by Daniel Hathaway
In this edition:
. Cleveland International Piano Competition begins first rounds & Jury fields questions at Happy Dog
. Count Basie Orchestra at Tri-C
. Tuesday Musical awards $34,550 in scholarships
. Almanac remembers Rostropovich, Grofé & Johanessen
HAPPENING TODAY:
Celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2024, the redesigned Cleveland International Piano Competition gets started this week with first rounds at Baldwin Wallace and next week at the Paris Conservatory.
Following quarter-finals, semi-final and chamber music rounds this summer — amid a whirl of 88-keyed activities — the competition will culminate in the final round in August when four survivors will play concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra. (Pictured: the 2021 finalists with Jahja Ling.)
This week in Cleveland, about half of the contestants will each play a 30-minute solo recital of their choice of repertoire beginning on Wednesday at 3 pm in Gamble Auditorium. Sessions will continue on Thursday at 12 Noon, and Friday at 8 am and 1:15 pm. You can attend in person free of charge or watch online on the CIPC website and YouTube Channel.
As a side event, on Wednesday at 6 pm at the Happy Dog in Gordon Square, you can listen to leading international music pros discuss the challenges and opportunities of today’s classical music world, featuring CIPC First Round Jury members in conversation with Piano Cleveland president Yaron Kohlberg. Admission is free.
Same day, different subject: today at 7:30, Tri-C Performing Arts will present the 88-year-old Count Basie Orchestra, directed by Scotty Barnhart, with guest vocalist Carmen Bradford, at Tri-C Metro Auditorium.
For details of this and other events, visit our Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Tuesday Musical sends congratulations to the 23 music majors from throughout Ohio who have won its 2024 Annual Scholarship Competition, held last weekend in Akron. “They will receive awards totaling $34,550 in this first round. The Final Round/Winners Concert will take place on Sunday, May 5 at 2:30 at The University of Akron’s Guzzetta Recital Hall.
“The March 23 competition — our 68th — drew 120+ applicants. Four scholarships were new this year, including music education and piano scholarships endowed by the William Bingham Foundation and fourth-place scholarships funded by an anonymous donor in the strings and voice categories.”
Read the press release here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On March 27, 1927, Russian cellist and conductor Mistislav Rostropovich was born in Baku, and American composer and arranger Ferde Grofé was born in 1892 in New York City.
Click here to listen to a 1969 live performance of the Dvořák concerto featuring Rostropovich with George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra.
Grofé talks about his influence on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue — which premiered a hundred years ago — in an excerpt from an interview (skip the silly stuff and start at 1:39), and conducts a rehearsal of his Mississippi Suite. And for sci-fi buffs, here’s a cleaned-up print of the 1950 film Rocketship X-M, with score by Grofé that includes the first use of a theremin in a film score. (Sorry, we’re avoiding the Grand Canyon Suite.)
And on this date in 2005, American pianist Grant Johanneson, who served as president of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1977 to 1985 died in Berlin. Click here for a true blast from the past: Johanneson performs the third movement of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 83 on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 5, 1963.
“The Ed Sullivan Show was a television variety program that aired on CBS from 1948-1971. For 23 years it aired every Sunday night and played host to the world’s greatest talents…and is well known for bringing rock n’ roll music to the forefront of American culture through acts like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones. The entertainers each week ranged from comedians like Joan Rivers and Rodney Dangerfield, to Broadway stars Julie Andrews and Richard Burton, to pop singers such as Bobby Darin and Petula Clark. It also frequently featured stars of Motown such as The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5. The Ed Sullivan Show was one of the only places on American television where such a wide variety of popular culture was showcased and its legacy lives on to this day.” (—YouTube)
