by Jarrett Hoffman
ON TODAY, IN PERSON:
At 12:15 pm, Florence Mustric takes to the Beckerath organ at Trinity Lutheran Church to present “The wind at my back,” featuring music by Haydn and Pachelbel. A freewill offering will be taken.
LOCAL NEWS:
Single tickets go on sale today for the Canton Symphony’s 2021-22 season, including its Prelude Concerts, MasterWorks Series, Pops Concerts, and Divergent Sounds Series. Subscriptions are also available. Click here for more info.
After starting out in 2018 at First United Methodist Church in Akron, Jonathon Turner’s Urban Choral Initiative, a nonprofit devoted to music theory education for inner-city middle and high school students, has found a new space of its own at 222 West Ave. in Tallmadge. Read more about the history of the organization and what’s in store for its future in an article by Krista S. Kano in the Akron Beacon Journal.
There’s some overlap in locale with this next bit of news, and not just with regards to Akron. The ASO’s Unorchestrated podcast has moved into a four-part series on the Akron Symphony Chorus, and the first episode focuses on a recording session (pictured) that took place in May in, of all places, a parking lot — that of First United Methodist.
Chorus director Chris Albanese and Steven Savanyu of Buford T. Hedgehog Productions join host Tom Moore to talk about how that event came together — plus, you can hear excerpts of the Chorus performing Haydn’s Awake the Harp. Listen to “Awakenings” here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
If there’s a conducting hall of fame, Seiji Ozawa, who turns 86 today, and Leonard Slatkin, who turns 77, deserve a spot in it. Both have led a number of famous orchestras over their long careers, and to great effect. Today we’ll spotlight Ozawa’s time as music director of the Boston Symphony, where he put in 29 years, and Slatkin’s leadership of the St. Louis Symphony — and not only because of his acclaimed 17-year tenure atop the podium there. The cherry on top is that the orchestra was founded on this same date in 1880, as the St. Louis Choral Society.
A well-known advocate of modern music, Ozawa’s many premieres in Boston included Henri Dutilleux’s five-part The Shadows of Time (1997), a work he and the orchestra recorded the following year. Listen to the first movement here, and browse a list of the ensemble’s premieres here.
Speaking of contemporary music advocacy, one composer Slatkin has championed — including while directing the Blossom Festival in the ‘90s — is Donald Erb. Cellist Lynn Harrel joins Slatkin and St. Louis in a recording of Erb’s Cello Concerto here.
As I mentioned, both conductors have held many posts, and for Slatkin that includes stints in London as principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Might Slatkin have made magic happen with that famous principal horn in those orchestras, Dennis Brain, had only he not died in a car crash at age 36 on this date in 1957?
Mozart was a particular specialty of Brain’s. Hear him out front of the Philharmonia Orchestra, led by Herbert von Karajan, in the last movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 3 in E here.
To bring things full circle, in somewhat complicated fashion (tighten your seatbelt), Ozawa famously studied with von Karajan on scholarship in West Berlin — whereupon he caught the attention of Leonard Bernstein, who appointed Ozawa as assistant with the New York Philharmonic.
Bernstein just graced our almanac last week, on the 103rd anniversary of his birth. And a few days earlier, August 20 brought the tragic passing of Michael Morgan — who worked with both Ozawa and Bernstein at Tanglewood, and was assistant under Slatkin in St. Louis.
All this to say, close ties among remarkable conductors.
Finally, these two composers don’t fit neatly into that web, but nonetheless are important to recognize: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (died on September 1, 1912) and Johann Pachelbel (baptised on this date in 1653).
Pachelbel is ubiquitous for his Canon in D — YouTube is full of recordings purported to be the “best” version — while Coleridge-Taylor is recently and deservedly gaining more attention from programmers, musicians, and audiences alike. A great way to immerse yourself in his music is the first entry in the Catalyst Quartet’s Uncovered series.
Read our review here, and listen to the album here, which includes the Quintet in g for piano and strings, the five Fantasiestücke for string quartet, and the Quintet in f-sharp for clarinet and strings.