by Jarrett Hoffman

ON THE WEB TODAY:

Les Délices continues its SalonEra series with “Jewish Diaspora.” Daphna Mor (recorders, voice, ney) will share how she has incorporated Jewish liturgical music into her performing life and will demonstrate the art of piyut, an oral tradition around ancient Hebrew liturgical texts set to different tunes. And performer/musicologist Elizabeth Weinfield will discuss her research into Leonora Duarte, locating that Jewish converso composer within the broader history of the Jewish Diaspora following the Spanish Inquisition.

The program begins at 7:30 pm and will remain available for 48 hours. It’s free, but a $10 donation is suggested to support the artists — register here. 

The focus of that episode is obviously Jewish culture and history. But given the star trio of Mor, Weinfield, and host Debra Nagy, as well as the potent 17th-century music of Duarte, it’s also not a bad way to kick off…

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH:

Perhaps the best place to start in recommending events this month is CityMusic Cleveland, which has devoted its entire 2020-21 season — titled “Celebrating Women’s Rights to Vote and Create” — to commemorating the centenary of the 19th Amendment.

Included in the ensemble’s program booklets for every concert this season (here’s one from January) is an excellent overview of the history of women in music. That section concludes thus:

As with women’s suffrage, it has taken far too long for the creative voices of half the world’s population to be properly heard. The progress to overcome that prejudice has been remarkable, but the struggle for all human rights continues.

The writer points out that still, after decades, the Equal Rights Amendment — which states that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” — awaits action from Congress in order to be ratified to the Constitution.

CityMusic Cleveland’s recognition of the centenary of the 19th Amendment is therefore both a celebration of how much has been accomplished and how much still remains to be done.

The next program from CityMusic, “New Voices,” includes music by three living composers — Jessie Montgomery, Denise Ondishko, and Elena Ruehr — as well as the Romantic-era figure of Amy Beach. Violinists Susan Britton and Eunho Kim, violist Yael Senemaud-Cohen, and cellist Sophie Benn will share that music in a live stream on March 19, and in-person on March 20 at Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, both at 7:00 pm.

That makes a nice pairing with Les Délices, which, fittingly as an early music group, will showcase composers from a different era of history. The SalonEra “Women in Music” (March 15 at 7:30) features the works of Maddalena Sirmen, Barbara Strozzi, Isabella Leonarda, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, and Clara Schumann, with the help of featured guests Byron Schenkman (harpsichord), Shelby Yamin (violin), and Michele Kennedy (soprano).

Moving to their main Concert Series, “Women of Genius” (premiering March 18 at 7:30) will center around female poets, performers, and composers of 17th- and 18th-century France “who not only made their voices heard but exerted a stronger cultural influence than many realize.” Soprano Clara Rottsolk joins the ensemble for this program that includes music by Julie Pinel and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre.

Topping things off is another entry in the SalonEra series. Women’s history is not the main theme of “Medieval Visions” (March 29), but a large part of that program will focus on Christine de Pizan, who championed equal rights for women and challenged misogyny in her writing, “envisioning a feminist utopia” in her famous text The Book of The City of Ladies — written in 1405.

And in the non-musical category, womenshistorymonth.gov can connect you to several online exhibitions on the role of women in American history, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, National Park Service, Library of Congress, the National Archives, and other institutions.

IN THE NEWS:

Two artists with Cleveland connections were recently featured in The New York Times. First, among that publication’s classical streaming picks for the month of March is the Young Concert Artists (YCA) debut recital on March 10 by saxophonist and composer Steven Banks. The former Baldwin Wallace Conservatory professor recently previewed his YCA program in an appearance on the Rocky River Chamber Music Society series (read our review here).

And in an article about pianist Mahani Teave — “likely the only professional classical performer” from Rapa Nui, Chile, also known as Easter Island — writer Thomas May makes a passing reference to Northeast Ohio, noting that Teave studied in Berlin and in Cleveland. In fact, she left quite a mark on the area, winning the 2004 Concerto Competition at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a master’s student of Sergei Babayan, and gaining a number of local fans based on both her personality and her playing. That begs the question: who’s booking her to come back and perform?

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Italian organist and composer Girolamo Frescobaldi died on March 1, 1643, but otherwise, this date in history brings several birthdays to recognize. The most famous names are probably Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810), Cuban composer Leo Brouwer (1939), and British composer/pianist Thomas Adès (1971). We’ll focus instead on two American composers: Cleveland-born Elliott Sharp (born in 1951) and Los Angeles-born Laura Karpman (1959).

Sharp has made a name for himself in the avant-garde and experimental scenes of New York City since the late 1970s. The 2014 Guggenheim Fellow has released over 85 recordings in a variety of genres, from contemporary classical to jazz, orchestral, noise, and electronic music. Click here to watch him perform his own partly improvised solo guitar work Momentum Anomaly, which features a number of fascinating sounds just a couple of minutes in.

Karpman, a five-time Emmy-winner, has written music for the concert hall as well as for television, film, video games, and theater. Perhaps her most famous work is Ask Your Mama, a multimedia opera featuring Langston Hughes’ cycle of poems of the same name. It also makes powerful use of Hughes’ own voice. The opera was released as a recording that went on to win two Grammy Awards in 2016, and can be listened to through a playlist on YouTube.

A champion for women in music, in 2014 Karpman co-founded the Alliance for Women Film Composers, and two years later became the first American woman composer to be inducted into the music branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. She is currently serving as the first female governor of that branch.

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society has posted the latest Front Row National program from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center featuring violinist Arnaud Sussmann with pianists Hyeyeon Park and Wu Han, violinists Francisco Fullana, Bella Hristova and Kristin Lee, violists Yura Lee and Richard O’Neill, cellists Dmitri Atapine and Nicholas Canellakis, bassist Xavieer Foley, and flutists Sooyun Kim and Tara Helen O’Connor, flutes. You can summon up J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 and Ernest Chausson’s Concerto in D for violin, piano and string quartet for free any time you like through March 2.

In more news from the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, two forthcoming concerts have now been cancelled due to the pandemic: the Takács Quartet on March 16 and the Pavel Hass Quartet on April 13.

Also online on Friday: the CIM Orchestra, saxophonist Howie Smith at the Bop Stop, and Stile Antico sponsored by the Boston Early Music Festival.

Saturday’s lineup includes Australian artist Stephanie Jones on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series (pre-recorded), and the Cleveland Orchestra’s archived performance of Hansel and Gretel.

Sunday brings a Close Encounter from Heights Arts, the final Oberlin Black History Month event — a faculty recital — and, in case you missed it the first time around, a rebroadcast of CIM’s Music for Food benefit concert.

Details about these performances are to be found in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

February 26 saw the births of French Bohemian composer Anton Reicha (Prague, in 1770, who went on to teach Liszt, Berlioz and Franck at the Paris Conservatory and write early wind quintets) and English composer Frank Bridge (Brighton 1879, who taught Benjamin Britten), as well as the death of Italian composer Giuseppi Tartini (Padua, 1770, the first known owner of a Stradivari violin and author of the “Devil’s Trill” Sonata which still frightens modern fiddlers).

And Howard Hanson, American conductor, composer, and longtime director of the Eastman School of Music, died on this date in 1981 in Rochester, NY.

An unrepentant Romantic, Hanson left a legacy of expressive works that deserve more performances than they receive these days. His Second Symphony, subtitled “Romantic” sets the tone here in a performance by the Peabody Symphony led by Joseph Young.

Flutist Erika Boysen illustrates a performance of his Serenade for flute, harp, and strings with American artwork here, and organist Thomas Sheehan is featured in his Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Harp in a concert from Harvard’s Memorial Church led by University Organist Edward Elwyn Jones.

And here’s a performance of Hanson’s mystical Cherubic Hymn led by the composer.

On February 26 of 2013, French organist Marie-Claire Alain made her sortie at the age of 86 in the Paris suburb of Le Pecq. She succeeded her father as organist of the church of Sain-Germain-en-Laye, playing there for 40 years. 

Among her 260 recordings are three complete cycles of the works of J.S. Bach. Watch a brief documentary here, and hear her perform his Fantasia in G (aka Pièce d’Orgue) here. And be a fly on the wall as she gives a lesson to a Czech organ student in 2006.

Some big names to mention for February 27: Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, born either on the 27th or the 25th in 1873 in Naples, Russian composer Alexander Borodin, who died during a ballroom concert in St. Petersburg in 1887, German soprano Lotte Lehmann, born in Perleberg in 1883, and Texas pianist Van Cliburn, who lost his struggle with bone cancer in Fort Worth in 2013 at the age of 78.

Cliburn helped take the chill off the Cold War in 1958 when he won the inaugural Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow. Cheered by Muscovites and given the first New York ticker tape parade for a classical musician when he returned to the U.S., Cliburn founded his own competition in his hometown of Fort Worth later that year.

Click here to listen to a live recording of his winning performance of Tchikovsky’s First Concerto. A 58-minute film by Peter Rosen on Medici-TV documents that event for subscribers (watch a free trailer here).

To wrap up an eventful weekend in the milestones department, Gioachino Rossini was born on February 29 in 1792 (we’ll relax the date criteria in this non-leap year). [Read more…]

by Mike Telin

Welcome to Thursday the 25th of February.

ON THE WEB TODAY:

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
— Charles Mingus

At 7:00 pm The Cleveland Orchestra debuts its In Focus Bonus Episode 2 featuring cellist Alicia Weilerstein in performances of J.S. Bach’s Six Solo Cello Suites, recorded live at Severance Hall in January, 2021. The concert is available to current subscribers and donors at no additional charge, or for Adella Premium subscribers on the Adella digital streaming app and adella live.

I think that the artists who don’t get involved in preaching messages probably are happier — but you see, I have to live with Nina, and that is very difficult. 
— Nina Simone

A half-hour later at 7:30 pm, Oberlin Black History Month: A Celebration of Black Artistry continues on Stage Left with a pre-recorded program hosted by associate professor of horn Jeff Scott. The evening features three of his own compositions as well as works by Ulysses Kay and Duke Ellington. The concert is free. Click here at start time.

Click here to read our interview with Scott where he talks about why it was important for him and his Imani Winds colleague, Mark Dover, to make an arrangement of Abel Meeropol’s classic Strange Fruit, a song made famous by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. He also talks about his admiration for Simone as an artist and as an outspoken critic of social injustices.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On February 25 in 1890, English pianist Dame Myra Hess was born in South Hampstead, London. She made her professional debut in 1907 playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham. Hess toured extensively throughout Britain, the Netherlands, and France and made her U.S. debut in New York City in 1922.

The pianist may be most remembered for her performances during The Blitz of World War II. During that time Hess organized nearly 2,000 lunchtime concerts in Trafalgar Square’s National Gallery. The concerts were held every Monday and Friday for six-and-a-half years. And every performer was paid five guineas for their services. In 1941 King George VI made Hess a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In addition to an active performing career, Hess was a dedicated teacher. One of her students was Clive Lythgoe, the long-time Dean of Faculty at Cleveland’s Music School Settlement.

Hess’s legacy lives on at the Chicago Cultural Center with its Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. The free lunchtime series is produced by Chicago’s International Music Foundation and broadcast live on WFMT and streamed on WFMT.com.

Click here to listen to an interview with Hess, and here for a performance of Chopin’s Waltz No. 1 in E flat Op. 18.

We also celebrate the birth of American composer and installation artist Maryanne Amacher, who entered this world in 1938 in Kane, Pennsylvania. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TUESDAY MUSICAL SCHEDULE CHANGES:

First the pandemic, and now the vaccination schedule for artists, has changed two dates in the spring lineup for Akron’s Tuesday Musical series, to be held in-person at E.J. Thomas Hall.

Bassist Edgar Meyer, originally scheduled for March 4, has moved to Tuesday, April 20, so that he can complete his COVID vaccine shots. Meyer’s concert will range from bluegrass to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1.

Chanticleer, originally scheduled for April 20, has moved to Tuesday, July 27, to give the San Francisco-based “Orchestra of Voices” more time to rehearse together in person.

The remaining three concerts will proceed as scheduled: pianist Emanuel Ax on March 25, clarinetist Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet on May 4, and the Sphinx Virtuosi on May 26. Visit the TMA website for health protocol details and other information.

CIM’S MUSIC FOR FOOD:

The annual Music for Food concert, sponsored by the student government association of  the Cleveland Institute of Music and featuring both faculty and student performers, will be performed online this year. All proceeds will go to the Kosher Food Bank. The concert will originally be live-streamed from CIM on February 24 at 7 pm. This performance will be repeated on Music for Food’s YouTube channel on the 28th at 7:30 pm and on The Violin Channel’s VC Live on March 2 at 5 pm. Details about performers, repertoire, and how to donate here.

ON THE WEB TODAY — iCELLISTI:

Round Two of the Cleveland Cello Society’s “iCellisti! 2021” tonight at 7:00 pm features cellists Sharon Robinson, Dmitry Kouzov, and Dane Johansen with pianists Anita Pontremoli, Yulia Fedosseva, and Evan Solomon in an all-Beethoven event: his Sonata in g, Op. 5, No. 2 (Robinson and Pontremoli), Sonata in A, Op. 69 (Kouzov and Fedosseva), and Sonata in D, Op. 102, No. 2 (Johansen and Solomon), live streamed from the Bop Stop. Click here at start time. Free but donations welcome.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There are two major British composers to celebrate today, one adopted, the other very much a native of “England’s green and pleasant land.”

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Saxony on February 23, 1685. Details of his life are so well known — except perhaps his recently documented financial involvement with the slave trade — that a few random references may be welcome.

Like the British monarch at the time, Handel’s native tongue was German, which didn’t prevent him from becoming an English musical icon — but still gave him a bit of trouble when composing. In his book Handel, Christopher Hogwood relates this story told by John Taylor in 1832:

I heard [Morell] say that one fine morning he was roused out of bed at five o’clock by Handel, who came in his carriage a short distance from London. The doctor went to the window and spoke to Handel, who would not leave his carriage. Handel was at the time composing an oratorio. When the doctor asked him what he wanted, he said, ‘What de devil means de word billow?’ which was in the [libretto of the] oratorio the doctor had written for him. The doctor, after laughing at so ludicrous a reason for disturbing him, told him that billow meant wave, a wave of the sea. ‘Oh, de vave,’ said Handel, and bade his coachman return, without addressing another word to the doctor.

In 1723, Handel moved into rooms at 25 Brook Street in Mayfair, where he remained until his death in 1759. Some 230 years later, Jimi Hendrix moved into No. 23, and now you can visit a joint museum featuring the two musicians. Imagine if those two had been occupying adjacent digs at the same time.

When tastes changed away from Handel’s main source of income, Italian opera, he applied his dramatic gifts to oratorio. One of the most dramatic of those — and one that has in fact been performed as opera — is Belshazzar, performed here by René Jacobs and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday’s events feature violinist Leonidas Kavakos in his alter ego as conductor with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio featuring violinist Thomas Zehetmair in the Stravinsky Concerto, and Austin Chamber Music’s 18th Annual Black Composers Concert with four premieres and a celebration of the legacy of Samuel Coleridge Taylor.

Sunday’s schedule begins with 16 premieres in the latest Bang on a Can Marathon, and brings you no fewer than four pianists: Aaron Diehl (above) on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series playing music by Black composers, Leif Ove Andsnes from Georgia’s Spivey Hall, the sixth episode of Daniel Shapiro’s complete Beethoven cycle, and Daniil Trifonov from Baltimore’s Shriver Hall.

Details in our Concert Listings.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

Two debuts and two finales to celebrate on Saturday, beginning with the birth of Austrian pianist and composer Carl Czerny on February 20, 1791, who became one of Beethoven’s star pupils and was said to be able to play any of his master’s works from memory if merely requested by opus number. Czerny is remembered today chiefly for his piano etudes, but his more than 1,000 compositions include such interesting works as the Piano Concerto in C for Four Hands, Op. 153, and the Symphony No. 5 in E-flat. 

Belgian composer and violinist Henri Vieuxtemps was born on the 20th of February in 1820, and enjoyed an international touring career that included concerts in the United States before returning to Brussels and suffering a stroke in 1873. There, he was the teacher of Eugène Ysaÿe, and when Vieuxtemps returned to Paris, Henryk Wieniawski took over his class. A second stroke in 1879 ended his performing career.

Vieuxtemps was a prolific composer, but as might be expected, wrote chiefly for the violin. Watch Hilary Hahn here in a performance of his Fourth Concerto with Paarvo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (and stick around afterwards to enjoy two Bach encores).

Australian composer and pianist Percy Grainger left the scene on February 20, 1961 in White Plains, NY, at the age of 78. Grainger joined a group of musicians in a lifelong quest to rescue British and Scandinavian music from central European influences, largely through the use of folk music, though he also dabbled in mechanical music-making (including recording piano rolls of his compositions and arrangements.)

Among Grainger’s most popular arrangements are wind band versions of Lincolnshire Posy (listen here to the Cleveland State University Symphonic Wind Ensemble’s performance at a Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concert) and Irish Tune from County Derry (aka “Danny Boy,” performed here by the University of Michigan Symphonic Band). As a high schooler, I looked forward to hearing Irish Tune at the end of each of the University of Kansas summer music camp concerts, and still get the chills in the last verse when the horns suddenly soar out their counter melody.

And on February 20, 1996, Japanese composer Tōru Takemtsu died in Tokyo. His nature-based compositions are popular and frequently performed — especially at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Click on the links to listen to Water-ways, Rain Spell, Toward the Sea, and And Then I Knew ‘Twas Wind, and join the CIM New Music Ensemble live stream on February 28 for his Stanza II.

Sunday’s honorees begin with French organist and composer Charles-Marie Widor, born on February 21, 1844 in Lyon. Widor is most famous for the organ symphonies (really suites) he wrote during his tenure at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and among those, for the Toccata that closes out No. 5. But try out Widor’s Sixth Symphony, played here by Brian Wentzel on the new Paul Fritts organ in First Lutheran Church in Lorain. (Pressed for time? Fast forward to the finale at 31:25.)

And on February 21, 1996, American composer and arranger Morton Gould died in Orlando, FL at the age of 82. Active in all areas of stage, concert and commercial music, Gould served for a number of years as president of ASCAP. Start with an interview Gould conducted with conductor Leopold Stokowski — who championed his music — and listen to his Second Symphony in a vintage recording by the New York Philharmonic at its premiere in June, 1944. And for a taste of Gould’s expert arrangements, watch the U.S. Air Force Symphony perform his American Salute (based on “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”). Many of us will remember experiencing the work from the inside in high school orchestras and bands.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS AND ALMANAC:

CityMusic Cleveland and the CIM Orchestra both go online tonight, the former with chamber music by Villa-Lobos, Rebecca Clarke, Mozart, and Schumann, the latter with music by Peter Warlock and Grieg. And the Jupiter Quartet continues its series from the Krannert Center in Urbana-Champaign with works by Mendelssohn, Haydn, and Dan Visconti.

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.

Normally, we recommend recordings as tributes to those who have begun and ended careers on the date in question, but Vecchi suggests a more interactive approach. How about a madrigal sing-along?

Gather whatever voices live in your pod, click here, and have go at Vecchi’s alluring little canzonetta Fa una canzone. The performance comes with a scrolling score, and here’s a translation.

Write a song with no black notes
If you ever wanted my favour
REFRAIN: Write it so that it will bring me to sleep
Make it end sweetly, sweetly.

Don’t put any harshness into it
Because my ears are not used to that…
Don’t write numbers, or counterpoint
This is my main design…

Just a few comments. “Black notes” refers to the Italian nota nere practice that began around 1540 of denoting sad music with filled-in note heads. The speaker also doesn’t want expressive dissonance, figured bass indications, or polyphony. Keep it simple!

If you’re ready to move to something more challenging, Vecchi’s 1597 L’amfiparnaso — one of his full-length comedy entertainments made entirely out of madrigals — might be just the thing. A modern score is downloadable for free from the Petrucci Project, and a 2003 performance by I Fagiolini at England’s Darlington Hall (photo above), directed by Robert Hollingworth and narrated by Simon Callow is available here. It’s well worth an hour of your time, whether you choose to sing in with the cast or not.

Come to think of it, why not plan a madrigal sing for a few musically inclined friends once the health authorities signal all clear? You’ll find a lot of material on the Petrucci site, or you can search out copies of The A Cappella Singer, that collection of slightly Bowdlerized madrigals and part songs published by E.C. Schirmer in the 1930s, which was the bible for my high school madrigal group.

Or dialing things down slightly, host an evening of catches and rounds like I experienced in London back in the 70s when I swapped churches with an organist in Kensington and was invited to the monthly meeting of the Aldwych Catch Society. Its members gathered in a private home on a Sunday evening with their own manuscript collections of tunes and sang them lustily all evening — with a break for supper. The newly appointed 11 year-old Head Chorister at Chester Cathedral was inducted that evening and beamed when presented with his own blank book to fill up.

But there is one more historical event to mention: the birth of Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtág in Romania on February 19, 1926. Kurtág is often compared to Anton Webern for his proclivity for writing brief, epigrammatic pieces, like the 40 movements of his Kafka-Fragments and his highly miniaturized piano pieces.

In 2017, ChamberFest Cleveland violinists Alexei Kenney and Yura Lee and joined soprano Laura Eberwein in Kurtág’s “Like a Pathway in Autumn” from the Kafka Fragments (film by Kasumi), and pianists Zoltán Fejérvári and Roman Rabinovich performed selections from Játékok (“Games”).

by Mike Telin

Welcome to Thursday the 18th of February.

Thursday, or “Thor’s day,” gets its English name after the hammer-wielding Norse god of thunder, strength and protection. The Roman god Jupiter, as well as being the king of gods, was the god of the sky and thunder. “Thursday” comes from Old English “Þūnresdæg.” (Livescience.com)

Today’s events of note begin at noon on WCLV 104.9 Ideastream with “Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra.” Franz Welser-Möst conducts music by Brahms, Bruckner, and Debussy.

At 7:00 pm, the Local 4 Music Fund “Tuning In” series features George Pope, flute, Lisa Whitfield, viola, and Emily Laurence, harp, in a live-streamed performance from Pilgrim UCC. The playlist includes works by Arnold Bax, Joseph Boulogne (le Chevalier de Saint-Georges), Valerie Coleman, William Ferris, Claude Debussy, and Sydney Guillaume. (Free)

A half-hour later at 7:30 pm, Les Délices debuts “Games & Grounds.” The imaginative program includes Lully’s Chaconne from Phaëton, Marais’ Folies d’Espagne, Rebel’s Caprice and Caractères de la danse as well as musical versions of Aesop’s Fables in English translations by Larry Rosenwald. The ensemble is Debra Nagy, Baroque oboe, Julie Andrijeski, violin, Rebecca Reed, viola da gamba, Elena Mullins, dancer and soprano, and Jason McStoots, tenor. Read our preview here. (Tickets required)

Also at 7:30, Oberlin Stage Left streams a Black History Month Faculty Concert, hosted by Katherine Jolly. Performers include flutist Alexa Still, bassoonist Drew Pattison, pianist James Howsmon, organist Christa Rakich, and violists Peter Slowik and Kirsten Docter, as well as recent alums Troy Stevenson and Marlea Simpson, violas. The music is by Valerie Coleman, Allison Loggins-Hull, Maurice Arnold, Edmond Dédé, and William Grant Still. (Free)

See our Concert Listings for details.

In the latest edition of Conversations with Carl, Cleveland Pops director Carl Topilow catches up with baritone Michael Preacely. Click here to view on demand.

In other news, on Wednesday, March 3 at 5:30 pm, the Akron Black Artist Guild will hold a virtual event. Black artists and creatives are invited to join a discussion that includes questions such as: “What are our priorities? What do we need to achieve them? And how do we activate as a collective?” Click here to register.

The group is also seeking input and data. Black artists in Greater Akron are encouraged to submit responses to a short survey that will be used to inform plans for networking, advocacy, education, and collaboration for the Guild. Click here for more information.

We begin today’s Almanac by celebrating the birth of Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos in Athens in 1896.

The young Dimitri exhibited musical talents at an early age and by his early teens hosted Saturday afternoon concerts at his home.

He studied at the Athens Conservatory as well as in Brussels and Berlin, where his teachers included Ferruccio Busoni. During the early to mid ‘20s he assisted Erich Kleiber at the Berlin State Opera.

The conductor made his U.S. debut with the Boston Symphony in 1936, and from 1937 to 1949 he was principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now the Minnesota Orchestra). In 1949 he became co-conductor — with Leopold Stokowski — of the New York Philharmonic and in 1951 was named the Orchestra’s music director.

In addition to making numerous recordings for Columbia Records, Mitropoulos and the Philharmonic sought out new audiences by making appearances on television and giving performances at the Roxy Theatre.

During his tenure, he expanded the Philharmonic’s repertoire by commissioning new works and championing the symphonies of Mahler. Upon his departure in 1958, he was succeeded by his protégé, Leonard Bernstein. Click here to listen to Mitropoulos conduct the New York Philharmonic in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. [Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: CALENDAR ADDITIONS & ALBUM RELEASES

At the beginning of February, we recommended several events and attractions highlighting either Black History Month specifically, or Black musicians and composers in general. Some of those events are still on the horizon, or still available on-demand.

Here’s one addition to that list: the three-day Triumph Over Adversity Festival, presented by California’s Philharmonic Society of Orange County, and held online beginning on Thursday.

The three concerts take place February 18-20, each day at 10:00 pm Eastern Time. The lineup includes artistic directors Anthony McGill (clarinet) and Demarre McGill (flute), as well as the Sphinx Virtuosi, playing works by Valerie Coleman, Adolphus Hailstork, William Grant Still, Jessie Montgomery, Kareem Roustom, Philip Herbert, Astor Piazzolla, Michael Abels, James Lee III, Tyshawn Sorey, and Gabriela Lena Frank. Admission is free, but tickets are required.

Other events involved in the festival include Q&As with the artistic directors and a roundtable with several of the featured composers. Those are also free, but you’ll need to fill out a reservation form.

We’ll top off the list of this month’s offerings with four recent, intriguing albums featuring Black musicians and/or composers: the Imani Winds’ Bruits (released on Bright Shiny Things), baritone Will Liverman’s Dreams of a New Day: Songs by Black Composers (Cedille Records), the Catalyst Quartet’s Uncovered Vol. 1 (Azica Records), and — already featured in a previous Diary entry — composer George Lewis’ The Recombinant Trilogy (New Focus Recordings).

EVENTS ONLINE TODAY

At 2:00, Tuesday Musical and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education host a webinar titled “Entry Points to Music Careers” featuring three panelists from the Sphinx Virtuosi (register here). Moving to this evening, the Pipino Performing Arts Series offers a presentation featuring composer Du Yun at 7:00 (preceded by a 2:00 master class), the Met Opera continues with its Nightly Streams at 7:30, and the Baltimore Symphony highlights composers who were suppressed by Nazi censorship in a program at 8:00. More details in our Concert Listings.

LOVE & MUSIC FROM QUIRE

In a newsletter, Quire Cleveland director Jay White sends a message of love, as well as three recordings from the ensemble’s “Journey Home” program, presented last year on February 29. Listen to two motets by Mikołaj Zieleński (In Monte Oliveti and Vox In Rama) and one by Jacob Handl (Miserere Mei, Deus).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

February 17 in music history brought the death of composer and ethnomusicologist Nikoghayos Tigranian (1951) and conductor Bruno Walter (1962), considered one of the greats of his field in the 20th century. Those who have entered the world on this date include cellist and early music pioneer Anner Bylsma (1934), as well as two composers who also became key figures in the development of the violin: Arcangelo Corelli (1653) and Henri Vieuxtemps (1820).

Here’s one more figure born on this date who, unlike those names, is still around to make some noise: composer and hornist Michelle McQuade Dewhirst (1973), a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, whose music has been heard in Cleveland on two memorable occasions. Last October, No Exit presented Transient Canvas in an online concert that included her piece shenpa. And going back a few years, she took Second Place and the Audience Choice Award in the 2014 Iron Composer competition.

Iron Composer is of course a totally different beast. She and her fellow finalists were given an instrumentation and a “secret musical ingredient” in the morning, then had five hours to write a new piece, and thirty minutes to rehearse it. That year’s compositional specifications? A low string trio (viola, cello, double bass) involving a sound map of downtown Cleveland, with recordings from locations within a mile of the Great Lakes Science Center.

What I still wonder, given my conversation with contest director Joe Drew in 2014: when is the live gerbil going to be tossed into the mix?