by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight the Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra, led by Douglas Droste, features soprano Kate Tiemens in Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, a nostalgic setting of words by James Agee (7:30 in Gamble Auditorium)

Also tonight, British composer/conductor Thomas Adès (pictured) joins mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in the U.S. premiere of the co-commission America: A Prophecy, plus Jean Sibelius’s The Oceanides, Kaija Saariaho’s Oltra Mar, and Charles Ives’ Orchestral Set No. 2 (7:30 at Severance Music Center, repeated at 8 pm Saturday). Read a preview interview with Sasha Cooke here.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other forthcoming concerts.

LOCAL HEADLINES:

CIM’s concert calendar expands with the launch of a new conductor-less chamber orchestra. Read the Cleveland Institute of Music press release here.

The Cleveland Orchestra to display costumes from Marvel Studios’ Black Panther and perform live film score. Read the Cleveland Orchestra News story here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

• 12 Noon – Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concert. Five Lakes Chinese Music Ensemble.

• 7:30 pm – Drummer and bandleader Nate Smith fuses his original compositions with everything from jazz and R&B to hip-hop and pop in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other forthcoming concerts.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One of the few items to pop up on a search for events that took place on this day in classical music history was the death of Italian madrigalist Orazio Vecchi in 1605 at the age of 54 in Modena. That got me thinking about alternative ways of observing some historic milestones. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, organist Daesean Lawson (pictured) plays works by J.G. Walther, J.S. Bach, & Fela Sowande on the Tuesday Noon series at the Church of the Covenant. Click here for the live stream.

And tonight at 7:30 in Stull Recital Hall, Oberlin Conservatory presents Linking Legacies with tenor Cornelius Johnson, violinist John McLaughlin Williams, cellist Khari Joyner, & pianist Diana White-Gould in music by Joyner, James Lee III, Ulysses Kay, H. Leslie Adams, Dolores White, Margaret Bonds, & Uzee Brown Jr., plus the traditional spiritual, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other forthcoming concerts.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

February 18 marks the birth of Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos in Athens in 1896. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

On this Presidents’ Day holiday, Heights Arts is holding an Open Rehearsal of its forthcoming program, Bach and his Art of Fugue, featuring The Blossom Quartet (Stephen Tavani and Yun-Ting Lee, violins, William Bender, viola, and Dane Johansen, cello). It happens at Heights Arts at 3 pm, and admission is pay-what-you-can.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other forthcoming concerts.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Leaving little time for rehearsals after finishing a piece of music is a classic move throughout the history of composers. But for some reason it doesn’t always turn out well.

Such was the misfortune of Giacomo Puccini with Madama Butterfly, which was premiered in its original version on this date in 1904 at La Scala in Milan. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Fifteen events are in the works for these two days, many in celebration of Valentine’s Day Weekend!

On Saturday:

BW Opera presents Speed Dating Tonight! (3 pm in Gartner Auditorium at CMA, repeated at 7 pm & Sunday at 3 pm), Cleveland Jazz Orchestra marks the weekend with Sinatra and Gershwin (7 pm, Music Box Supper Club), Wayne Center for the Arts presents Jinjoo Cho, violin, Max Geissler, cello, and Hyunsoo Kim, piano (7 pm in Wooster), Firelands Symphony plays love songs (7:30 pm, Sawmill Creek in Huron), the Youngstown Symphony presents Shakespeare in Love (7:30 in Stambaugh Auditorium), and Fabio Luisi conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Silvia Colasanti’s Time’s Cruel Hand with countertenor Tim Mead (Thursday’s performance pictured above by Roger Mastroianni), and Bruckner’s Seventh (8 pm at Severance).

On Sunday:

BW Opera repeats Speed Dating Tonight! (3 pm in Gartner Auditorium at CMA), Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Youth Chorus give their Winter Concert (3 pm at Severance), Sounds of St. James presents a Festival of Sacred Music (3 pm, St. James, Lakewood), Heights Chamber Orchestra features oboist Frank Rosenwein (3:30, Gilmour Academy), CIM New Music Ensemble plays music by Margaret Brouwer (4 pm in Mixon Hall), the Covenant Sunday Artist Series hosts French organist Vincent Grappy (4 pm, Church of the Covenant), Canton Symphony spotlights violinist Konrad Kowal (3 pm, Zimmerman Symphony Center), and The Cleveland Orchestra plays scores by John Williams led by Keith Lockhart (7:30 at Severance).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other forthcoming concerts.

INTERESTING READS:

The current turmoil at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. has engendered considerable news coverage and commentary, but many articles are sequestered behind paywalls and accessible only to subscribers. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Happy Valentine’s Day, that feast day in the early Christian calendar that originally celebrated two martyrs, but through mysterious processes like the medieval tradition of courtly love, has transmogrified into a festival celebrating human love and passion — and has become a boon for the greeting card, chocolate, and flower industry.

Live performances today include the Cassatt Quartet with Emely Phelps, piano (4:30 pm, Oberlin’s Kulas Hall), Stars in the Classics presents “Love Is in the Air” (6 pm, Cleveland Museum of Art Atrium), Baldwin Wallace Conservatory Opera presents Michael Ching’s humorous one-act opera Speed Dating Tonight! (7 pm in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art), No Exit Presents John Faieta, trombone (7 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State), and Keith Lockhart leads The Cleveland Orchestra in music of John Williams (7:30 at Severance Music Center).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Valentine’s Day deserves a celebratory playlist, and the classical repertory is rich with possibilities. We like the one proposed by The Guardian’s Tom Service more than a decade ago. Click here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra plays at Severance Music Center under Dallas Symphony music director Fabio Luisi (pictured). The Orchestra joins countertenor Tim Mead in the U.S. premiere of Silvia Colasanti’s Time’s Cruel Hand and will mightily move the air in Mandel Concert Hall with Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 (repeated on Saturday at 8).

Note: the previously announced performance by the CIM Orchestra in Elyria is not happening today.

HEADLINES IN THE NEWS:

Trump Made Chair of Kennedy Center as Its President Is Fired (NY Times)

The president solidified his grip on the performing arts complex as the center’s longtime president, Deborah F. Rutter, was fired. Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

February 13 marked the baptism of Spanish composer Fernando Sor in Barcelona in 1778, the final curtain call of German composer Richard Wagner in Bayreuth in 1883, and the birth of American composer George Kleinsinger in 1914. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS;

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced that this season’s Summers at Severance concerts will take place on July 10, 17, 31 and August 21.

Conductors will include Marie Jacquot, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Christoph Koncz, and Dima Slobodeniouk. Violinist Randall Goosby and pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii will be the featured soloists.

Read a press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

This is one of those rare days without any live classical events in Northeast Ohio to promote. But there are four historic figures in classical music to raise up, and an important first performance to put into context.

American composer Roy Harris was born on this date in 1898 in Chandler, Oklahoma. With the help of Aaron Copland, Harris studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and went on to write numerous works on American themes. His big breakthrough was his Third Symphony, captured here in a live performance by Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra in 2010. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 5:30 pm, saxophonist Tyler Young, and pianist William Hueholt play a free Rush Hour Concert of Music by Paganini, Saint-Saëns, and Jacob Nance (a world premiere) at Fairmount Presbyterian in Cleveland Hts.

And this evening at 7:30, Cleveland Chamber Music Society hosts the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Disciples Church for a program of Spanish music in collaboration with the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society (pictured: guitarist Jason Vieaux with soprano Vanessa Becerra).

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

On February 11, 1847, inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. Of course, Edison is responsible for inventing many things that make our lives more pleasant, including the incandescent light bulb, the motion picture camera, and the fluoroscope, as well as improving the telegraph and telephone. Click here to view a list of his numerous patents. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

St. Olaf Choir stops in at Severance Music Center on its annual tour tonight at 7:30. Conducted for nearly four decades by Anton Armstrong, the Northfield, Minnesota college choir preserves the rich tradition of Scandinavian Lutheran choral ensembles. The choir will be assisted by faculty violinist and violist Charles Gray and the St. Olaf Chamber Orchestra.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

At Saturday’s Tri-C performance by jazz organist Matthew Whitaker, festival director Terri Pontremoli announced the indoor lineup for the 46th Annual Tri-C JazzFest to be presented by KeyBank from June 26 – 28 in Playhouse Square. [Read more…]