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Cleveland Orchestra announces 2021-2022 Severance Hall Season

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by Daniel Hathaway

Although the rest of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2019-2020 season has been cancelled due to the pandemic, hope springs eternal. The Orchestra has now released details of its plans for Season 103 at Severance Hall, scheduled to begin in September. Here’s what patrons can look forward to.

The Cleveland Orchestra
2020-21 Season at Severance Hall

Thursday, September 17, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, September 19, 2020 at 8:00 p.m.
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor, Yefim Bronfman, piano

STRAVINSKY  Concerto in D (for strings)
BEETHOVEN  Piano Concerto No. 2
SCRIABIN  Symphony No. 2 [Read more…]

Severance Hall dark, but Cleveland Orchestra plays on over WCLV

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by Daniel Hathaway

Continuing its long-time partnership with WCLV 104.9 Ideastream, The Cleveland Orchestra is launching a new series, “Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra,” to be aired on weekdays from 12 Noon until 1:00 pm beginning on Monday, April 6. Listen at 104.9 FM or online. As Orchestra CEO André Gremillet wrote in a press release, “Music can lift spirits and inspire hope for the future…We hope these lunchtime presentations will provide you with some musical nourishment for your soul — and a respite from each day’s challenges.”

The April 6 program will include archive recordings of Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80, Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, and Mozart’s Symphony No. 28 in C, K. 200. Franz Welser-Möst conducts. The programs will be accompanied by a brief overview of the music as well as interviews with Welser-Möst and Orchestra musicians. See our Concert Listings on Monday for details of next week’s programs. WCLV will continue its 8:00 pm Saturday and 4:00 pm Sunday broadcasts featuring previous Cleveland Orchestra performances.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus: Mendelssohn & Křenek (Mar. 5)

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by Timothy Robson

Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra presented a very unlikely pairing of musical works this weekend at Severance Hall, Ernst Křenek’s austere and modernist Static and Ecstatic, Op. 214, sharing the program with Felix Mendelssohn’s joyous, life-affirming Lobgesang (“Song of Praise”), Op. 52. In Mendelssohn’s mashup of symphony and cantata, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus continued their upward trajectory of excellence, joined by soloists Christina Landshamer and Martina Janková, sopranos, and Julian Prégardien, tenor. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra guest conductors lead memorable Concerts (Feb. 23 & 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Michael Tilson Thomas succeeded Herbert Blomstedt as music director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995. In a nice coincidence, Blomstedt turned the tables last month, following Tilson Thomas on the Severance Hall podium during adjacent weeks in February. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus: Martina Janková & Lisa Wong talk about Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang

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by Daniel Hathaway

The artistic planners at Severance Hall have taken profit of soprano Martina Janková’s current visit to Cleveland to create a mini-Mendelssohn festival. Janková appeared with Vinay Parmareswaren and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Chorus on Sunday evening, March 1 in the motet Hör mein Bitten, and will be featured as a soloist in Lobgesang on March 5, 7, and 8 with The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus led by Franz Welser-Möst.

“I feel at home in Cleveland with my beloved orchestra. I think they are the best in the world,” the Swiss soprano said in a telephone conversation. She’s had plenty of opportunity to get to know the ensemble, having starred in three Mozart operas, sung the title roles in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (twice) and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, and most recently appeared as soloist in Schubert’s Mass in E-flat.

The opportunity to revisit the Mendelssohn motet was nostalgic for Janková. “It was like coming back to my roots. I began my study at the Basel Academy of Music with Hör mein Bitten twenty years ago.” [Read more…]

Michael Tilson Thomas returns to Severance Hall as composer & conductor

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by Mike Telin

Since winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood in 1969, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas’ celebrated career has been well documented. His relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra dates back to August of 1974, when he led two programs at Blossom Music Center. He made his Severance Hall debut in November of 1978 —  his most recent appearance was in March of 2018.

On Thursday, February 20 at 7:30 pm, Michael Tilson Thomas will return to the Severance Hall podium to lead performances of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as well as his own Meditations on Rilke, featuring mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and bass-baritone Dashon Burton. The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

“I recently heard Cleveland give a staggeringly virtuoso performance of Mahler 5 and I’m eager to make some great music with them,” Thomas said by telephone from Miami, where he founded the New World Symphony in 1987 and serves as its artistic director. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Fridays@7 with Philippe Herreweghe (Feb. 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Cleveland Orchestra — or at least half of it — marked Valentine’s Day with a straight-through, 50-minute concert led by Belgian early music guru Philippe Herreweghe. The February 14 performance, marketed as a romantic evening of orchestral classics, played to a packed house (marketing works!). [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Mälkki & Josefowicz (Feb. 8)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Music is said to be a universal language, but it does speak with different accents. When you’re playing music by Jean Sibelius, it’s helpful to have a Finnish conductor on the podium, which is what made Susanna Mälkki’s pair of Cleveland Orchestra concerts so lucid and communicative earlier this month. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: a conversation with violinist Leila Josefowicz

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by Mike Telin

Over the past ten years the adventurous violinist Leila Josefowicz and The Cleveland Orchestra have treated Northeast Ohio audiences to captivating performances of contemporary masterpieces. 2010 saw Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto, which was followed by John Adams’ Violin Concerto (2011), Thomas Adès’ Concentric Paths (2016), and Adams’ Scheherazade.2 (2018).

On Thursday, February 8 at 7:30 pm, Josefowicz will return to Severance Hall to join conductor Susanna Mälkki in paying tribute to their mentor and friend Oliver Knussen with a performance of the late composer/conductor’s Violin Concerto. The concert will also include Sibelius’ En Saga and Symphony No. 1. The program will be repeated on Saturday, February 8 at 8:00 pm. [Read more…]

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