by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:
Tonight, the second episode in the Kent Blossom Virtual Music Festival revisits Kulas Guest Artist Jennifer Koh’s solo violin recital from June 28, 2017, when she played works by J.S. Bach, Missy Mazzoli, and Luciano Berio.
And WCLV’s Cleveland Ovations rewinds Cleveland Chamber Choir’s program from February and March. “We March On: Music of Social Justice,” led by Scott MacPherson, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Kent State Shootings.
WCLV, 104.9 Ideastream, also serves up Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra, a program of Beethoven, Wagner and Schumann, while the MET Opera Archives unearths a production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte from April, 2014. Details on these programs are in the Concert Listings.
INTERESTING READS AND LISTENING:
In his New York Times article, “Lifting the Cone of Silence From Black Composers,” Columbia University Musicology Professor and composer George E. Lewis invites readers to “Listen to how artists have explored what it means — and could mean — to be American,” with musical examples by William Grant Still, Alvin Singleton, Tania Léon, Nathalie Joachim, Courtney Bryan, Thomas Wiggins, Wadada Leo Smith, Ornette Coleman, and Anthony Davis. Read and listen here.
Alarm Will Sound director Alan Pierson talks with the Paris Review about his adaptation of John Luther Adams’ Ten Thousand Birds for 26, staged at home by Pierson and Paul Melnikow “as a tribute to far away friends during a time of social distancing.” Click here to read the interview, and here to watch “Ten Thousand Birds / Ten Thousand Screens.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1939, Spanish composer Fernando Sor died in Paris. Classical guitarist Ana Vidovic performed his Introduction and Variations on a Theme of Mozart on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series in October, 2015, and revisited the series in the fall of 2018. Click here to watch her performance of the Mozart Variations in Germany in 2019.
Australian American pianist, composer, and folk tune arranger Percy Grainger was born on July 8, 1883 in Melbourne and became a U.S. Citizen in 1919. Click here to listen to a selection of piano rolls that preserve his performances of his popular works, and here to watch a video of his Lincolnshire Posy performed on the Brownbag Series at Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral on April 19, 2017 by the Cleveland State University Symphonic Wind Ensemble led by Birch Browning.
Speaking of piano rolls, celebrate the birthdate of American avant-garde composer and inventor George Antheil in 1900 with a performance of his Ballet Méchanique by Ensemble Modern, led by Peter Rundel.