by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: Hathaway-Brown choirs visit Trinity Cathedral, and Cleveland Orchestra musicians join with the Fatima Family Center Adult Gospel Choir and soprano Laquita Mitchell in a concert curated by Allison Loggins-Hull (left)
•Announcements: an event on marketing from Assembly for the Arts, and honors for students and recent grads at CIM, Dana, and Oberlin
•Almanac: the Hammond B-3 story and its jazz stars
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 12:00 pm, a Brownbag Concert at Trinity Cathedral will feature the choirs of Hathaway-Brown School, directed by Laura Webster. A freewill offering will be taken up.
And at 7 pm at Cleveland’s Fatima Family Center, members of The Cleveland Orchestra will join with soprano Laquita Mitchell and the Fatima Family Center Adult Gospel Choir for a free concert curated by Allison Loggins-Hull, the Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow. Titled “Faith,” the program includes Damien Sneed’s Elegy, Jason Moran’s Cane, and Loggins-Hull’s Shine, as well as works for the Fatima Choir. It’s free.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Assembly for the Arts will host a free event titled “Your Business Amplified: Marketing to Create Maximum Impact” on Thursday, April 25 from 5-7 pm at PNC Fairfax Connection in Cleveland. Register here.
Two CIM violists, both students of Jeffrey Irvine, won prizes at Division III of the Ohio Viola Society Competition, held earlier this month at Oberlin: Lourdes Pinney (1st place) and Arielle Fentress (2nd place).
Three members of the tuba-euphonium studio at the Dana School of Music have advanced in competitions, and will move on to the 2024 Mid West Regional Tuba Euphonium Conference next month at Bowling Green State University. The students are Xiaoyu Xing (Artist Solo Euphonium Competition), Jake Sizer (Euphonium Band Excerpts Competition), and Ryan Lamb (Young Artist Solo Competition and Orchestral Excerpts Competition).
And violinist Sarah Ma, who graduated from Oberlin in December, was featured last week on American Public Media’s “Performance Today with Fred Child” as one of five musicians selected for their 2024 Young Artist in Residence Series. Click here to listen to the conversation and Ma’s recital program.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Daniel Hathaway
Chicago inventor Laurens Hammond filed a patent on April 24, 1934 for a new electric organ, an event that produced consequences he couldn’t have imagined at the time. The Hammond Organ was meant to provide a less expensive option than the pipe organ for churches, but especially in its eventual configuration as Hammond’s Model B-3 (introduced in 1954 and outfitted with rotating Leslie speakers and harmonic percussion effects), was enthusiastically embraced by jazz and gospel musicians.
Ethel Smith was an early adopter — she advertised herself as “The Queen of the Hammond Organ” and became famous for her arrangements of tunes like Tico Tico (featured in the 1944 film Bathing Beauty).
Other artists who have now departed added to the B-3 legacy — like Booker T. Jones, Eddie Baccus Sr., and Joey DeFranceco (pictured).
The newest B-3 artist to appear on the Cleveland scene was still in his teens when he performed at Tri-C JazzFest in 2019. Listen to the phenomenal Matthew Whitaker performing with his combo at a jazz festival in Bremen, Germany.