by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 12 noon, Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concerts presents Edward Vogel, baritone (pictured) with Jenny Parker, piano, in Palace in the Wild: Journeys in British Art Song.
At 7 pm, The Stars of Summer Masters presents Beyond the Notes: Two Sonatas, Seven Portraits, with violinist Emilio Llinas, and pianist Halida Dinova in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
And at 7:30, Timothy Weiss conducts the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in music by Steven Mackey, Brian Raphael Nabors, and Melinda Wagner and premieres of works by Soomin Kim, Isaac Santos, and Zola Saadi-Klein in Warner Concert Hall.
INTERESTING READ:
The recent uproar at the Boston Symphony over the non-renewal of music director Andris Nelsons’ contract has prompted a response from the editorial board of the Boston Globe.
“If the BSO needs a role model, perhaps it should stop looking to LA, with its shiny new concert hall, plus its outdoor 17,000-seat Hollywood Bowl and a huge population center from which to draw patrons and donors. Instead it might look to Cleveland, which also ranks among the nation’s Big Five orchestras.
“Cleveland ended its ’24-25 season with a modest surplus, its seventh consecutive break-even season. It is consistently rated among the best orchestras in the nation. It’s so open and transparent — not to mention proud — about its expenses and its finances that it puts it all, including its audited financials, on its website. It also runs by all accounts splendid education programs and has a digital streaming platform.
“Oh, and its world-famous conductor, Franz Welser-Möst, will be stepping down from the podium next year, ending a 25-year career with an orchestra and an audience that seem to adore him.
“Cleveland represents everything an orchestra can aspire to — creative outreach and stability at the podium without the drama or the angst.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the executive order that created the Works Progress Administration or WPA, which along with other federal programs, gave temporary assistance in the form of jobs to out-of-work Americans during the Great Depression.
Later that year, Nikolai Sokoloff, who had founded The Cleveland Orchestra along with Adella Prentiss Hugues and conducted the ensemble from 1918-1932, was put in charge of the Federal Music Project, which supported unemployed musicians, composers, opera projects, and orchestras in Cleveland and elsewhere. Sokoloff was soon criticized for favoring Eurocentric classical music — the focus of the project widened in 1936 when Charles Seeger was appointed assistant director.
Read a WQXR story that suggests five WPA-commissioned works that listeners should be aware of. One of them is Aaron Copland’s atmospheric Quiet City, a piece written for the short-lived play of the same name by Irwin Shaw that has become an icon of the Depression Era.
The original theater version of the work for trumpet, saxophone, clarinets and piano has recently been unearthed and recorded by composer and saxophonist Christopher Brellochs. Listen here. Or click here for Copland’s later orchestral version performed by the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. A third choice is an arrangement featuring trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Eastman Wind Ensemble. All three conjure a poignant look at New York City late at night.
