by Daniel Hathaway
“PLAY FOR THE VOTE” — BACH WITH YOUR BALLOTS:
From The Violin Channel: “Founded by Silkroad cellist and composer, Mike Block, the ‘Play For The Vote’ initiative is organizing musical performances at polling locations across the United States.
“As a Producer of ‘Play For The Vote,’ the Silkroad organization is activating its nationwide network of performers and encouraging them to perform for those waiting in polling lines.”
As part of the initiative, Classical Revolution Cleveland has been popping up at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and plans to show up at random polling locations today to support the democratic process with music. On their Facebook page, CRC writes, “So many smiles, lots of folk saying thanks, and affirmation that music makes a difference.” Keep an ear out if you’re voting in person today.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Israeli-born violinist Yehonatan Berick died of cancer on October 31 at the age of 52. Based at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, he was a frequent performer at ChamberFest Cleveland. Click here to read remembrances by Canadian musicians in a CBC article, including remarks by Diana Cohen, ChamberFest co-founder and concertmaster of the Calgary Symphony.
A change in plans at Severance Hall brings Nicholas McGegan back to lead The Cleveland Orchestra on December 3. In Episode 4 of the pre-recorded In Focus series, McGegan will lead the orchestra in Handel’s Overture and Pifa Pastorale from Messiah, Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, and Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No. 7.
INTERESTING READS:
Washington Post critic Michael Andor Brodeur muses on his experience attending a concert by the 21st Century Consort — one of seven in the audience — and then viewing a video of the performance (which included a work by Cleveland composer Jeffrey Mumford). “Re-watching the concert feels more like lighting up the darker corners of my own recollection of the experience than returning to my seat in the church to experience it anew. And although that might seem too obvious an observation — or too abstract a distinction — for established orchestras and smaller ensembles alike, this problem of presence brought on by the pandemic amounts to a creative crisis. Read As the novelty of Zoom wears off, classical music reluctantly embraces its new virtual reality here.
And England’s Slipped Disc editor Norman Lebrecht takes some symphony orchestra music directors to task for disappearing during the pandemic (but not Cleveland Orchestra’s Franz Welser-Möst). Read “No Direction from Directors” in The Critic here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
German organist and composer Samuel Scheidt was baptized on this date in 1587 in Halle, where he spent his whole career after studying in Amsterdam with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Click here to hear Hespèrion XX play his Ludi Musici under Jordi Savall, and here to watch a performance by Paolo Crivellaro of Scheidt’s Cantio Sacra: Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz on the organ of the Jakobikirche in Lübeck.
Italian bel canto opera composer Vincenzo Bellini was born on November 3, 1801, in Catania, Sicily. There’s a film about the composer’s brief life (he died at 33) that takes its name from one of Bellini’s most famous arias — from Norma. Click here to watch Carmine Gallone’s romanticized 1954 film Casta Diva, unfortunately only available in Italian. For the aria itself, obvious choices are performances by Maria Callas and Leontyne Price, but for visual as well as aural splendor, you probably can’t beat Renée Fleming’s performance in the Palaces of the Czars in Saint Petersburg.
And on this date in 1939, the body of French organist and composer Charles Tournemire was discovered in a bog in Arachon — he went out for a walk and never returned. A student of César Franck, Tournemire succeeded his mentor at the organ of the Basilica of St-Clotilde in Paris, and in addition to a eight symphonies, four operas, piano works and chamber music, wrote L’Orgue Mystique, a set of 51 suites for each Sunday of the Ecclesiastical year.
Oberlin alumnus Nicholas Capozzoli recorded the suite for the feast of the Epiphany live at Brick Presbyterian Church in New York in January, 2013, and the famous Belgian organist Flor Peeters appears in a unique video made at Sint Rombouts Cathedral in Mechelen performing the suite for the Octave of the Ascension — which the composer dedicated to him.
