by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

FRIDAY: Ohio Light Opera (2 pm, Brigadoon in Wooster)  | Stars in the Classics (6:30, A Summer Garden Concert in Orange | Piano Cleveland (6:30, Forte Fridays in Westlake | Chagrin Arts Blind Injustice (7:30 in Playhouse Square, sold out. Pictured: Brian Keith Johnson, Tim Culver & Marian Vogel).

SATURDAY: Athena String Quartet (12 Noon in Cain Park) | Ohio Light Opera (2 pm, Carousel in Wooster) | Cleveland Silent Film Festival (His People, 1925 with live score at Main Cleveland Public Library) | The Cleveland Opera (4 pm arias and duets at Darl Center in Cleveland) | The Cleveland Orchestra (7 pm Carmina Burana at Blossom) | Ohio Light Opera (7:30 Tip-toes in Wooster) | Chagrin Arts (7:30 Blind Injustice in Playhouse Square).

SUNDAY: Ohio Light Opera (2 pm, Brigadoon in Wooster) | Chagrin Arts (3 pm, Blind Injustice in Playhouse Square) | The Cleveland Opera (4 pm arias and duets at St Cyprian in Perry) | Stars in the Classics (4 pm, A Summer Garden Concert in Orange | Music at Bath (5 pm Hunter Skeens and the Forerunners. Original Bluegrass at The Bath Church).

For details visit our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

By Jarrett Hoffman

A 1,088-page book published a few years back is a timely — if time-intensive — way to celebrate lyricist, librettist, and musical theater icon Oscar Hammerstein II, who was born on July 13, 1895 in New York City. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. George and Ira Gershwin’s Tip-Toes. Freedlander Theatre at The College of Wooster.

6:30 pm – Canton Symphony Summer Serenades presents a Brass Quintet at Foltz Community Center, East Canton.

7:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra: Summers at Severance. Mozart’s Don Giovanni Overture and Violin Concerto No. 3 with Marie Jacquot, conductor, and Randall Goosby, violin (pictured), and Richard Strauss’s Symphony in F minor (Cleveland Orchestra premiere). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

9:00 pm — Live Music at The Happy Dog. Neal Todten, a New Orleans-based composer & keyboardist, will perform his organ score for the film House of Direction, Jacob Kirkwood and Buck McDaniel will present co-composed electroacoustic works, and Andrew Elaban will open the evening with an ambient electronic set.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On July 10, 1835, Polish violin virtuoso and composer Henryk Wieniawski was born in Lubin, Poland. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Freedlander Theatre, College of Wooster.

7:00 pm – Kent Blossom Music Festival. Santiago Cañón-Valencia, cello (pictured), and Jee-Won Oh, piano. Ludwig Recital Hall, Kent State University.

7:30 pm – City Stages. Yeison Landero, accordion, at Transformer Station.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Italian composer Ottorino Respighi was born on this date in 1879 in Bologna. A master orchestrator who insisted that song should be the “original and immortal element” in Italian music, he’s best known for his Roman tone poems. Watch a documentary, A Dream of Italy here, and listen to his infrequently-performed suite Vetrate di Chiesa (“Church Windows”) here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera continues its run of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience, with Thomas Valenti singing the role of the fleshly poet Reginald Bunthorne, and Spencer Reese the role of the idyllic poet Archibald Grosvenor. Maggie Lanthorne and her cello star in a show-stopping performance of Silver is the Raven Hair, and Valenti and Reese deliver a warp-speed version of the patter song “When I go out of door.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On July 8, 1939, Spanish composer Fernando Sor died in Paris. Classical guitarist Ana Vidovic performed his Introduction and Variations on a Theme of Mozart on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series in October, 2015, and revisited the series in the fall of 2018. Click here to watch her performance of the Mozart Variations in Germany in 2019. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There’s nothing scheduled in the concert calendar today, but plenty of comings and goings in classical music history to memorialize.

Composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (caricatured) was born on this date in Kalischt, Bohemia. Instead of remembering him with one of his enormous works, why not watch cellist Oliver Herbert and pianist Teddy Abrams play Abrams’ lovely arrangement of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 at WQXR New York’s Greene Space on June 3, 2019.

Conductor, composer, and double bass virtuoso Giovanni Bottesini left the world on this date in 1889. He took up the instrument that made him famous in order to win a scholarship to the Milan Conservatory, later endearing himself to opera patrons by playing fantasies on opera tunes from the stage at intermission of shows he conducted. [Read more…]

The Daily Diary will resume on Monday.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2 pm, Ohio Light Opera opens its fourth production of the summer, W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan’s Patience, in Freedlander Theatre at The College of Wooster.

At 7 pm, Anthony Parnther (pictured) leads The Cleveland Orchestra in a free concert at Cain Park in Cleveland Hts. (Tickets required: visit the Cain Park box office or call 216-371-3000.)

Also at 7 pm, Kent Blossom Music Festival presents the Imani Winds in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State University.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Oberlin Choristers writes, “As we open registration for our 35th season, we do so with full hearts.

“Oberlin Choristers came so close to closing its doors this year. But because of the unwavering determination and love of Charlotte Beers Plank — daughter-in-law of our founder — and the steadfast support of her family, our story continues. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Freedlander Theatre, 329 E. University St., Wooster. Tickets available online.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

July 1 marks the anniversaries of two births (German composer Hans Werner Henze in 1926 and American conductor Philip Brunelle in 1943), two deaths (German composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach in 1784 and French composer Erik Satie in 1925) and one founding (the Music Division of the Library of Congress in 1897). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On June 30, 1958, Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen was born in Helsinki. Although he served as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Salonen considered himself primarily as a composer (he took up conducting, he said, to guarantee that his works would be performed), but his fate was sealed when he stepped in at the last minute for Michael Tilson Thomas to lead Mahler’s Third Symphony in London.

Click here to watch a later performance of Mahler 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London, when Salonen returned in October 2017 to the scene of his earlier triumph. Later, he stunned the concert world by stepping down early from his San Francisco position. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday at 11 am – A Memorial Service will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights for Karel Paukert (1935-2025), the long-time curator of musical arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Organist and Choirmaster at St. Paul’s. The service will be live streamed here.

The weekend is otherwise full of events presented by Ohio Light Opera at the College of Wooster, ChamberFest Cleveland, Tri-C JazzFest, The Cleveland Opera, and the Stow Symphony.

For details, addresses, and ticket information, please visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Apollo’s Fire has announced details of its 34nd season under the direction of Jeannette Sorrell, featuring 29 concerts of 8 programs at venues across Northeast Ohio. Click here to read or download a press release.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

June 28 — by Jarrett Hoffman

Look past the long series of discarded marriages — more than one ending with a beheading — and you might find interest in the musical side of Henry VIII (born on this date in 1491). [Read more…]