by Daniel Hathaway
The first event in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Creative Fusion project — a series of commissions by the Cleveland Foundation — brings jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill and his Zooid ensemble to Gartner Auditorium on Friday, January 11 at 7:30 pm. They’ll join Timothy Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in the world premiere of an “expanded and improvising chamber ensemble” (click here for tickets).
Organist Todd Wilson mostly plays recitals and services in churches, but his alter ego is equally at home as a theater organist — accompanying silent movies in Severance Hall, Stambaugh Auditorium, and other venues. He’ll demonstrate those skills in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace on Saturday, January 12 at 7:00 pm when he improvises scores to Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid and Laurel & Hardy’s Big Business as part of BW’s Kulas Keyboard Series. Want to find out how he does it? Wilson will reveal some of his secrets in two workshops. Details and tickets here.
The Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin College Choir will travel to New York’s Carnegie Hall for a concert in Stern Auditorium on January 19, preceded by a free preview concert in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel on Wednesday, January 16 at 7:30 pm. The program, conducted by Raphael Jiménez and Gregory Ristow, includes Stravinsky’s Les noces for chorus, percussion, and four grand pianos, Tarik O’Regan’s Triptych, Elizabeth Ogonek’s All These Lighted Things (three little dances for orchestra), and Debussy’s La Mer.
Ristow and the Oberlin Choir will also revisit Sofia Gubaidulina’s Canticle of the Sun, featuring cello professor Darrett Adkins, in performances on Friday, January 11 at 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights — part of the Cleveland Cello Society’s annual “i Cellisti!” event (tickets here) — and again on Sunday, January 13 at 3:00 pm in Lorain’s First Lutheran Church, as the next performance in the FIRST•music series (freewill offering).
Cleveland Orchestra second trumpet Jack Sutte has cooked up a four-recital series, “Mettle — Sonatapalooza 2019,” featuring the dozen “most admired” sonatas for trumpet and piano. He’ll perform them with pianist Christine Fuoco in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace — where he teaches — on January 9, 12, 13, and 19, all at 7:00 pm except for the 12th, which begins at 3:00 pm. Composers include Kennan, Pilss, Mittner, Hindemith, Shapero, Ewazen, Peeters, Stevens, Anthiel, Hubeau, Loeb, and Sowerby, and the concerts are free.
The Cleveland Orchestra will present made-for-Cleveland productions of Richard Strauss’s partly comic opera-within-an-opera, Ariadne aux Naxos, directed by Frederic Wake-Walker and conducted by music director Franz Welser-Möst, on January 13 at 4:00 pm, January 17 at 7:30 pm, and January 19 at 8:00 pm in Severance Hall. The distinguished cast includes soprano Tamara Wilson (as Ariadne/Diva), tenor Andreas Schager (Bacchus/Tenor), soprano Daniela Fally (Zerbinetta), mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey (Composer), and Wolfgang Brendel (Major-Domo — speaking role). Tickets can be ordered here.
Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy has described the highly-decorated songbooks of the late Middle Ages as “the mix-tapes of their day.” Her period instrument ensemble will join Chicago’s Newberry Consort this month in three multimedia performances of selections by Ockeghem, Busnois, and their contemporaries from the recently-discovered Leuven Songbook. Artists include Ellen Hargis (soprano), David Douglass (vielle and rebec), Allison Monroe (vielle and rebec), Jason McStoots (tenor), Daniel Fridley (baritone), Charles Weaver (lute), Charles Metz (organetto), and Debra Nagy (harp, voice, and Medieval winds). Concerts are scheduled in Akron on January 18 at 7:30 pm, Lakewood on January 19 at 8:00 pm, and Shaker Heights on January 20 at 4:00 pm. Click here for tickets.
German baritone Benjamin Appl will include Cleveland on his first American tour, joining pianist James Baillieu for a Cleveland Art Song Festival recital at the Cleveland Institute of Music on January 18 at 8:00 pm. This off-year performance for the Festival includes songs by Schubert, Schumann, Duparc, Muhly, and Grieg. Click here for tickets.
Benjamin Zander, a frequent guest of the Akron Symphony, returns to E.J. Thomas Hall on January 19 at 8:00 pm to lead the ensemble in Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C, with soloist Alexander Korsantia, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. Click here for tickets.
The Cleveland International Piano Competition’s concert series welcomes Oberlin grad and 2013 MacArthur Fellow Jeremy Denk for a recital of works by Beethoven, Adams, Bizet, Mendelssohn, and Schumann in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on January 19 at 8:00 pm. Click here for tickets.
The Cleveland Orchestra marks the birthdate of Martin Luther King, Jr. with its annual MLK Celebration Concert on January 20 at 7:00 pm in Severance Hall, and an open house on January 21 from 12:30 pm to 5:30 pm. Vinay Parameswaran conducts, the MLK Celebration Chorus will be prepared by William Henry Caldwell, and the guest soloist in Rossini’s Cujus Animam will be tenor Lawrence Brownlee. All the free concert tickets will have been snapped up by the time you read this, but the event will be broadcast live on WCLV, 104.9 FM and WCPN, 90.3 FM.
The Calidore String Quartet with pianist Inon Barnatan is next up on Akron’s Tuesday Musical series in E.J. Thomas Hall on January 22 at 7:30 pm, preceded by an onstage artist chat at 6:30 pm. Their all-Bach program includes selections from The Art of Fugue and the keyboard concertos No. 1 in d, No. 7 in g, No. 4 in A, and No. 5 in f. Tickets here.
Apollo’s Fire will show off the depth of its violin talent in four performances of Heinrich Biber’s Mystery Sonatas from January 31 through February 3. Johanna Novom, Adriane Post, Karina Schmitz, and Carrie Krause will play these interesting pieces on specially-tuned fiddles, which produce special sonorities. Venue details and tickets here.
Oberlin’s Winter Term Opera, Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up, the story of an American family pursuing the American Dream in Civil War-era Nebraska, will be produced in Main Lounge of Wilder, the college’s student union, from January 31 through February 5. Details and tickets: call 440-775-8610.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 2, 2019.
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