By Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. June concert series continue
. Oberlin BPI video of recently discovered flute music posted
. Announcements from the Akron & Canton Symphonies, the Music Settlement & The Cleveland Orchestra
. Almanac: milestones for John Finley Williamson, Hugo Distler, Terry Riley, George Philipp Telemann, William Grant Still’s choral ballad & Alberto Ginastera
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
Ohio Light Opera has two of its six shows up and running on Saturday: No, No, Nanette at 2, and How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at 7:30.
ChamberFest Cleveland continues with Carnival of the Animals on Saturday at 7:30 in Kulas Hall at CIM, and Vortex on Sunday in Harkness Chapel at Case at 3.
Tri-C JazzFest takes over Playhouse Square through Saturday (check the long list of performances).
Then there are one-off events of interest as well.
On Saturday at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, student ensembles prepared by BPI faculty perform in Kulas Recital Hall from 2-5, and Alla Boara performs at the Dunham Tavern Museum at 3.
Full details can be found on our Concert Listings page
QUICK VIDEO TURNAROUND:
Oberlin Conservatory professor of recorder and Baroque flute Michael Lynn was featured yesterday in an article on this site about a rare collection of flute music by Marais that he recently acquired in a French auction. Lynn has sent a link to a video of a concert of selections from that volume performed on Tuesday at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute by Lynn and his BPI faculty colleagues Mark Edwards, harpsichord, and Rebecca Reed, viola da gamba (pictured above). Click here to enjoy.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Akron Symphony has announced the release of Confluence: a Concerto for Orchestra and EarthQuaker Devices on popular streaming platforms. Co-composed by Jon Sonnenberg, a long-time EarthQuaker artist and collaborator, and Jake Gunnar Walsh, a New York-based composer and oboist, Confluence, the culmination of a two-year collaboration between the Akron Symphony and Akron-based EarthQuaker Devices, debuted live in concert on March 5, 2022, at EJ Thomas Hall. Read a press release here.
The Canton Symphony has announced initial plans to honor its late music director, Gerhardt Zimmerman, with events this fall. Click here to read.
The Music Settlement has announced its community Merit Scholarship Auditions, which are open to anyone in the community — you do not need to be a current student of The Music Settlement to apply. All applications must be received no later than Monday, July 24, 2023. Auditions will be held in-person at the University Circle campus. Video auditions will also be accepted. Those interested in auditioning must meet certain requirements. See the application for more details.
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced a conductor update for the July 1 “Beethoven’s Ode to Joy” performance at Blossom Music Center. Susanna Mälkki will now conduct the program, replacing James Gaffigan. The program and guest artists remain as previously announced.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
June 23:
Among several notable anniversaries on June 23 — including the death of English folk-song collector Cecil Sharp (1924), the birth of German composer Carl Reinecke (1824), and the birth of American conductor James Levine (1943) — we’ll focus on Canton’s own John Finley Williamson, that illustrious choral conductor born on this date in 1887.
Williamson’s history is closely intertwined with the Westminster Choir, which he founded in 1920 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton before establishing the Westminster Choir School some years later. The ensemble was soon touring the U.S. and performing for several sitting U.S. presidents — with national acclaim turning into international acclaim after two European tours.
In the years after moving to its longtime home in Princeton, NJ and becoming accredited as Westminster Choir College, the Choir began performing regularly with the New York Philharmonic (over 300 times) and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Capping off his career with a five-month world tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department Cultural Exchange Program, Williamson retired as president of the College in 1958. After he passed away six years later, his ashes were scattered on campus — which is said to have occurred during a performance of Verdi’s Requiem under Eugene Ormandy.
The history of the School is difficult to wrap your head around. After being born in Dayton, it spent a short time as part of Ithaca College, 88 years in Princeton — at first independently, then as part of Rider University — followed by a controversial move to the University’s Lawrenceville campus in 2020. The Princeton campus is now listed for sale by the University, and vacant — save perhaps for one baton-wielding ghost from Canton.
June 24:
On June 24, 1908, German composer and organist Hugo Distler was born in Nuremberg. His struggle with the Nazis, who declared his modernistic works “degenerate art” contributed to his death by suicide in Berlin in 1942. Click here to watch a performance of Distler’s motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied by the Oberlin Collegium Musicum, Steven Plank, conducting, at a Brownbag Concert at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland on May 4, 2011.
And on this date in 1935, American minimalist composer Terry Riley was born in Colfax, California. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, he maintained a long relationship with the Kronos Quartet. His most famous work is In C, an infinitely adaptable piece that can be played by any number of performers. Click here to watch a performance with over 100 musicians from the Chicago area and beyond organized by Third Coast Percussion at Pritzker Pavilion in downtown Chicago’s Millennium Park in June, 2015.
June 25:
On this date in 1767, the super-prolific German composer Georg Philipp Telemann died in Hamburg, where he had earlier used his pending appointment to cantorships in Leipzig to negotiate a raise from the Hamburg authorities (J.S. Bach, Leipzig’s third choice after No. 2 had turned them down, remained a friend).
Click here to watch a performance of Telemann’s funeral cantata, Du aber, Daniel, gehe hin by the Oberlin Conservatory HIP Baroque Ensemble on Early Music America’s Young Performers Festival in June, 2011 at First Lutheran Church in Boston. Coached by Webb Wiggins and Kathryn Montoya, the group includes students who have gone on to distinguished careers in historical performance.
For a funereal work on a lighter subject, watch bass Jeffrey Strauss sing (and act out, with props) Telemann’s Funeral Cantata for an Artistically Trained Canary-Bird Whose Demise Brought the Greatest Sorrow to its Master.
On June 25,1940, African American composer William Grant Still’s choral ballad And They Lynched Him on a Tree was first presented in New York’s Lewisohn Stadium. Cleveland Orchestra music director Artur Rodzinski conducted the New York Philharmonic with the Schola Cantorum and Wen Talbert Choir. Philip Brunelle later recorded the work with William Warfield, the Hilda Harris Choir, VocalEssence, and the Leigh Morris Chorale. Listen to the 2010 recording here.
For more insights into Still’s music, listen to a Voice of America interview about his opera Troubled Island before its premiere in 1949. (The U.S. State Department recorded the work for distribution abroad.)
And on this date in 1983, Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera died in Geneva. Yolanda Kondonassis performed his Harp Concerto with Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra in October, 2016. Watch that performance from Finney Chapel here. The performance was later released on Oberlin Music as part of the CD Ginastera: One Hundred.
Cleveland Orchestra Principal Cello Mark Kosower has been a strong advocate of Ginastera’s music. In advance of his performance of the Second Cello Concerto in October, 2018, the Orchestra released two short promotional videos. In the first, Kosower discusses the work and plays excerpts. The second is a short clip of a rehearsal led by guest conductor Gustavo Gimeno.
Kosower recorded the complete concerto with his former orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, led by Lothar Zagrosek. Listen here.
