by Mike Telin
For anyone who loves a great waltz, CityMusic Cleveland has a program tailor-made just for you. Beginning on December 4 and running through December 8, CityMusic continues its tenth anniversary season with five concerts that celebrate that Viennese ballroom specialty.
The free concerts, presented in churches in Cleveland Heights, Lakewood, Willoughby Hills, Cleveland’s Slavic Village and Elyria, will feature soprano Stacey Mastrian in the music of the Strauss family and Franz Lehar. The program will also include the trumpet concerto of another Viennese composer, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, with Cleveland Orchestra second trumpet player Jack Sutte as soloist.
The performances mark the return of guest conductor Stefan Willich to the CityMusic podium. Willich, who is President of the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory in Berlin and the Founder and Conductor of the World Doctors Orchestra, will lead CityMusic in performances of Johann Strauss Junior’s Overture to Die Fledermaus, The Blue Danube and Tritsch Tratsch Polka, Josef Strauss’ Aus der Ferne Polka (From a Distance) and Johann Strauss Senior’s Radetzky March.
Stacey Mastrian will join Willich and the orchestra in performances of the arias O habet Acht from The Gypsy Baron and Schwipslied from Night in Venice by Johann Strauss Jr. and Lehar’s Vilja Lied from The Merry Widow and Meine Lippen Sie Kussen So Heiss from Giuditta.
Visit the CityMusic Web site for locations and start times.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com November 26, 2013
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