by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the executive order that created the Works Progress Administration or WPA, which along with other federal programs, gave temporary assistance in the form of jobs to out-of-work Americans during the Great Depression.
Later that year, Nikolai Sokoloff (pictured), who along with Adella Prentiss Hugues had founded The Cleveland Orchestra and conducted the ensemble from 1918-1932, was put in charge of the Federal Music Project, which supported unemployed musicians, composers, opera projects, and orchestras in Cleveland and elsewhere. Sokoloff was soon criticized for favoring Eurocentric classical music — the focus of the project widened in 1936 when Charles Seeger was appointed assistant director.
Read a WQXR story that suggests five WPA-commissioned works that listeners should be aware of. One of them is Aaron Copland’s atmospheric Quiet City, a piece written for the short-lived play of the same name by Irwin Shaw that has become an icon of the Depression Era.
The original theater version of the work for trumpet, saxophone, clarinets and piano has recently been unearthed and recorded by composer and saxophonist Christopher Brellochs. Listen here. Or click here for Copland’s later orchestral version performed by the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. A third choice is an arrangement featuring trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Eastman Wind Ensemble.
HAPPENING TODAY:
12:00 pm – Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concerts. Ro Alia & Jade Rojas, sopranos, with Aidan Purtell, piano. Click here to view the program. Church of the Covenant, 11205 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering.
NEWS HEADLINES:
National Endowment for the Arts Withdraws Major Grants
Trump cuts federal funding to National Public Radio
