by Daniel Hathaway
Provided that everything clicks in today’s complicated puzzle of international travel, British conductor Dame Jane Glover will make her Blossom debut with The Cleveland Orchestra in an all-Mozart program on Sunday evening, July 11. And if no visa or transportation difficulties intervene for him as well, she’ll be joined by British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor in the composer’s d-minor concerto. The evening will begin with the K. 136 Divertimento for strings, and conclude with Symphony No. 40 [see update below].
Since we last spoke, Jane Glover has become Dame Jane, having been named Dame of the British Empire in the Queen’s New Year Honours in January. I reached the conductor by phone at her home in London in mid-June, and wanting to observe proper protocol, started out by asking her how she should be addressed these days.
Dame Jane Glover: Jane is absolutely fine, but Dame Jane is very nice, thank you.
Daniel Hathaway: I see that you’re also referred to as ‘Professor Dame Jane’ on your website.
DJG: I know. It’s a bit cumbersome, isn’t it. It maybe takes its cues from the realm of Gilbert and Sullivan, which one cannot help thinking about. [Read more…]
After a year’s absence, The Cleveland Orchestra will return to the stage of Blossom Music on Saturday, July 3 and Sunday, July 4 at 8:00 pm. Under the direction of Brett Mitchell, the concerts will also mark the first time the full orchestra has performed in front of an in-person audience since March of 2020.
While many of us understood the seriousness of COVID-19 back in March of 2020, it did take time to grasp the extent to which the pandemic would alter our lives. “We cancelled the later part of the Severance season, but it wasn’t until we cancelled Blossom that I thought to myself, ‘this is very serious,’ Ross Binnie, the Orchestra’s Chief Brand Officer recalled during a recent conversation. “It was a huge signal and a huge blow.”
On Sunday, May 23, The Cleveland Orchestra announced its return to live concerts at Severance Hall in October, as “a more flexible, innovative, versatile, and empathetic institution, strengthened by the lessons of the past 14 months.”
Marc Damoulakis’ performance of Conjurer, John Corigliano’s percussion concerto, may well go down as one of the most spectacular events of the COVID-19 era.
Wind players have arguably been the most frustrated instrumentalists during the pandemic. When you pursue your art and livelihood by forcing air from your lungs through an instrument, you’re among the most likely candidates to spread the novel coronavirus, thus your near exile from concert halls.
Episode 7 of The Cleveland Orchestra’s pre-recorded In Focus series is the shortest so far, clocking in at only 37 minutes. But the emotional impact of Dmitri Shostakovich’s bleak Chamber Symphony in c followed by the calm, shimmering hopefulness of Olivier Messiaen’s Le Christ, lumière du Paradis (from Éclairs sur l’Au-Delà) is out of all proportion to the length of the music.
Cleveland Orchestra CEO André Gremillet announced on Wednesday afternoon that in-person performances at Severance Hall have been cancelled through June due to the continuing health risks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch a video of his announcement 