by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7 pm the CSU Keyboard Extravaganza Concert features more than 30 works played by keyboard students in Drinko Hall, Cleveland State University, 2001 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Free.
And at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall (pictured), CIM Insiders presents pianist Carolyn Gadiel Warner, violinists Olga Dubossarskaya Kaler & Philip Setzer, cellist Si-Yan Darren Li, and saxophonist Steven Banks in music by Poulenc, Setzer, Glinka, and Ravel.
Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On February 25 in 1890, English pianist Dame Myra Hess was born in South Hampstead, London. She made her professional debut in 1907 playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham. Hess toured extensively throughout Britain, the Netherlands, and France and made her U.S. debut in New York City in 1922.
The pianist may be most remembered for her performances during The Blitz of World War II. During that time Hess organized nearly 2,000 lunchtime concerts in Trafalgar Square’s National Gallery. The concerts were held every Monday and Friday for six-and-a-half years. And every performer was paid five guineas for their services. In 1941 King George VI made Hess a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
In addition to an active performing career, Hess was a dedicated teacher. One of her students was Clive Lythgoe, the long-time Dean of Faculty at Cleveland’s Music School Settlement.
Hess’s legacy lives on in Chicago with the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. The free lunchtime series on Wednesdays at 12:15 is produced by Classical Music Chicago at Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, and concerts are live streamed on WFMT.
Click here to listen to an interview with Hess, and here for a performance of Chopin’s Waltz No. 1 in E flat Op. 18.
