by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND CLASSICAL HIGHLIGHTS:

NOVEMBER 13 – FRIDAY

7 pm – No Exit Presents the Bennardo-Larson Duo in observance of Morton Feldman’s 100th birthday (in Ludwig Recital Hall, Kent State University) | Cleveland Jazz Orchestra celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Miles Davis and John Coltrane (at Maltz Performing Arts Center | and Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Ohio celebrates America’s 250th with pianist Jiana Peng and violinist Konrad Kowal (in Harkness Chapel at Case.)

NOVEMBER 14 – SATURDAY

7 pm – No Exit Presents the Bennardo-Larson Duo in observance of Morton Feldman’s 100th birthday (in Praxis Fiber Workshop) | 7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra with Jane Glover, conductor, and Julia Bullock, soprano (pictured, in Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center) | Akron Symphony & Chorus Christopher Wilkins, conductor, and the Akron Symphony Chorus perform Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) and Mozart’s Requiem (in E.J. Thomas Hall) | Lorain Civic Orchestra, Robert Beckstrom, conductor, Meredith Bradley, oboe, and Cameron Chan, violin (in Hoke Theater, Stocker Center for the Arts, Elyria.) | Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Ohio celebrates America’s 250th with pianist Jiana Peng and violinist Konrad Kowal (at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Chagrin Falls.)

NOVEMBER 15 – SUNDAY

3 pm  – The Cleveland Orchestra with Jane Glover, conductor, and Julia Bullock, soprano (in Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center) | Arts Renaissance Tremont. ChARTing New Paths with the Oberlin Trio. (Pilgrim Congregational Church.) | Keyboard Conversations with Jeffrey Siegel. My Favorite Brahms (Maltz Performing Arts Center) | 4 pm – Saint Noel Concert Series. Erie Waters Flute Ensemble. (St. Noel Church, Willoughby Hills) | 4:30 pm – Oberlin Faculty & Guest Recital: Kirsten Docter, viola & Vivian Weilerstein piano (Kulas Recital Hall) | 7 pm – CityMusic Cleveland November Chamber Concert. Amici Quartet (Praxis Fiber Workshop.)

For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Met Opera’s Lincoln in the Bardo to Stream Live

The final performance of the sold-out run of Missy Mazzoli’s opera will be made available for free on the Met’s YouTube channel on Saturday, November 14, at 8 pm, and will remain available through midnight ET on November 18. Read the Playbill story here.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

French organist and composer Louis-Lefébure-Wély was born in Paris on November 13, 1817. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

This afternoon at 6 pm, Chamber Music in the Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts The Resonance Project, with Anna Rathbun, soprano, Irwin Shung, piano, and Qin YingTan, harpsichord.

And tonight at 7:30, James Feddeck (pictured) conducts the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in Tchaikovsky, DeFalla and Borodin in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel, 90 N. Professor St., Oberlin. Free.

For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, an armistice brought World War I to an end. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:00 pm – Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concert by Jonathan Dimmock. Music for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, Church of the Covenant, University Circle.

7:30 pm – Kulas Concert Series. Heartland Marimba in Guzzetta Recital Hall, The University of Akron.

For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1483, German theologian, religious reformer and composer Martin Luther was born in Eisleben. Author of more than 30 hymns in the German vernacular, Luther joined composer Johann Walther to publish the first protestant hymn book in 1524. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

7:00 pm – The Cleveland Opera, Cleveland Women’s Orchestra and Cleveland Ballet Theatre present Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème with Timothy Culver as Rodolfo and Dorota Sobieska as Mimì, in the Tudor Arms Hotel Grand Ballroom.

For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Today we’ll feature two women composers who aren’t very well known (at least in the U.S. in one case), and who were born on this date in history: Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723) and Aleksandra Pakhmutova (1929), both pictured abovr..

The youngest sister of Frederick II, and eventually the Abbess of Quedlinburg, Anna Amalia was only able to fully delve into musical studies after the death of her father, Frederick I, who was known to be abusive and to find music frivolous.

A multi-instrumentalist, Amalia was also a composer, patron, and collector, having preserved some 600 volumes of music by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Telemann, and others. Not many of her own works survive — some suggest she destroyed them, as she was known to be self-critical — though her catalog includes cantatas, chorales, chamber music, and marches.

Among her most well-known pieces is the Flute Sonata in F, which you can hear on YouTube in a 2019 live performance in Montreal by members of Infusion Baroque on historical instruments. You can also learn more about Amalia from Episode 1 of that ensemble’s Virtuosa Series.

Jumping forward a couple hundred years, we get to the living composer: Aleksandra Pakhmutova, who is popular in Russia and has received many awards from the state. Her success spans multiple genres, including orchestral music, ballet, film music, and popular music. And here’s an unexpected (and admittedly minor) Ohio connection: there’s an asteroid bearing her name — it’s been known as “1889 Pakhmutova” since an “official naming citation” was filed in 1976 by the Minor Planet Center, based at the time in Cincinnati.

Before coming back down to earth, let’s spotlight her well-known Trumpet Concerto, which opens with beautifully celestial music — listen here to a performance by the Eastman Graduate Conducting Orchestra, with Samuel Huss as soloist and Peter J. Folliard conducting. And among her library of 400 songs is Good-Bye Moscow, which fittingly served as the farewell tune of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

Other anniversaries to mark today: the death of composer Carl Philipp Stamitz (1801) and the birth of baritone Bryn Terfel (1965).

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND CLASSICAL HIGHLIGHTS:

NOVEMBER 6 – FRIDAY

7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra: Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas in Concert, Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center | Apollo’s Fire: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Rediscovered at Bath Church UCC | Cleveland Chamber Choir: Lux Aeterna at Trinity Cathedral | CIM Opera Theater: Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas in Kulas Hall | Ohio MTA: Angels and Daemons, Friendships and Rivalries with Antonio Pompa-Baldi, piano, in Harkness Chapel at Case | 8 pm – Oberlin Opera Theater: Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in Hall Auditorium | Baldwin Wallace Opera: George Frideric Handel’s Serse at The Helen, Playhouse Square.

NOVEMBER 7 – SATURDAY

3 pm – Baldwin Wallace Opera: George Frideric Handel’s Serse at The Helen, Playhouse Square | 4 pm – Lake Erie Wind Quintet: Brandyn Metzko Memorial Concert at Brook Park United Methodist Church | 7 pm – Cleveland Chamber Choir: Lux Aeterna at Christ Episcopal Church, Oberlin | Cleveland Repertory Orchestra with Benjamin Chen, clarinet, and Arleigh Savage, bassoon, at Federated Church, Chagrin Falls | 7:30 pm – BlueWater Chamber Orchestra with Jonathan Moyer, organ, and Jody Guinn, harp, at Church of the Covenant | The Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus: Brahms’ German Requiem, Petr Popelka, conductor, Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center | Canton Symphony. Mélisse Brunet, conducting, Spencer Myer, piano, in Umstattd Hall | Oberlin Jazz Ensemble in Finney Chapel | TrueNorth Cultural Arts: Chorale & Chamber Orchestra at Avon Lake Presbyterian Church | 8 pm – Oberlin Opera Theater: Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in Hall Auditorium | Baldwin Wallace Opera: George Frideric Handel’s Serse at The Helen, Playhouse Square.

NOVEMBER 8 – SUNDAY

2pm – Oberlin Opera Theater. Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in Hall Auditorium | Tri-C Classical Piano Series: Eden Chen, piano, in Tri-C Metropolitan Campus Auditorium | 3 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus: Brahms’ German Requiem, Petr Popelka, conductor, Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center | CIM Opera Theater: Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas in Kulas Hall | Baldwin Wallace Opera: George Frideric Handel’s Serse at The Helen, Playhouse Square | Euclid Symphony Orchestra at Shore Cultural Centre | 3:30 pm – Suburban Symphony at Beachwood High School Auditorium | 4 pm – Sounds of St. James, Blue Water String Quartet, St. James Catholic Church, Lakewood. Freewill offering | Lake Erie Wind Quintet: Brandyn Metzko Memorial Concert, United Methodist Church of Macedonia | 5 pm – Music from the Western Reserve: Callisto Quartet at Christ Episcopal Church, Hudson.

For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

R.I.P. Herbert Blomstedt, 99

“He never achieved the celebrity of more glamorous colleagues, but drew acclaim as he remained at the podium until virtually the end of his long life.”

Read an appreciation by Vivien Schweitzer in The New York Times.

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Petr Popelka leads The Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus in Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Timothy Weiss conducts the Oberlin Sinfonietta with Kirsten Docter, viola, and the Oberlin Percussion Group in Warner Concert Hall, and the University of Akron’s Collage 2026 presents a fast-paced, 90-minute celebration of the Arts at UA in E.J. Thomas Hall.

And at 8 pm, Oberlin Opera Theater opens a four-performance run of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Kevin Newbury, director, with Raphael Jiménez, conductor, and the Oberlin Orchestra in Hall Auditorium. Production is set on the Lower East Side of New York City in the summer of 1977, a time when the city was plagued by economic insecurity and crime while also experiencing a cultural renaissance.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1494, German Meistersinger Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concerts presents early music performed by graduate students in the Historical Performance Program at Case Western Reserve University.

And three concerts all begin at 7:30 pm: CIM Perspectives features the U.S. Army String Quartet in Mixon Hall, the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra plays in Warner Concert Hall, and an Oberlin Guest Recital hosts French organist Daniel Roth (pictured) on the Fisk instrument in Finney Chapel.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

Today we remember composer, organist, pianist and teacher Gabriel Fauré, who died in Paris on 4 November 1924 at the age of 79. Recognized as one of the most influential French composers of his time, his musical style inspired many 20th-century composers. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:00 pm – Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concert. Marya Fancy plays selections from the Tablature of Jan of Lublin & works by J.S. Bach, Caterina Assandra, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Samuel Scheidt & Marian Sawa at the Church of the Covenant. Click here for live stream.

7:30 pm – Oberlin Artist Recital Series presents Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello & Alexandre Tharaud, piano, in works by Francis Poulenc, Johannes Brahms, Alban Berg, Franz Schubert, and more in Finney Chapel.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German organist and composer Samuel Scheidt was baptized on this date in 1587 in Halle, where he spent his whole career after studying in Amsterdam with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

INTERESTING READS:

Alisa Weilerstein’s Cello by Lucy Ellmann, published on October 29, 2026 in the Paris Review (via ArtsJournal)

Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Is Reborn, Expanding to the Outdoors by John Hanc in The New York Times, October 31 (via ArtsJournal)

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Some random milestones to recall on November 2 in classical music history,

On this date in 1887, Swedish coloratura soprano Jenny Lind died in England at the age of 67. Having made her mark in opera, she retired at the age of 29 in 1849, but the next year undertook a 93-concert tour of the U.S. under the management of P.T. Barnum. She raised today’s equivalent of nearly $11 million, endowing free schools in her native country and contributing to charities. Lind settled in England in 1852, raised three children, and taught at the Royal College of Music.

Jumping across into the mid-20th century, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Piano Concerto had its debut on November 2, 1945 by Rudolf Firkusny and the Boston Symphony with Richard Burgin on the podium. An instrumental work by Menotti, who was known principally as an opera composer? Give it a try in this performance by Earl Wild and the Symphony of the Air under the baton of Jorge Mester.

On this date in 1979, Peter Shaffer’s musical Amadeus opened in London.

And on November 2, 1960, Greek American conductor Dimitri Metropoulos died of a heart attack in Milan while rehearsing Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Orchestra of La Scala. Here’s some footage of Metropoulos rehearsing part of Liszt’s tone poem, Faust, with the New York Philharmonic.