by Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. Concerts upon concerts
. Oberlin grad named Utah Symphony assistant conductor
. Almanac: remembering Handel, Neville Marriner, and Charlie (Sir Charles) Chaplin
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
On Friday at 7, Columbian cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia plays at the LatinUS Theater, Cleveland’s No Exit plays new music at Spaces Gallery (repeated at Kent State Saturday at 8), and BW’s Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble perform in Berea. At 7:30 Transient Canvas visits CSU, and at 8, vocalists Christiane Noll and Ben Davis join Cleveland POPS for “The Teams of Broadway” at Severance.
Saturday’s 12:30 matinee features the American Guild of Organists’ Great Lakes Regional Competition for Young Organists at Fairmount Presbyterian, and evening concerts include the Akron Symphony (Christopher Wilkins leads Mahler 3 at 7:30) and The Cleveland Orchestra (with Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm, Leif Ove Andsnes at the keyboard for Debussy and Mahler 1 at 8 — repeated on Sunday at 3).
On Sunday, Oberlin faculty members David Bowlin, violin & Tony Cho, piano begin the afternoon at 3 at First Lutheran, Lorain, followed by Pandemonium4 Flutes on the U of Akron’s Kulas Series, also at 3, organist Ken Cowan (pictured) at Stambaugh Hall in Youngstown at 4, and pianist Donna Lee on the Kent Keyboard Series at 5. Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project closes the day by hosting Tamarisk at 8.
Visit the Clevelandclassical.com Concert Listings page for details .
IN THE NEWS:
Columbia, MO native Matthew Straw, a recent graduate of Oberlin College and Conservatory with degrees in music and philosophy, has been appointed assistant conductor of the Utah Symphony following a nationwide search.
As Assistant Conductor, Straw will work closely with Creative Partner David Robertson and Music Director Emeritus Thierry Fischer, lead many of the symphony’s education performances for elementary and secondary school students, and will conduct select Deer Valley Music Festival Film Series and Family concerts, along with other programs throughout the state of Utah. Among other artistic responsibilities, he will serve as the cover conductor for the orchestra’s Masterworks Series.
A two-time winner of the Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation US, Straw became the youngest awardee in the history of the foundation in 2022. In addition, he received the 2019 Helen F. Whitaker Conducting Fellowship at the Aspen Conducting Academy. He currently studies conducting at the Eastman School of Music.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
April 14 (By Jarrett Hoffman)
George Frideric Handel died on this date in 1759. The last performance he attended? Fittingly for a composer, it was his own music: Handel’s Messiah, that beloved work that also comes with a wide range of interpretations.
One pair of contrasting recordings: here from Boston Baroque led by Thomas Pearlman, and here from the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. They almost sound like two different pieces.
As conductor Jane Glover noted in an interview with Daniel Hathaway in 2018, her 100+ performances of the work have involved choirs ranging in size from 24 to 450 members. Since it’s quite a long piece, she also likes to condense it — or as she said, “make the odd nip and tuck.”
She also speculated as to what Handel might think of the work’s popularity in the present day. “Even for someone as confident and outgoing as he was, he would be astonished to learn what it has meant to every single generation of music lovers ever since.”
April 15 (By Mike Telin)
On April 15, 1924, English conductor and violinist Sir Neville Marriner entered the world in Lincoln. As a violinist, Marriner played with the Philharmonia and London Symphony orchestras. He also performed with the chamber orchestras of Reginald Jacques, Boyd Neel, and the London Mozart Players.
Marriner is best known as the founder of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, of which the ensemble’s discography is legendary. He was also the founder and first music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, and principal conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Click here to read more about his productive career, and here to listen to Marriner conduct the ASMF in the Orchestral Suites of J.S. Bach.
April 16 (By Daniel Hathaway)
April 16 is a rich source of cultural trivia. Did you know that American silent film icon Charlie Chaplin was actually born in England on this date in 1889, composed most of the music for his own films, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975? (“Sir Charles!”)
Or that American composer Henry (Enrico) Mancini was a native Clevelander, born on this date in 1924 in Little Italy, and whose first instrument was the piccolo? Or that he auditioned (successfully) for Juilliard in 1942 with a Beethoven sonata and an improvisation on Cole Porter’s “Night and Day?” Or that he made a cameo appearance in the first season of Frasier as a call-in patient to Dr. Frasier Crane’s radio show, followed by the playing of Moon River?
Tunes from Mancini’s scores to such films as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Pink Panther are surely still circulating in our ears. The latter is played here by a combo with the composer at the piano, and Swiss organist Guy Bovet was moved to make the theme into a cheeky polyphonic piece in his Fuga sopra un sogetto
