by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Brahms’ Second Symphony. Franz Welser-Möst, conductor. Franz Liszt’s Orpheus, Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 2, and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center.
7:30 pm – Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. Raphael Jiménz, conductor (pictured), and David Byrd-Marrow, horn. Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia, Huw Watkins’ Horn Concerto, and Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. Finney Chapel.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
September 24 was the birthdate of two Eastern European figures who emigrated to the West: Czech composer Vaclav Nelhybel in 1919 (who ended up in the United States writing music especially for student musicians), and Andrzej Panufnik in 1914 (who fled Poland — under circumstances said to resemble a John le Carré spy novel — to settle in England).
No Cleveland connections to note, except that Frederick Fennell recorded the Adagio from Nelhybel’s Trittico with the Dallas Wind Symphony. Listen here.
And on this date in 1945, English composer and conductor John Rutter was born in London. Founder of the Cambridge Singers and editor with Sir David Willcocks of five volumes of Carols for Choirs, Rutter is wildly popular with choral ensembles in the United States. Quire Cleveland sang his carol, There is a flower at Historic St. Peter Church in 2015 (Ross W. Duffin conducts, and Margaret Carpenter Haigh is the soloist), and JR Fralick led his Requiem with the Old Stone Choir in 2015 (Brenda Pongracz sings the soprano solos). Another Cleveland performance of the Requiem featured the Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School Choirs and Orchestras at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in 2013.
