by Daniel Hathaway
NEW SERIES OF ARTICLES DEBUTS TODAY:
A series of articles by Lilyanna D’Amato, our summer intern, begins today. “‘The Legacy of Black Classical Music’ hopes to remind us of those musicians and composers whose voices went largely unheard, whose careers were left obscured by the pernicious disease that is systemic racism. In this weekly series, we will explore the lives and contributions of Shirley Graham Du Bois, Florence Price, Josephine Baker, William Grant Still, and Joseph Boulogne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges) — rich and valuable lives largely omitted from Western music history.” Read the first article here.
IN THE NEWS TODAY:
PianoCleveland announced this morning the names of the 30 contestants who will play in its online Virtu(al)oso competition from July 30 through August 8. Watch a slideshow here.
The organization is also launching “Virtual PianoKids,” designed to take children ages 3-8 on a world tour “to learn about music from different cultures, and some of the important building blocks of music.” Read more here.
Quire Cleveland has announced that it has suspended concerts through the end of 2020. Artistic Director Jay White talks about the decision here, and gifts Quire’s fans with a video of a Leonel Power motet from the program “England’s Rose.”
Adding to the global discussion about returning safely to live performances, “Kazushi Ono recently led scientific tests with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in the Bunka Kaikan Hall to determine a safe and musically viable distance between players. He shares the research here.
ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES TODAY:
Kent Blossom Music Festival begins its Wednesday evening series of archived concerts with a performance by The Miami String Quartet and pianist Spencer Myer, and Ohio Light Opera presents members of its 2020 company in selections from Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers. At noon, WCLV 104.9 Ideastream’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra includes a Haydn symphony, a Brahms overture, and a chorus from Brahms’ German Requiem, and tonight, the MET Opera reaches into its archives for a rare 2013 production of Shostakovich’s The Nose.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Today marks the anniversaries of two births (German composer Hans Werner Henze in 1926 and American conductor Philip Brunelle in 1943), two deaths (German composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach in 1784 and French composer Erik Satie in 1925) and one founding (the Music Division of the Library of Congress in 1897).
Henze, gay and an avowed Marxist, was influenced by the theater, serialism, Italian and Arabic music, and jazz. The 1968 Hamburg premiere of Das Floß der Medusa, a requiem for Che Guavara, sparked a riot and the arrest of his librettist. Listen to his “oratorio volgare e militare” in a 2017 performance here.
Brunelle, probably best known for his choral work with Vocal Essense on A Prairie Home Companion, gave a series of chats about composers from the piano in the Guild Hall of Minneapolis’ Plymouth Church. In episode No. 70, he discusses African American composer Hall Johnson, who wrote “choral music that sounds like a symphony orchestra.” Watch here.
And in an episode of “The Washington Connection,” Michigan congresswoman Candace Miller introduces her constituents to the music division of the Library of Congress in a conversation with division head Susan Vita
