by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Three events all begin tonight at 7:30. Jörg Widmann (pictured) conducts The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Music Center in his own works plus Felix Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony. Timothy Weiss leads the Oberlin Sinfonietta with faculty soloists Alexa Still, flute, Drew Pattison, bassoon, and Martha Guth, soprano, in pieces by Stephen Jaffe, Stephen Hartke, and Katharina Mueller in Warner Concert Hall. And the Canton Symphony hosts the soul band Apostle Jones in its Divergent Sounds series at the Auricle.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today’s honorees include Austro-Hungarian operetta composer Franz Lehár (born on April 30, 1870 in Komárom, now Komárno, Slovakia), American conductor Robert Shaw (born on this date in 1916 in Red Bluff, Iowa), and American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (who entered the world in Miami on this date in 1939). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

This evening at 6, Chamber Music in the Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art will feature young musicians from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Three concerts tonight at 7:30 will include The Choir of Westminster Abbey, London (pictured) Andrew Nethsingha, conducting, at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.) Singers Company (Samuel Gordon, conducting, in Cuyahoga Falls) and pianist Richard Goode (on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series in Finney Chapel).

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s free summer concert series, CityStages, will take place on Wednesdays July 22 and 29 in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood outside Transformer Station. This year’s block party-style events feature the West African group Kaleta & Super Yamba Band and the South Korean group Insun Park & Generals. Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m., and seating is limited.”Bring camp chairs and enjoy an evening of music and dancing in the street.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was born in 1879, the son of a wealthy patent medicine manufacturer.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, organist Mikhail Grazdanov (pictured) plays works by J.S. Bach at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle. And tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents the Verona Quartet with pianist Yaron Kohlberg in works by Alessandro Scarlatti, Philip Glass, Leoš Janáček, and Antonín Dvořák in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

INTERESTING READS:

6 Podcasts About Classical Music (NY Times) by Emma Dibdin

These shows demystify a genre unfairly perceived as archaic and stuffy with expert analysis, musical selections and pure fun. Click here to read.

How John Dowland Built a Music Career on Tearful Melancholy (NY Times) by Hugh Morris

Dowland, who died 400 years ago, spun out sad songs that were popular in his time and continue to influence artists today. Click here to read.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On April 28, 1954, composer Michael Daugherty was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

INTERESTING READ:

Anthony Tomassini has written a tribute article in the New York Times about the life and career of conductor and composer Michael Tilson Thomas, who died on April 22 at his home in San Francisco at the age of 81.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On April 27, 1894, Russian-American musicologist, composer and conductor Nicolas Slonimsky entered the world in St. Petersburg. His literary credentials include serving as editor of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (his own bio is priceless) as well as of his Lexicon of Musical Invective, a collection of “critical assaults on composers since Beethoven’s time.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

Michael Tilson Thomas, 81

The Washington Post reports that “Michael Tilson Thomas, an American conductor who grew up in public from an imperious wunderkind into one of the grand old men of classical music, died April 22 at his home in San Francisco. He was 81.”

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

APRIL 24 – FRIDAY

This afternoon at 6, Classically Lake View presents Franz Schubert’s Cello Quintet and Zoltan Kodály’s Duo with Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster Joel Link, cellist Katarina Elise and friends in the Lake View Cemetery Mausoleum.

Tonight at 7:30 pm, Les Délices presents Starstruck, featuring soprano Hannah De Priest in a selection of George Frideric Handel’s rarely-heard Italian cantatas and chamber music, including Mi palpita il cor, Silete venti, and excerpts from Apollo e Dafne, in Westminster Presbyterian Church in Akron. Repeated Saturday at 4 in Heights Theater and Sunday at 4 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River.

Tonight at the same hour, in Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts Memphis-bred, Brooklyn-based composer and bassist Stephan Crump in Slow Water, a sextet and body of work  inspired by science journalist Erica Gies’ book Water Always Wins.

APRIL 25 – SATURDAY

Tonight at 7:30, Klaus Mäkelä leads The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and Children’s Chorus in the second of three performances of Benjamin Britten’s monumental War Requiem, with soprano Tamara Wilson, tenor Andrew Staples, and baritone Ludwig Mittelhammer, in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. Repeated Sunday at 3.

APRIL 26 – SUNDAY

This afternoon at 5, Music from the Western Reserve presents a solo recital by pianist Maxim Lando at Christ Church Episcopal in Hudson.

For full details, please visit our Concert Listings.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Klaus Mäkelä leads The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and Children’s Chorus in the first of three performances of Benjamin Britten’s monumental War Requiem, with soprano Tamara Wilson, tenor Andrew Staples, and baritone Ludwig Mittelhammer, in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Violin Channel reports that “Cellist and composer Joshua Roman has been named a recipient of the 2026 Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Awards. Roman and his research partner, Dr. Elizabeth Bast, will receive $25,000 to study musical treatments for long COVID symptoms.” Read the article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

According to some sources, “The Bard of Avon,” William Shakespeare, was born on April 23, 1564, and it’s a fact that he died on the same date in 1616. Setting aside the contentious question of whether or not the son of a glove maker from Stratford-Upon-Avon actually authored the plays and poems attributed to him, we’ll honor both his arrival and departure dates with a setting of words from The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Scene 1. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Two free events begin at 6 pm today. Piano Cleveland Live presents Cleveland International Piano Competition medalists Ran Dank & Soyeon Kate Lee at Forest City Brewery, and the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts young musicians from the Cleveland Institute of Music for Chamber Music in the Atrium.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

Today we honor the births of four musical luminaries. On this date in 1916, violinist, conductor, and teacher Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City. In 1922, jazz bassist Charles Mingus entered the world in Nogales, Arizona, and 22 years later in 1944, conductor and musicologist Joshua Rifkin also made his personal debut in New York City.

However — today let’s turn our attention to a true maverick of the music world, Dame Ethel Mary Smyth. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 noon, organist Jonathan Bolena will play settings of chorales by J.S. Bach & Georg Böhm & Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 3 on the Tuesday Noon Series at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle, and Piano Cleveland Live will present Ran Dank & Soyeon Kate Lee in the Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Today at 5:30, the Fairmount Presbyterian Church Rush Hour Concert Series hosts pianist Jack Naglick in works by Enrique Granados’ Goyescas, Franz Liszt, and César Franck.

And at 7:30, Tuesday Musical presents soprano Renée Fleming in “Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene,” including Romantic-era art songs by Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Gabriel Fauré, and Reynoldo Hahn, as well as new commissions from Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, and Kevin Puts.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On April 21, 1749, a public rehearsal of George Frideric Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music took place — against the composer’s wishes — at London’s Vauxhall Gardens. An impressive crowd of 12,000 turned out, causing traffic jams for three hours on London Bridge.

The eventual premiere performance on April 27 in Green Park was something of a disaster, to say the least — one of the pavilions caught fire, rockets went astray, and other effects fizzled due to rain.

Click here to listen to a not-historically-informed performance by the London Symphony led by Cleveland’s own George Szell — he also omits the 101 cannons called for at the work’s premiere.

 

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 6:30, Tuesday Musical presents soprano Renée Fleming in “Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts to Heal and Connect” at the Hudson Library and Historical Society, 96 Library St., Hudson. Click here to register.

Tonight at 7:30, the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series presents the Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips, director, who are currently singing a 14-concert tour in the U.S. Over five decades, the British ensemble has helped establish sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of Western classical music. The performance at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist is free.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

An interesting coincidence today: Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars are in Cleveland for a concert tonight at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on the birthdate in 1941 of British conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, where he grew up with the famous Elias Gottlob Haussmann portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach hanging on the wall. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

April brings showers and the annual Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival in Berea. Music director Dirk Garner leads the three major festival concerts, beginning on Friday with a “Concerto Countdown” of Johann Sebastian Bach’s concerti for four, three, and two harpsichords. On Saturday at 2, he conducts BWV: Cleveland’s Bach Choir in Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Mass and Magnificat, and the Festival culminates on Saturday with the Bach Festival Orchestra, and BW Motet Choir performing J.S. Bach’s Mass in g & Magnificat. Evening concerts are at 7 in Gamble Auditorium, the afternoon performance in Lindsay-Crossman Chapel.

There are four concerts to highlight on Sunday. At 3:30 pm The Cleveland Women’s Orchestra plays its 91st Anniversary Concert under Eric Benjamin at Severance Music Center with pianist Angelin Chang. At 4 pm – Linking Legacies, a collective of African-American classical musicians, raises awareness of local African-American composers with historical significance in First Church of Christ, Scientist in Rocky River.

On Sunday at 4, Sounds of St. James offers an afternoon of Sacred Music performed by the Case Western Reserve University Early Music Singers, Elena Bailey, director, the Aeterna Chamber Choir, James Flood, director, and guests in St. James Church in Lakewood.

And at 4:30, Steven Smith and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony collaborate with Cleveland Contemporary Ballet for the world premiere of Margaret Brouwer’s City Life and her Mandala, & Inner Voices at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Piano Cleveland has named the thirteen young artists who will be invited to Cleveland in July for the Semi-Final Round of the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists: three contestants from the Rising Star Division (ages 10-12) and five pianists from each of the Junior (ages 13-15) and Senior (ages 16-18) Divisions. [Read more…]