by Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. Four interesting events, all FREE!
. 91st BW Bach Festival
. Competition winners and chamber music encounters
. Giacomo Puccini and George Walker have premieres
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 12 Noon, the spring series of BrownBag Concerts at Trinity will feature Dancing Wheels — “Art in motion, celebrating the spirit of dance” (pictured). Trinity Cathedral. Free.
At 6:30, you can join Piano Cleveland Live at Phunkenship. Performers include Gastón Frydman, Yaron Kohlberg, and Rachel Brown,“The Honky Tonk Queen of Cleveland.” Free.
And at 7:30 Carlos Kalmar will lead the CIM Orchestra at Severance Music Center in Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture, Korngold’s Violin Concerto with soloist Minchae Kim, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, and Rossini’s William Tell Overture. The concert is free
Also at 7:30, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project presents the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble featuring Kahil El’Zabar (multi-percussion & composition), Correy Wilkes (trumpet), and Alex Harding (baritone sax). Convivium 33 Gallery. Also free.
See our Concert Listings for details.
BW BACH FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES APRIL DATES:
The 91st Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival will run from April 21-23 on the BW campus in Berea. Highlights include
- Pop-up performances, a Baroque dance workshop, historic displays, master classes, the Festival Brass
- An all-Bach concert featuring two of J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, performed by Boston-based Baroque string band ACRONYM
- BWV: Cleveland’s Bach Choir and ACRONYM in an evening of music spanning centuries.
- Bach’s Mass in b Minor at a new time: Sunday at 2pm.
For more information, click here, and here for 3-event subscription packages (single tickets will go on sale March 1).
Festival artists William Coulter, guitar, and Edwin Huizinga, violin, who perform as Fire & Grace, will join flamenco dancer Fanny Ara in a free guest recital on Saturday, February 18 at 8 pm in BW’s Kulas Music Hall.
The public is welcome to observe three master classes on Sunday, February 19, including a Folk & Baroque Technique Workshop (1 pm in Gamble Auditorium), a Fiddling Workshop (2:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium), and a Guitar Master Class (2:30 pm in Fynes Hall).
IN THE NEWS:
Congratulations to Cleveland Institute of Music violinists Alexandra Switala, who took second prize in the Senior Division at the 2023 Sphinx Competition, and Zachary Brandon who earned honorable mention at the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition.
Heights Arts has announced the return of the popular Close Encounters chamber music series. Click here for more information.
ALMANAC FOR FEBRUARY 1:
By Jarrett Hoffman
This date in history was an important one for Giacomo Puccini (below, left). The first of February brought the premieres of Manon Lescaut in 1893 and La bohème in 1896, the latter led by a young Arturo Toscanini, with both premieres taking place at the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Bohéme is one of the most frequently performed operas, but it’s interesting to note that at its premiere, critics were divided, and the audience was said to lack enthusiasm. Imagine if that had been the end of it.
Another fun fact about La bohème: Toscanini conducted it again 50 years after the premiere, this time with the NBC Symphony, and the recording made from that occasion is the only one of a Puccini opera led by its original conductor. Listen to the aria “Che gelida manina” from that broadcast, featuring tenor Jan Peerce, cued up here.
Moving forward another 50 years, George Walker’s Lilacs first saw the light of day on February 1, 1996, when it was performed by soprano Faye Robinson and the Boston Symphony, led by Seiji Ozawa. The piece, which sets a text by Walt Whitman written in 1865 after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, earned Walker (above, right) a Pulitzer Prize.
Speaking of recordings featuring performers from the premiere, Faye Robinson joins Timothy Russell and the Arizona State Symphony Orchestra in Lilacs here.
Stepping into the future for a moment, soprano Latonia Moore will take up the solo role in Lilacs next month at Severance, March 3-5, joining Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra. Get tickets here.
And speaking of poets whose music has been set by Walker, this date in 1901 brought the birth of Langston Hughes, that important figure of the Harlem Renaissance for whom poetry was only one talent — he was also a playwright, novelist, and activist.
Taking a moment to recognize connections to Northeast Ohio, Walker walked the grounds of Oberlin Conservatory after enrolling at age fourteen. And Hughes studied at the first public high school in Cleveland, Central High, during which time he was also active in the Playhouse Settlement, the organization that later became Karamu House.
Many a composer has been inspired by Hughes’ writings, perhaps none more so than Margaret Bonds, whose artistic collaboration with the poet was long and fruitful. In the case of Walker, we have his setting of Hughes’ In Time of Silver Rain, and a recording as close to the source as you can get: soprano Alison Buchanan is joined by Walker himself at the piano here, part of the album George Walker: Great American Concert Music.
