey Road Ensemble. And second, more unconventionally, from double bassist Edgar Meyer with mandolinist Mike Marshall on the 1997 album Uncommon Ritual.
Composer Arthur Honegger was born in France — to Swiss parents — on this date in 1892, and lived most of his life in Paris. A member of Les Six, he is known for merging the French avant-garde style of the first half of the 20th century with elements of German Romanticism — more so than his fellow members of that group, who turned away from that tradition. One listening recommendation: his Symphony No. 3, a commentary on the horrors of World War II, and an inventive combination of tonality and harsh, expressive language. Listen here to a famous recording by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
And pour one out for Carl Reinecke, the German composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher who died on this date in 1910 at age 85. Some of the highlights of his resume include long tenures conducting Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, teaching piano and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory, and eventually serving as director of that institution. His list of students is impressive, including Edvard Grieg, Charles Stanford, Leoš Janáček, Isaac Albéniz, and Max Bruch. Listen to his famous Sonata Undine for flute, heard here in a performance by Sir James Galway and pianist Phillip Moll.
