by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Today is Giving Tuesday, “a day when charities ask us to take a break from our holiday shopping and open our wallets to worthy causes.” Take 17 minutes to listen to an NPR story, How to donate to a charity with purpose and intention.
At noon, Melissa Brassard plays Franck, Bonnal, and Messiaen on The Church of the Covenant’s Tuesday Organ Plus series, and at 7:30 this evening, the Oberlin Percussion Group will bring a variety of 21st century works (and one from 1939) to life in Stull Recital Hall.
Spooked by the weather forecast? Both events will be live streamed, so no need to leave your couch!
For details of this and other events, visit our Concert Listings.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Dean Bernard J Owens has announced that Shiloh Roby (pictured) will become Trinity Cathedral’s next Director of Music in March, following the retirement of Todd Wilson at the end of December. (Wilson will continue to teach at the Cleveland Institute of Music.) Roby currently serves as associate director of music at Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati. Read the message from Dean Owens here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On November 28, 1632, Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was born in Firenze (Florence), beginning a distinguished career that ended in tragedy when he wounded himself in the foot with the 6-foot staff he pounded on the floor to keep time for the orchestra while rehearsing his Te Deum.
A dancer who refused to amputate his foot to save his life, he developed gangrene, and died on March 22, 1687. More subtle means of keeping performances together — already used in Lully’s time — have made conducting less physically hazardous, as Jordi Savall demonstrates with Le Concert des Nations in Utrecht in 2010.
François Couperin paid homage to Lully in his witty instrumental suite, L’Apothéose de Lully, performed here by the French ensemble Les Ombres. The sixteen movements (practice your French) are time-cued.
And on November 28, 1972 British composer Havergal Brian, passed away at the age of 96 in Shoreham-by-Sea, leaving a legacy of 32 symphonies, some of extravagant length and demanding huge performing forces. The Havergal Brian Society maintains an elaborate website devoted to his life and works.
Click here to listen to his best-known piece, the Symphony No. 1 in d, “Gothic,” recorded by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra & Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir (with others) conducted by Ondrej Lénard. It lasts nearly two hours — good for a snow day.
