by Daniel Hathaway
When Hedy Milgrom’s mother and relatives emerged from a cattle car at the Auschwitz concentration camp, the first thing they saw and heard was an orchestra playing on the train platform. “My mom turned to her sister and said, ‘See, there’s an orchestra here. There’s music. They’re playing violin. How bad could it be?’ Very bad, as they found out within minutes.”
That orchestra was the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, to be commemorated by the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra in a free concert on Sunday, December 6 at 3:00 pm in Kangesser Hall at The Park Synagogue. Robert Cronquist will conduct music by Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Erich Korngold, and Frédéric Chopin in a performance narrated by WCLV president Robert Conrad. Hedy Milgrom, who is vice-president for endowments and development at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, will share some personal reflections. [Read more…]
There was no need for Opera Circle Cleveland’s collaborative production of The Bartered Bride to try to break down the “fourth wall” between performers and audience at Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall on Sunday afternoon, October 25: the wall never went up in the first place. As the audience arrived, cast members were already milling about in the auditorium and its corridors, brightly attired in Czech folk costumes, and greeting friends and family. Carrying their instrument cases, members of the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra threaded their way through the throng, and the young acrobats who would appear in the third act were enjoying pastries in the snack bar. It felt like a big family reunion. 
Sometimes one simply must wait for the right time to assemble all of the collaborators necessary in order to bring an opera production to fruition.
What may be the largest group of Cleveland cultural institutions ever to circle their wagons around a single project will come into play this fall when Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Cleveland Orchestra, Facing History and Ourselves, Ideastream, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage join together to present Violins of Hope Cleveland.
Three years after his first solo appearance with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, violinist Michael Ferri will return to Severance Hall to help the ensemble celebrate its 80th birthday with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on Sunday, April 26 at 3:30 pm.
In its 79 years as an organization, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra has invited many young soloists to perform with the ensemble, sometimes giving them their first opportunity to play with an orchestra.
