by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:00 pm – Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concert. CSU Percussion Ensemble. Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Free.

7:30 pm – CIM Insiders. Ilya Kaler, violin and Daniel Shapiro, piano. Mozart’s Sonata in A, K. 305, Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 1, and Strauss’ Violin Sonata in E-flat. Mixon Hall, 11021 East Blvd., Cleveland. Free.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

By Mike Telin

On March 18, 1927, legendary composer of musical theater John Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, Oberlin organ major Owen Reyda plays works by Juan Cabanilles, Robert Schumann & August Gottfried Ritter’s Sonata No. 3 on the Tuesday Noon Organ Plus series at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

At 5:30 pm, Fairmount Presbyterian’s Rush Hour Concerts presents soprano Andrea Walker, soprano, and pianist Mikhail Grazhdanov in Winds of Spring: Songs by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. 2757 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Heights.

And tonight at 7:30 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason plays Beethoven’s “Moonlight” & “Waldstein” Sonatas, Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, and Dobrinka Tabakova’s Nocturne & Halo.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Here are some classical music playlists to mark St. Patrick’s Day, honoring the patron saint of Ireland, who departed this life on this date in 461. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

MARCH 13 – FRIDAY

7:00 pm – No Exit New Music. Cleveland Renaissance: Art of the Cleveland School. An exploration of one of Cleveland’s greatest artistic legacies through music and poetry. World premiere musical works along with new poetic creations. Praxis Fiber Workshop. Repeated on Saturday at 7 at SPACES.

7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Elim Chan, conducts, with Michael Sachs, trumpet (pictured). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. Repeated on Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3.

MARCH 14 – SATURDAY

3:00 pm – Cleveland Silent Film Festival. A May Tale (1926). Live original score compiled from Central European folk music and performed by the Harmonia Ensemble in the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium at the Main Cleveland Public Library.

7:30 pm – The Resonance Project. Chez Madame Singer: Portraits en Trio. The Poiema Trio presents an evening of French chamber music chez Madame Singer, whose Parisian salon fostered nearly all the great French composers of the 20th century. Forest Hill Church.

MARCH 15 – SUNDAY

3:30 pm – Western Reserve Chorale presents Mozart: Celebration and Solemnity at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights.

4:00 pm – Singers Companye performs music from 17th & 18th Century European Chapels at Faith Lutheran Church, Fairlawn.

7:00 pm – CityMusic Cleveland plays chamber music by Clint Needham and Béla Bartók at Praxis Fiber Workshop.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

For details of these and other performances, please visit our Concert Listings page.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

March 13: Austrian composer Hugo Wolf, most celebrated for his many Lieder, was born on this date in 1860 in Windisch. 127 years later, British pianist Gerald Moore died on March 13, 1987. Though composer and pianist obviously never met, we can conjoin their landmark dates today through German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with whom Moore recorded Wolf’s Mörike Lieder — nearly two hours worth of music. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7 pm, No Exit New Music presents Cleveland Renaissance: Art of the Cleveland School at Praxis Fiber Workshop, and at 7:30 pm, guest conductor Elim Chan (pictured) begins her two weekends with The Cleveland Orchestra leading Igor Stravinsky’s Suite from Pulcinella, Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto with Michael Sachs, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Both concerts are repeated through Sunday.

For details of these and other performances, please visit our Concert Listings page.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On March 12, 1837, French organist and composer Alexandre Guilmant was born in Meudon. Titulaire of La Trinité for 30 years (Messiaen held the post even longer beginning in 1931), Guilmant founded Paris’s Schola Cantorum, taught Marcel Dupré at the Paris Conservatory, and left a large legacy of works for the organ — his sole compositional interest. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, the Poiesis Quartet brings its Oberlin Commission Project: “Love Letters” to Warner Concert Hall. This evening of music by QTPOC (Queer/Trans People of Color) composers, features world premieres by Maya Irizarry Lambright, Calvin Ray Shawler, Zola Saadi-Klein, Daniel Lasagna, and Max Lang. Come early for a 7 pm pre-concert talk with violinist Sarah Ma and the five composers.

In Gartner Auditorium at the same hour, the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts jazz-meets-rock piano virtuoso Tigran Hamasyan, who fuses improvisation and progressive rock with the rich folkloric music of his native Armenia.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

March 11 is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to celebrating birthdays. There’s composer Henry Cowell (Menlo Park, California) in 1897, accordionist and orchestra leader Lawrence Welk (Strasburg, North Dakota) in 1903, composer Xavier Montsalvatge (Girona, Spain) in 1912, composer and bandleader Mercer Ellington (Washington D.C.) in 1919, and vocalist and conductor Bobby McFerrin (New York, N.Y.) in 1950.

But wait, there’s one more. Today we celebrate the birth of Astor Piazzolla in Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1921. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at 12 Noon, organist Andrew Johnson plays works by Hugo Distler, Dietrich Buxtehude, Vincent Persichetti, Louis Vierne, and Horatio Parker at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

And tonight at 7:30 pm, Daniel Sáñez, principal organist for the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia, plays a recital on the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

NEWS BRIEFS:

R.I.P. Bernard Rands, 92

The Chicago-based, British American composer left a catalog of 100 works. His wife, Augusta Read Thomas, a prolific composer herself, survives him. Read the Violin Channel obituary here.

 

Hoopes to join CIM faculty

Violinist Chad Hoopes, an alum of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program, will join the faculty of his alma mater as an associate professor of violin. Beginning in Fall 2026, he will take on a limited number of students as he maintains his studio at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Read more here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Pablo de Sarasate, who was born on March 10, 1844, is known for his virtuosic and pure-toned violin playing, as well as the pieces he wrote to show it off. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS DIGEST:

Douglas McLennan, formerly an arts columnist and arts reporter with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Weekly, has begun summing up the latest news in his daily ArtsJournal Newsletter. A lot is happening all at once, and here’s what he has to say today:

“The Met Opera is the largest performing arts company in the country, and it is quietly desperate — box-office receipts down $20 million from a decade ago, deficits mounting, and no obvious fix in sight (The New York Times). The Boston Symphony, meanwhile, just fired its music director, and the postmortem is not gentle: Andris Nelsons is being held up as the cautionary symbol of the “overstretched, overtired, overindulged modern music director” (The New York Times). Big institutions, big problems.

“The Toronto Film Critics Association is effectively in freefall after an Indigenous filmmaker’s pro-Palestine acceptance speech was cut from a broadcast. She returned her trophy, the president resigned, and 16 members have quit — with more weighing it (The Hollywood Reporter). The Voice of America got better news: a federal judge ruled Kari Lake’s appointment invalid, potentially reinstating more than 1,000 journalists and restoring broadcasts to China, Russia, and Iran (The New York Times).

“And then there’s Timothée Chalamet, who declared that nobody cares about opera and ballet. Opera and ballet companies responded by posting sold-out notices and offering discount ticket codes in his name (NBC). Somebody cares.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

British-American composer Anna Clyne was born in London on this date in 1980. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS;

On Friday evening at 7:30, concertmaster Alan Choo takes Apollo’s Fire to Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles for works written for the court of the Sun King by Lully, Marais, and Rameau. The second and third of four performances take place on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Hts., and the fourth on Sunday at 4 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church..

On Friday at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, James Feddeck conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven Lives Upstairs. The program, designed especially for ages 7-12, features a lively exchange of letters between young Christoph and his uncle about the “madman” who has moved into the upstairs apartment of Christoph’s Vienna home.

On Friday evening at 8, Oberlin Opera Theater raises the curtain on two one-act operas by John Musto, directed by Scott Skiba and conducted by Timothy Weiss. Later the Same Evening is set in a single evening in 1932 Manhattan and brings to life the characters and scenes from five Edward Hopper paintings. Bastianello wraps itself around an amusing series of encounters derived from several versions of an old Italian folk tale. Repeated on Saturday at 8 & Sunday at 2.

On Saturday at 2:30 in Warner Concert hall, the Oberlin Conservatory will present a memorial tribute for the late voice professor Daune Mahy, who taught there for 39 years. Details here.

On Saturday evening at 7:30, Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, a frequent guest, returns to the Mandel Concert Hall podium at Severance Music Center to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 3, and Vítĕzslava Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta. Repeated Sunday at 3.

On Saturday at 7:30 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Vietnamese-born classical guitarist An Tran, now based in Chicago, makes his Cleveland debut on the Cleveland Classical Society’s International Series. His program includes world premieres from his new recording, Illumina.

And on Sunday at 4:30 in Finney Chapel, organist James O’Donnell will play the annual David Boe Memorial Recital honoring the ninth Dean of the Conservatory, who taught at Oberlin from 1962 to 2008.

For details of these and other performances, visit our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

On March 6, 1967, Hungarian ethnomusicologist, educator and composer Zoltán Kodály passed away in Budapest. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, a frequent guest, returns to the Mandel Concert Hall podium at Severance Music Center to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 3, and Vítĕzslava Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta. Repeated Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3.

Tonight at 7:30, concertmaster Alan Choo takes Apollo’s Fire to Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles for works written for the court of the Sun King by Lully, Marais, and Rameau. The first of four performances is at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron, repeated on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Hts., and Sunday at 4 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church..

And tonight at 8 in Hall Auditorium, Oberlin Opera Theater raises the curtain on two one-act operas by John Musto, directed by Scott Skiba and conducted by Timothy Weiss. Later the Same Evening is set in a single evening in 1932 Manhattan and brings to life the characters and scenes from five Edward Hopper paintings. Bastianello wraps itself around an amusing series of encounters derived from several versions of an old Italian folk tale. Repeated Friday & Saturday at 8 & Sunday at 2.

For details of these and other performances, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will release a new spatial audio recording on April 17 celebrating their creative partnership with composer and flutist Allison Loggins-Hull. [Read more…]