by Daniel Hathaway
Former assistant conductor James Gaffigan will return to the podium at Severance Hall from Thursday, January 5 through Saturday, January 7 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein in Bernard Hermann’s Suite from Psycho, Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, the original, jazz band version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Performances include Thursday and Saturday evenings, a Friday matinee and a Fridays@7 event.
From January 6-8, the Philadelphia-based vocal ensemble, The Crossing, will give sixeen performances of David Lang’s Lifespan in Gallery 218 — the glass house that rises above the Cleveland Museum of Art’s East Boulevard façade. Surrounding a 4-billion-year-old rock suspended from the ceiling, three vocalists will whistle and breathe, moving the rock like a pendulum, “a poetic form of wind erosion” (read a preview here). Performances are scheduled for Friday at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 7:45 and 8:30 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday on the hour from noon to 4:00 pm. Weigh in on your experience by sharing your own comments on the ClevelandClassical.com Facebook page.
Good Company will present “How Can I Keep From Singing,” a tribute to its late founding director Karen Weaver, at Lakewood Presbyterian Church on Sunday, January 8 at 4:00 pm. Interim director Michael Carney will lead the 20-some voices of the semi-professional ensemble in Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia and music by Monteverdi, Duruflé, Britten, Chatman, Larsen, Szymko, and Tavener.
On Thursday, January 12 and Saturday, January 14, music director Franz Welser-Möst returns to Severance Hall with pianist Yefim Bronfman for a program that includes Jörg Widmann’s Trauermarsch for piano and orchestra and Anton Bruckner’s marathon Symphony No. 7.
Later that weekend, the Orchestra will play its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert on Sunday, January 15 at 7:00 pm, conducted by Thomas Wilkins and featuring cellist Thomas Mesa and the Celebration Chorus in a program of music by Peter Boyer, Kurt Carr, Antonín Dvořák, Duke Ellington, Charles Floyd, and Morton Gould, as well as traditional spirituals and gospel songs.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will send pianist Alessio Bax, violinist Ani Kavafian, violinist and violist Yura Lee, and cellist Paul Watkins, cello Cleveland-ward for a concert of piano quintets by Fauré and Brahms on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society Series at Plymouth Church on Tuesday, January 17 at 7:30 pm.
Oberlin Conservatory is sponsoring a Winter Term Chamber Music Intensive that includes a guest recital by the Ariel Quartet on Wednesday, January 18 at 8:00 pm, and a final celebration on Tuesday, January 24 at 8:00 pm.
CIM faculty pianist Sergei Babayan will give the first recital in a two-year cycle of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas — along with music by the composer’s contemporaries and others who influenced him — on Friday, January 20 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall.
Cleveland Opera Theater is teaming up with the Cleveland Composers Guild for a New Opera Works {NOW} Festival at Baldwin Wallace University from January 20-23 that will include selections and scenes from new operas by CCG members and previews of Nkeiru Okoye and David Cote’s We’ve Got Our Eye On You, and Griffin Candey’s The House of Bernarda Alba. The festival also includes two performances of Larry Delinger’s Amelia Lost. Watch for a forthcoming preview with further details.
The Akron Symphony welcomes guest conductor Benjamin Zander back on Saturday, January 20 at 8:00 pm for a concert that includes Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with HaeSun Paik, and Symphony No. 9 with the combined Akron Symphony Chorus and Summit Choral Society.
Les Délices, Cleveland’s French baroque ensemble, will turn the clock forward to the later part of the 18th century with “Mozart in Paris” on Saturday, January 21 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, January 22 at 4:00 pm. Montréal cellist Elinor Frey is the guest artist, and music by Mozart, Boccherini and Gluck will be featured
The Boston-based, group-managed chamber orchestra, A Far Cry, will participate in a Baldwin Wallace residency culminating in a concert on Monday, January 24 at 7:00 pm that includes J.S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto.
Tuesday Musical’s first concert of 2017 will feature the Imani Winds on Wednesday, January 25 at 7:30 pm at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall. The woodwind quintet will play works by Elliott Carter, Paquito D’Rivera, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Simon Shaheen, and two of its own members — Valerie Coleman & Jeff Scott. ClevelandClassical.com executive editor Mike Telin will emcee pre-concert interviews at 6:30 pm.
Toward the end of the month, Martin Kessler will conduct The Suburban Symphony in “Dance Abstractions,” featuring Igor Stravinsky’s Danses Concertantes, Claude Debussy’s Danses Sacrée et Profane, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The concert, on Sunday, January 29 at 3:30 pm, takes place in the newly-renovated auditorium at Beachwood High School.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 3, 2017.
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