by Stephanie Manning
IN THIS EDITION:
• A packed three days of concerts awaits, many of them free and/or outdoors
• An upcoming travel advisory for some Blossom attendees
• The almanac celebrates two American composers and two landmark musical inventions
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
It’s a double performance weekend at Blossom for The Cleveland Orchestra. On Saturday at 7:00, they welcome conductor Antonello Manacorda and soprano Véronique Gens (pictured, above) for a program featuring Beethoven’s Seventh (read more here). And on Sunday at 7:00, Hamilton star Leslie Odom, Jr. joins conductor Edwin Outwater for a program of Broadway and pop selections (read more here). Tickets available online.
The Kent Blossom Music Festival features their young artists in four free chamber concerts at Ludwig Recital Hall — 2:00 and 7:30 p.m. on both Friday and Sunday. They’ll also perform Saturday at 2:00 p.m. at Hudson Meadows Retirement Community.
You can catch the latest Ohio Light Opera production, The Arcadians, on Sunday at 2:00 p.m at The College of Wooster. Tickets available online. Or, more chances to check out the already-running shows:
• Friday: The Count of Luxembourg (2:00 p.m., pictured) or The Gondoliers (7:30 p.m.)
• Saturday: The Sound of Music (2:00 p.m.) or Guys and Dolls (7:30 p.m.)
Feeling inspired by nature? Apollo’s Fire continues their performances of “Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Rediscovered” at Holden Arboretum in Kirtland. Saturday at 4:00 & 7:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Tickets available online.
For piano fans, the weather looks nice for two free outdoor offerings: Piano Cleveland Live in the Van Aken district (6:30 p.m. Friday with Martín García García and jazz musicians), and the CIPC Concert Truck featuring the Competition’s Quarter-Finalists in Playhouse Square (Sunday, 3:00 p.m.).
Plus, Oberlin faculty Robert Shannon and Haewon Song (pictured, left) will cap off the weekend with a Sunday night recital for the Oberlin Piano Festival (7:30 p.m., Clonick Hall, free).
If your keyboard preference is a carillon, The McGaffin Carillon in University Circle will host Friday lunchtime (12:15 pm) and evening (7:00 p.m.) concerts featuring Keiran Cantilina. Both are free and will also be livestreamed here.
Last but not least, Unity Spiritual Center in Westlake presents a benefit concert — “Wizards of Acoustic Guitar” — with fingerstyle guitarists Brian Henke and Shohei Toyoda on Friday at 7:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the door, but note that the venue expects it to sell out.
For details of all upcoming concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Headed to Blossom for a concert coming up? Those traveling southbound after the shows will likely need to follow a detour, due to renovations on the Steels Corners Bridge. Construction begins Monday, July 22 and will end in about 90 days. Learn more here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Jarret Hoffman
July 19
On the 175th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention — the first women’s rights convention in the U.S. — we’ll begin by celebrating an underrecognized female American composer and conductor.
Peggy Stuart Coolidge, born on this date in 1913 in Swampscott, Massachusetts, is known for her distinctly American compositional voice influenced by popular and folk music.
Coolidge studied with Quincy Porter at New England Conservatory, and Boston became an important musical hub for her. She had an especially strong relationship with The Boston Pops Orchestra, which premiered three of her orchestral works.
An important milestone arrived in 1975, six years before her death, when the Westphalian Symphony Orchestra released American Reflections, one of the first recordings ever to consist entirely of music by a single American female composer. Listen to the first movement of New England Autumn from that album here.
July 20
American composer Michael Gordon turns 68 today. One of the co-founders and co-artistic directors of the Bang on a Can collective, Gordon has a widely varied compositional output, but one of his key interests is the intersection of underground rock music and classical composition.
Another area of focus for Gordon has been multimedia, particularly video. One notable example is his Campaign Songs, made up of eight short pieces written to help turn out the vote in the 2020 election. It also represents another collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, who recorded it in isolation as individuals. The first piece in the set is a dark-hued arrangement of God Bless America featuring video by Joshua Higgason evoking the George Floyd protests. Watch here and be transported back to a moment in history that was equal parts transformative and somber.
July 21
Two musical inventions have anniversaries on this date. Financed in part by Charles Ives, a two-manual, quarter-tone piano was patented by Hans Barth on July 21, 1931. And Johann Maelzel, who developed the metronome, died on this date in 1838. One of those machines is more commonly used than the other (imagine if that were reversed?)
Barth was a noted keyboardist and composer. It’s too bad that recordings of his pieces — such as the Concerto for Quarter Tone Piano and Strings — are difficult to track down. But as a worthy consolation, here are Ives’ Three Quarter-Tone Pieces (above: a few measures from the score to No. 1), played by Alexei Lubimov and Pierre-Laurent Aimard on two pianos, one tuned a quarter-tone lower than the other.
