by Daniel Hathaway
This weekend’s entries:
• Orchestra concerts by Contemporary Youth Orchestra, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, Canton Symphony, Cleveland Philharmonic Akron Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Lakeland Civic Orchestra. Choral performances by Quire Cleveland and West Shore Chorale. Chamber music with tenor Mark Padmore & pianist Mitsuko Uchida (pictured), Amici String Quartet with clarinetist Afendi Yusuf, and Desert Island ensemble. And Jazz with the Tri-C Gallery All-Stars.
• Interesting read — the reinstallation of the largest organ on the west coast
• Almanac: marking the founding of Steinway in New York, the birthday of the late hornist Barry Tuckwell, the departure of Zoltán Kodály, and the anniversary of Rimsky-Korsakov’s completion of The Flight of the Bumblebee
ON DECK THIS WEEKEND:
Numerous orchestras are making early spring appearances this weekend.
On Saturday at 6 pm, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra plays works by Asian composers at Tri-C Metro, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra performs a machine-inspired program at the Church of the Covenant at 7:30 with organist Jonathan Moyer, at the same hour, the Canton Symphony features hornist Megan Guegold in a Strauss concerto, and the Cleveland Philharmonic spotlights competition winner Moshi Tang in Glazunov’s Violin Concerto at CSU. At 8pm, the Akron Symphony joins Jon Sonnenberg and EarthQuaker Devices in seismic repertoire, and Franz Welser-Möst hosts soprano Latonia Moore with The Cleveland Orchestra in George Walker’s Lilacs.
Quire Cleveland sings Passion music by Christoph Demantius at 5:30 at St. Vitus, and the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society presents Duo Noire at Plymouth Church.
On Sunday, there are repeat performances by the Cleveland Philharmonic (3 pm at Westlake PAC), and Quire Cleveland (4pm at St. Elizabeth of Hungary). British tenor Mark Padmore and one of Cleveland’s favorite pianists, Mitsuko Uchida, offer song cycles by Beethoven and Schubert at 3pm in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance (read a preview here), at 4 pm the Amici String Quartet (Cleveland Orchestra members Takako Masame, Miho Hashizume, Lynne Ramsey & Ralph Curry, cello) join their colleague, clarinetist Afendi Yusuf to complete their Beethoven cycle — plus the Mozart Clarinet Quintet — at St. Wendelin.
At the same hour, violinist Andrew Sords teams up with Mari Sato violin, Dudley Raine, viola, Joseph Johnson, cello & Elizabeth DeMio, piano, for Mahler, Beethoven & Schumann at Rocky River Methodist, and Lakeland Civic Orchestra features its concerto competition winners, pianists Richelle Shi & Rosabelle Shi in Mendelssohn & Liszt at Lakeland Community College.
Sunday ends with a 4pm performance by West Shore Chorale at St. Stephen Church, and a 7:30 jazz concert by Tri-C Gallery All-Stars at Tri-C Metro Auditorium.
Details in our Concert Listings.
INTERESTING READ:
“Hazel,” the fifth-largest pipe organ in the world, originally created by joining a 1977 Ruffati instrument with the Aeolian-Skinner organ built for Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center, is back in place at the former Crystal Cathedral in Southern California’s Orange County after nearly a decade of renovation in Italy.
In 2013, when the instrument was shipped back to the workshops of Fratelli Ruffati, it was “suffering from an infestation of bugs. Its pipes were melted, its trumpets corroded.” After televangelist Robert H. Schuller’s broadcast empire went bankrupt, the building was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and renamed Christ Cathedral. Read the story here.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
On March 5, 1853, the Steinway Piano Company was founded in New York. Here are two videos, the first (“The Making of Steinway”) follows the creation of concert grand L1037 from forest to concert hall. In the second, pianist Tiffany Poon visits “The Vault” at Steinway’s New York factory
Also on this date, Australian French horn virtuoso Barry Tuckwell was born in Melbourne in 1931 (he left us in 2010). Listen to him perform the Strauss First Concerto in 1987 with Japan’s NHK Symphony. And drop in on the Tuckwell Institute at the College of New Jersey to watch the late virtuoso teach.
On March 6, 1967, Hungarian ethnomusicologist, educator and composer Zoltán Kodály passed away in Budapest.
Listen to Kodály talk about his views on music education here.
And listen to his Dances of Galanta performed by The Cleveland Orchestra under István Kertész at Blossom in 1969, with solos by former principal clarinet Robert Marcellus. We’re advised that there’s “a loud bang during his solo which is explained in the announcement at the end.” That would be the famous ‘Blossom Boom,’ created by the expansion and contraction of the pavilion beams.
ChamberFest programmed Kodály’s Serenade for Two Violins and Viola in June, 2014. Watch the performance by Diana Cohen, David Bowlin, and Yura Lee here.
And on March 6, 1900, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is reported to have put the finishing touches on the little orchestral interlude he had written for his opera, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, that soon achieved its own life as The Flight of the Bumblebee.
Time for a bit of March Musical Madness! Here’s a very short list of performances that suggest the durability of Rimsky’s little piece:
By the Canadian Brass
By pianist Yuja Wang
By José Feliciano (on the Ed Sullivan Show)
By a pair of double basses (Lev Weksler, double-tracking)
By flutist James Galway
By the London Cello Orchestra
On the Cadet Chapel Organ at West Point
Conducted by Minnie Mouse
Played by 9-year-old circular breathing flutist Emma He
There are more!
