by Daniel Hathaway
WEEKEND CLASSICAL MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS: September 18-20
SEPTEMBER 18 – FRIDAY
7:30 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. “The Johnstown Flood” (1926), in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art. | 7:30 pm – Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble & Oberlin Percussion Group in Warner Concert Hall.
SEPTEMBER 19 – SATURDAY
2:30 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. “A Page of Madness” (1926) featuring an original score by James Praznik performed by a quintet from the No Exit New Music Ensemble. Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art | 7:30 pm – Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, 2026 Showcase Concert. Sam Hooper, guitar, and Ed Ridley, keyboard. Maltz Performing Arts Center | 7:30 pm – Arts Renaissance Tremont. UnchARTed Territory. Five world-class jazz musicians come together for an experimental evening. Pilgrim Congregational UCC | 7:30 pm – Les Délices. The Poet & the Prodigy. Treelawn Music Hall, Cleveland | 7:30 pm – Oberlin Orchestra. Raphael Jiménez, conductor. Finney Chapel.
SEPTEMBER 20 – SUNDAY
2:30 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. “Beau Geste” (1926). Rodney Sauer leads a quintet in a newly compiled score created for the film. Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art | 3:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Franz Welser-Möst, conductor, and Golda Schultz, soprano (pictured above). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. | 4:00 pm – Arts @ Holy Trinity. Astralis Chamber Ensemble. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Akron | 4:00 pm – Daniel Boyle, organ. Grace Episcopal Church, Sandusky | 4:00 pm – CWR Concert Series. Ruth Ann Scanzillo, cello, and Christopher Petit, piano & organ. Church of the Western Reserve, Cleveland | 4:00 pm – St. Noel Concert Series. Clay and Jay Piano Duo. St. Noel Church, Willoughby Hills.
For Details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
On S eptember 18 in 1818 (or perhaps on September 17), French composer Charles Gounod was born in Paris. Known today principally because of two of his twelve operas (Faust and Romeo et Juliette remain solidly in the repertory), he also wrote much religious music (he thought about becoming a priest). One of his most charming works is the Petite Symphonie for winds, viewable here in a 2017 performance by Camerata Pacifica at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California.
And on September 18, 1943, Austrian cellist and composer David Popper was born in Prague. Listen to his Requiem, originally for three cellos and piano, in an arrangement by the New Trombone Collective.
And some years ago, CIM graduate Joshua Roman took on the regimen of recording one of Popper’s Etudes every week for 40 weeks, “wherever Joshua and his laptop happen to be.” Here, he takes on Etude No. 4.
