by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Tonight, Severance Music Center presents composer and pianist Max Richter and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble performing Richter’s The Blue Notebooks & In A Landscape (7:30 in Mandel Concert Hall) and Apollo’s Fire presents  the first of its Echoes of Ireland programs, featuring music by the blind harper Turlough O’Carolan (7:30 at Avon Lake UCC).

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

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

The Cleveland Institute of Music has announced details of its forthcoming CIM Opera Theater season. Read a press release here.

The board of Cleveland Jazz Orchestra has named Lenora Inez Brown as its next executive director. Brown, who has acted as interim since January, holds degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, and Cleveland State University, also serves as Governance Chair for the Assembly for the Arts, and co-chairs the Advocacy committee for the Women’s Council at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

The Midwest is well-represented in the annals of June 16th music history, particularly when it comes to electronic music. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Tonight at 7:30, ChamberFest Cleveland will present Celebrating Frank! Colleagues, alumni, friends, and musical family will share the stage for an early 80th birthday tribute to Franklin Cohen, CFC’s co-founder and emeritus principal clarinet of The Cleveland Orchestra, a position he held for 39 years. A Postlude party will follow.

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

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

The Thomas and Evon Cooper International Violin Competition has named eighteen semifinalists for the 2026 edition of the competition. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS: 

This weekend, ChamberFest Cleveland revs up to full speed, ENCORE Chamber Music Institute continues its progress around town, and Ohio Light Opera gets underway in Wooster with My Fair Lady, the first of its six summer shows.

JUNE 12 – FRIDAY

ENCORE Gates Mills Music & Ideas Festival investigates New Sounds, including Andrew Rindfleisch’s haunting American Descent, recently named runner up for a Pulitzer (7:30 at Baldwin Wallace), and ChamberFest Cleveland presents Finding Resonance with music by Jörg Widmann, George Enescu & Anton Arensky (7:30 in Harkness Chapel at Case).

JUNE 13 – SATURDAY

Ohio Light Opera opens its season with Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady (2 pm in Freedlander Theatre, Wooster), ENCORE presents its Masters Series: In Your Arms at Last (7:30 at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls), ChamberFest Cleveland presents Homecoming with music by Mozart, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, and Ernest Bloch. (7:30 at Mixon Hall, CIM), and North Coast Men’s Chorus presents its Pride program, We Belong (7:30 at Maltz Performing Arts Center, repeated on Sunday at 3).

JUNE 14 – SUNDAY

Cleveland Chamber Choir & The Musical Theater Project present Walk On: The Power of Carousel (3 pm at Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art).

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

INTERESTING READ:

The Cleveland Residency Reconciles Opposites to Great Effect. 
Review by Charles Burns in San Francisco Classical Voice (June 9).

Allison Loggins-Hull’s latest album, The Cleveland Residency, is immediate and deeply personal music, which makes its institutional title feel almost misleading. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Tonight at 8 pm, ChamberFest Cleveland presents Canadian violinist Kerson Leong in “Phenomenon.” He’ll play solo works by Francisco Tárrega, Alessandro Marcello, Eugène Ysaÿe, Agustín Barrios, and Johann Sebastian Bach. A social hour with CFC artistic directors and musicians begins at 7 in Dunham Tavern.

INTERESTING READ:

Interview with Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth On What The Classical Music World Is Now (The Guardian)

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Composer Richard Strauss was born on June 11 in 1864 in Munich, an anniversary date he shares with Polish composer and pianist Alexander Tansmann (1897 in Lodz), American composer George Frederick McKay (1899 in Harrington, WA) and American opera composer Carlysle Floyd (1926 in Latta, SC). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ANNOUNCEMENT:

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced a guest artist update to its America at 250 concert at Blossom Music Center on Friday, July 3. “Tenor Russell Thomas (left) has graciously agreed to join the program, singing a selection of traditional spirituals and narrating Copland’s gripping Lincoln Portrait, in his Cleveland Orchestra debut.”

Thomas replaces the late Limmie Pulliam (right), “an artist with extraordinary vocal power and sincerity” who made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in 2022, stepping into the title role in Verdi’s Otello. “He deepened his connection with our musicians and audiences through Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West and, most recently, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

“Thomas wishes to dedicate his performance to the memory of his friend Limmie Pulliam.”

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Tonight at 7:30 in CIM’s Kulas Hall, ChamberFest Cleveland launches its 2026 season, “Global Fanfare.” Eleven of the festival artists will present works by Weedie Braimah, Steve Reich, Yang Baozhi, Miguel del Águila, Matthew Hindson, and Johannes Brahms.  Executive director Jessica Peek Sherwood presents the pre-concert festival welcome at 6:30 pm

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

English composer Frederick Delius died on this date in 1934 in Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris, blind and paralyzed by syphilis. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Today at Noon, organist Jonathan Moyer will play a Tuesdays at the Covenant program of music by British composers using both organs at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

STARTING UP THIS WEEK:

ChamberFest Cleveland will present four concerts from Wednesday through Saturday, ENCORE Gates Mills Music & Ideas Festival will host performances on Friday and Saturday, and Ohio Light Opera will open its season of six shows in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster with a matinee performance of My Fair Lady on Saturday. There are more concerts to enjoy — visit our Concert Listings for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Danish composer Carl Nielsen was born on this date in 1865 in Norre-Lyndelse. The BBC “Workshop” Series chronicled his life and career in the 1970s in Espansiva: a Portrait, leading one viewer to write, “The BBC used to do this kind of thing very well back in the day, and since there weren’t many channels to choose from, many people had to learn new things despite themselves.”

Watch that documentary here, and enjoy a memorized and choreographed performance of his woodwind quintet by the Denmark-based Carion Quintet (who played on the Latvian Concert Association series in Cleveland several winters ago, and will appear on the Cleveland Chamber Society series next season). And here’s a video of his Flute Concerto from a CIM Master’s Degree recital in November, 2018. Moisés López-Ruiz is the soloist, and Yohan Kwon conducts the CIM Orchestra.

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND CLASSICAL MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS:

This weekend’s schedule offers a rich mix of stand-alone events — some with multiple performances — and intriguingly programmed festival concerts.

On Friday, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival (download the program book here) hosts the Kaleido Guitar Duo (Hao Yang and Kevin Loh, 7:30 in CIM’s Mixon Hall), and ENCORE Chamber Music Institute (pictured) presents an al fresco celebration with a dancer and full string ensemble at 7:30 at the Grove Amphitheater in Mayfield).

JUNE 6 – SATURDAY

On Saturday afternoon, the Guitar Festival presents Muxin Li (3 pm in Mixon Hall), and this evening welcomes the Davin-Levin Duo (Colin Davin, guitar, and Emily Levin, harp, 7:30 in Mixon Hall).

Also on Saturday afternoon, Renovare Music combines original songs written by refugee storytellers with Afghani and South African instrumentals (2 pm at Visible Voice Books in Cleveland,) while Studio Espressivo features pianists Allison Hillier and Chris Neiner performing tunes inspired by commedia dell’arte (3 pm at Studio Espressivo, repeated Saturday at 8 pm and on Sunday at 8.)

And for its Saturday evening event, ENCORE has given its artistic director Jinjoo Cho carte blanche, and she’s picked music by Aino Sibelius, Jörg Widmann, Jean Sibelius, and Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht for her 7:30 program at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls.

JUNE 7 – SUNDAY

There are three concerts to highlight on Sunday at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. Guitarist Nicolò Spera joins flutist Christina Jennings, and violist Matthew Dane, viola, in music by Theofanidis (2 pm in Mixon Hall) and Petra Polácková plays works by J.S. Bach, Collins, Dowland, Narvaez, and Torroba (4 pm in Mixon). The day of Classical guitar music ends with the final round of the James Stroud Classical Guitar Competition in which young musicians ages thirteen to eighteen will perform before the public and a panel of internationally acclaimed judges. Prizes will be announced. (6:30 in Mixon Hall. Watch the live stream here).

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

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today belongs to classical guitarists. At 9:45 am & 1:30 pm, the semifinal round of the James Stroud Classical Youth Guitar Competition will bring young artists ages thirteen to eighteen to CIM’s Mixon Hall to perform before the public and a panel of internationally acclaimed judges. Free.

And at 7:30 pm, the 26th Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival gets underway in Mixon Hall with a recital by headliner Jason Vieaux (pictured) of works by Barrios, Morel, Orbon, Ponce, Pujol, and others. Jonathan Leathwood will give a free, pre-concert lecture at 6:00 pm.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland Chamber Choir will present four major concerts next season as well as performances by smaller ensembles. Gregory Ristow conducts Trinity Cathedral’s resident ensemble. Read the press release here.

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced performers for its 2026-2027 recital series   in Mandel Concert hall at Severance Music Center. Performers include pianist Lang Lang Lang (September 12), Violinist Lisa Batiashvili, cellist Gautier Capuçon, and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (October 19), and pianists Stephen Hough (January 26), Garrick Ohlsson (March 16) and Nobuyuki Tujii (April 20).

In conjunction with the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists in August, Piano Cleveland will host a series of solo recitals at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History from July 21 through August 1. Read the Cleveland.com article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On June 4, 1951, Russian-American conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who led the Boston Symphony for a quarter of a century, died in Boston. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, The Cleveland Orchestra will play the live score during an HD screening of Matilda, based on the Roald Dahl book, conducted by David Newman, and hosted and narrated by Danny DeVito.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced winners in 49 categories of excellence in music and journalism at the 31st annual JJA Jazz Awards.

Among artists with Oberlin Conservatory connections, Billy Hart was named Traps Drummer of the Year, and his book Oceans of Time: The Musical Autobiography of Billy Hart (Cymbal Press) as told to Ethan Iverson, was named Book of the Year (Biography or Autobiography). And Sullivan Fortner was voted Pianist of the Year and named Duo of the Year along with vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On June 3, 1929, German-born inventor Emile Berliner died in New York City of a heart attack at the age of 78. Like many second-wave innovators, Berliner has largely gone unmentioned for his pair of contributions to the classical music recording industry. [Read more…]