by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
June has become summer festival month in Northeast Ohio, and our classical music listings this weekend are either part of ChamberFest Cleveland, the ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival, or the Ohio Light Opera summer season. Here’s what they’re offering, in alphabetical order:
ChamberFest Cleveland continues on Friday, June 13 with “Reflections” at 7:30 at the Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights), and two events on Saturday, June 14: “Rhythm & Clues,” a free, family-friendly concert by the Nate’s World Trio including a scavenger hunt (11 am at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes), and “A Musical Feast” featuring a new work by Errollyn Wallen (pictured, 7:30 at Heights Theater in Cleveland Hts.)
Wallen returns to ChamberFest on Tuesday, June 17 for an afternoon-long series of free “Meet Composer Errollyn Wallen” events beginning with a 2:30 performance of her Remember, Marimba and ending with a 6 pm concert of her works, all at the East Cleveland Public Library. ChamberFest tickets are available online.
On Friday, June 13, ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival will present faculty and guest pianist Shuai Wang in “1, 2, 4, 8…Tango!” and on Saturday, June 14 will host Trio Seoul in “The Ringing of Cimbalom.” On Sunday, ENCORE will present “The Golden Waltz,” with guest pianist Kyu Yeon Kim at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Cleveland.) Tickets for all events available online.
On Saturday, June 14, Ohio Light Opera will raise the curtain on its 46th summer season at the College of Wooster with the first of fourteen performances of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel. Five more shows will open this summer through August 3. (7:30 in Freedlander Theater, Wooster. Tickets available online.
For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Apollos’ Fire announced on Thursday that David Walker has been appointed Managing Director of Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, where he will “partner with Founder and Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell and will be the organization’s administrative leader.” A countertenor with an international career, Walker is also an arts administrator who most recently served as General and Artistic Director of the Palm Beach Opera. Read the press release here.
INTERESTING READ:
The New York Times writes today that “the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus has long been an elite training ground for young singers. Getting in requires grit, personality and a soaring voice.” Read “The Pint-Size Singers Hoping to Be Opera Stars” here.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
June 13 marks anniversaries for Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez, who was born in Mexico City in 1899, and American composer David Diamond, who died in Rochester, NewYork in 2005. Although each of them have been championed by individual conductors, their music awaits wider attention.
A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music who taught for years at Juilliard, Diamond’s works — along with those of other mid-century tonal composers — were overshadowed by the rise of atonal music.
Diamond’s extensive works list includes eleven symphonies and ten string quartets. He was honorary composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony, with whom Gerard Schwarz recorded his 1948 orchestral fantasy The Enormous Room, based on e.e. cummings’ autobiographical novel of the same name. Listen here.
The music of Chavez has all but disappeared as Latin American classical culture has faded from the American consciousness. Here’s a video where Bard College president Leon Botstein talks about the composer and Latin American music. Click here to listen to his Toccata performed by the Eastman Chamber Percussion Ensemble in Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music, Andrea Venet conducting, or here to watch his Sinfonia India led by Gustavo Dudamel — apparently in a football arena.
