by Daniel Hathaway
THIS WEEKEND’S EVENTS:
The big thing to mention is the official arrival of spring. For Cleveland, the Vernal Equinox arrives on Sunday at 11:32 am.
In his 1987 New York Times essay “Welcoming the Sun,” MacDonald Harris wrote about the importance of observing the day when the sun appears again, assuaging our fears that it just might not make it this time around. Gotta do something to celebrate!
Indoors events on Saturday include the Weilerstein Duo at Oberlin, CityMusic Cleveland at St. Stanislaus, and Apollo’s Fire at CIM.
On Sunday, organist and harpsichordist Christa Rakich takes on J.S. Bach’s Art of Fugue (complete) at the Church of the Covenant, Cleveland Chamber Collective performs “Music for America” in Ohio City, and Apollo’s Fire takes its “Virtuoso Bach and Vivaldi” program to Rocky River. (And a head’s up for Monday, when harpist Parker Ramsay will play Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Trinity Cathedral.
Check our Concert Listings for details.
NEWS BRIEFS:
The Violin Channel is bubbling with news this weekend.
- Young artists honored by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust include cellist Zlatomir Fung
- Former Cleveland saxophonist Steven Banks to play Young Concert Artists recital on March 23
- Applications are now being accepted for this summer’s Oberlin Cooper International Violin Competition
- The members of the 2022 National Youth Orchestra have been announced
And the Cleveland Institute of Music unveils a new Academy for middle and high school students.
INTERESTING READS:
In addition to posing thorny moral and humanitarian questions, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has many writers considering its implications for culture and classical music.
In a New Yorker article by Isaac Chotiner, “two musicologists discuss national identity in the performing arts and the politics of blacklisting sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
And an unsigned article on The Violin Channel reports that “Concert promoters around the world are facing difficult decisions over whether the cancellation of Russian artists and composers sends the correct message regarding the war in Ukraine.” Click here to read “Russian Programming and Russian Musicians: To Ban or Not To Ban?”
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
The arrival of spring neatly coincides with the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach in Eisenach on March 20, 1685. With so vast a portfolio of compositions to choose from, how to celebrate?
Let’s begin with two tours of Bach’s world led by prominent early music gurus. Click here to watch the 2000 documentary “Bach revisited — John Eliot Gardiner in Saxony and Thuringia,” and here to follow Ton Koopman and Melchior Huurdeman as they take you on a guided tour of the Thomaskirche and Bach Archives in Leipzig.
Then let’s enjoy performances of one of Bach’s iconic works, the Chaconne, the fifth and final movement of the Partita No. 2 in d for solo violin, BWV 1004.
First, the original as played by ChamberFest Cleveland star violinist Alexi Kenney in two different venues: the Robert Miller Gallery in New York in January, 2016 against a backdrop of paintings by Ran Ortner, and in Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory in March, 2016.
Then, a sampling of performances on other instruments, showing how adaptable Bach’s abstract music can be to different circumstances.
- Harpsichord: Jean Rondeau on his debut album IMAGINE.
- Guitar: Petra Poláčková
- Piano Left Hand: Daniil Trifonov at the Verbier Festival (2020) (arrangement by Brahms)
- Piano: Antonio Pompa-Baldi at CIM (arrangement by Busoni)
- Cello Ensemble: Students of Mark Kosower at CIM
