by Daniel Hathaway

REMEMBERING FLORENCE PRICE:

On this date in 1953, African American composer Florence Price died in Chicago at the age of 69, leaving behind a legacy of some 300 works. Dozens of her scores escaped destruction when they were discovered in 2009 in an abandoned house in St. Anne, IL.

Born in 1887, Price grew up as Florence Beatrice Smith in the integrated city of Little Rock, Arkansas, just a few houses away from William Grant Still. She attended the New England Conservatory in Boston, originally enrolling as a piano and organ major, but she later convinced conservatory director George Whitefield Chadwick to take her on as a composition student.

Returning to Little Rock, she married attorney Thomas J. Price in 1912, and after racial tensions flared up in her hometown, moved to Chicago with her husband and two daughters in 1927. There, she won the Wanamaker Competition for her first symphony, which was debuted by Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony in 1933 on a concert of music by black composers during the World’s Fair.

Price’s life and career have been captured in The Caged Bird, a 57-minute documentary produced in 2015 by the University of Arkansas. “Price’s remarkable achievements during the racist ‘Jim Crow’ era were a testament to her gifts. This is the inspiring story of one woman’s triumph over prejudice and preconceptions.” Watch a 15-minute excerpt here (a DVD is available for purchase). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

AFTER A WEEKEND OF VIOLENCE — PART TWO:

Continuing yesterday’s theme, and mindful of the challenge to the music industry by the organizers of Blackout Tuesday to set aside normal work today “for an honest, reflective, and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the Black, community,” we can think of no more eloquent words to recommend than those of Wynton Marsalis in his long Facebook post from May 30.

“This is my response to injustice in our country and the world across the last forty years,” he writes at the end, sharing album covers of his compositions that draw on African American music and stories. Listen here to his 1997 oratorio Blood on the Fields, that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997.

We will resume posting and send our weekly newsletter on Wednesday.

by Daniel Hathaway

AFTER A WEEKEND OF VIOLENCE:

This is a day to push COVID-19 concerns to the side and consider our institutional and individual responses to the tragic death of George Floyd last week in Minneapolis and the chaos that event inspired across the nation over the weekend. Here are a few musical selections to focus our thoughts, with more to come.

The New England Conservatory Music Hub offered a song by Cleveland composer H. Leslie Adams on May 29:

Today we welcome #NECHealingMusic from alumna Denyce Graves and Collaborative Piano chair Cameron Stowe, offering this moving rendition of “Prayer” by H. Leslie Adams, with text by Langston Hughes, part of Adams’s song cycle Nightsongs: Six Afro-American Songs.

“I believe that it’s a moment for us to be quiet, to be still, and to step aside and let the divine intelligence come in and do its work. I’ve always believed that things don’t happen to us; they happen for us, and I believe that this is a moment that will make us all better human beings and create a better world.” — Denyce Graves ’88, ’14 hon. DM [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND ALMANAC

There are a number of musical milestones to reflect upon this weekend.

American classical and jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman was born in Chicago on May 30, 1909. Jazz at Lincoln Center gave a full-length family concert on November 17, 2017, “Who is Benny Goodman.” Watch that here, and hear Goodman play Mozart’s concerto and quintet on an unidentified recording here. The clarinetist was a featured performer on the inaugural season of the Blossom Music Festival.

Dutch harpsichordist, organist, teacher, and conductor Gustav Leonhardt was born in Graveland on May 30, 1928. A documentary, Reiziger in Muziek details his career (it’s in Dutch, but there are subtitles that quit part way through. Watch here). There are few videos of the master in action, but here’s an interesting excerpt from J.S. Bach’s Cantata 42 with Leonhardt conducting Musica Antiqua Amsterdam in 1977 with a young Ton Koopman at the harpsichord.

The elaborate documentary film Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach from 1968 cast the slim and patrician Gustav Leonhardt in the role of the famously well-nourished Johann Sebastian Bach.

On one of Leonhardt’s visits to the Cleveland Museum of Art that coincided with the recent installation of a Dutch organ in Trinity Cathedral, I had the privilege of being an audience of one while he improvised for an hour on the 1977 Flentrop organ. Like Bach, Leonhardt may have been even more impressive as an improviser than an interpreter. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

MISSING THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA:

This weekend, Russian-German pianist Igor Levit was scheduled to play Beethoven’s Third Concerto on The Cleveland Orchestra’s final Severance Hall concerts of the season. Instead, the outspoken winner of the Gilmore Award (sometimes dubbed the pianists’ version of the McArthur Awards) will be busy elsewhere. Playing live from Berlin on The Gilmore’s series, on Saturday at 8:00 am, Levit will begin a 20-hour marathon performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations, a theme and two variations which are repeated 840 times. Watch here (probably intermittently!)

The Orchestra’s “On a Personal Note” podcast series continues with yesterday’s release of A Musician’s Journey, Part 1. Assistant Principal Second Violin Emilio Llinás, who has played an astonishing 52 seasons with The Cleveland Orchestra, talks about his journey from Cuba to Cleveland. Listen here.

Today at Noon, WCLV spends its Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra in the company of Bartók, Haydn, and Beethoven, and the weekend’s archive broadcasts on 104.9 Ideastream begin on Saturday at 8:00 pm with a May 2004 concert of Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, Dvořák’s Piano Concerto in g with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 in A. On Sunday at 4:00 pm, it’s the Verdi Requiem from June 2004, with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and soloists Twyla Robinson, soprano, Nancy Maultsby, mezzo-soprano, Piotr Beczala, tenor, and Raymond Aceto, bass. Franz Welser-Möst is on the podium for both weekend rebroadcasts. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

INTERNATIONAL NEWS FROM IDAGIO AND VIENNA:

Idagio, the Berlin-based classical music streaming platform, will offer the first performance in its new Global Concert Hall on May 29 with a recital by Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelson, with performances by such artists as baritone Thomas Hampson, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, soprano Kristine Opolais, and pianist Garrick Ohlsson to follow.

Performances will be ticketed, with 80% of proceeds going directly to the artists. Founder Till Janczukowicz wrote in a press release, “The pandemic has led to an unprecedented increase in the popularity of classical music streaming, but almost all of the digital concerts are offered for free.

“In the near future artists will rely on earning an income online, and audiences want more programmatic variety — both now and whenever the current restrictions are lifted. The internet should provide more than archived broadcasts of old recordings: it’s a medium that offers new opportunities, and we want to use these for classical music. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

A LITTLE OUTDOOR MUSIC:

An article in today’s New York Times about the Peace Tower bells in Ottawa, Ontario reminds us that as we emerge into the great outdoors, some forms of music are tailor-made for al fresco listening. “With Canada’s Parliament eager for the bells to sound during the outbreak — for reasons of morale and to provide a touch of normalcy — Dr. [Andrea] McCrady’s performances have become the only sanctioned musical events for a live audience in Canada’s capital during the shutdown.” Click here to access Dominion carillonneur McCrady’s YouTube playlist.

While non-essential travel to Canada is impossible at the moment, you can enjoy local bells by visiting the McGaffin carillon at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle. On Friday, May 29 from 12:15-12:45 pm. University Circle Carillonneur George Leggiero will play music by J.S. Bach, Corelli, Mozart, and Albert de Klerk on the 47-bell instrument, one of about 200 cast bell carillons in North America. You can even send in requests, and the Friends of the McGaffin Carillon note that picnics are welcome, “your car is also a place to hear the concert, and horn honking is an accepted form of applause at the end of the program.” Concerts happen every Friday through November 22. Read more about the carillon and its carillonneur here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEBINAR FOR SINGERS TODAY:

Earlier this month a webinar hosted by The National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Chorus America, Barbershop Harmony Society, and Performing Arts Medical Association (PAMA) addressed the near-term future of singing during the pandemic in terms that caused widespread alarm among soloists, choirs, and vocal teachers. The video of that panel discussion has received 107,344 views to date.

Today at 5:00 pm EDT, NATS and associated organizations will present a followup panel discussion, “Singing: What We Can Do,” moderated by Brian Newhouse of Minnesota Public Radio, and focusing on “examples of how singers and singing ensembles are producing their art now, as physical distancing guidelines continue to be in place. A variety of guests will share promising projects and existing and emerging technologies that keep us connected and singing.” Watch here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

CELEBRATING MEMORIAL DAY THIS YEAR:

Parades and mass gatherings normally take place on Memorial Day — originally “Decoration Day,” a tribute to those who fell in the American Civil War that was first established in 1868 and grew into a national holiday assigned by Congress in 1968 to the last Monday in May. At a moment when the nation is opening up at various rates of speed and with different levels of confidence, how to mark the occasion?

One way is getting outside, while observing safety protocols, of course. Relatively balmy temperatures encourage us to emerge into fresh air and open spaces. In Northeast Ohio, Lake Erie beckons, and it’s a great time to remind ourselves of the enormous resources we enjoy by living in the Great Lakes region. Click here to watch a brief Nature Conservancy video, Incredible by Any Measure…The Great Lakes, and here to see a live performance of Part I of Cleveland composer Margaret Brouwer’s oratorio, Voice of the Lake (the other three acts can be found close by).

On the other hand, some rain is in the weekend forecast, so here are suggestions for indoor watching based on anniversaries that fall on these three days.

Charles Ives captured the special qualities of Decoration Day in the middle movement of his Holidays Symphony. Click here to watch an episode in the San Francisco Symphony’s “Keeping Score” series with Michael Tilson Thomas. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

AT HOME WITH KIDS? A VIDEO FOR YOU:

Today’s 2:00 pm Detroit Symphony Watch Party is an educational program featuring two of the Orchestra’s percussionists in Steve Reich’s Clapping Music and excerpts from Andrew Norman’s Play, which reimagines orchestral music as levels in a video game. Cristian Mačelaru conducts the Norman and percussionists Joseph Becker and Andrés Pichardo-Rosenthal provide the hands for the Reich. Watch here.

ALSO STREAMING TODAY:

On today’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra, WCLV 104.9 Ideastream marks Richard Wagner’s birthday with The Ride of the Valkyries plus some Bartók and Beethoven. CIM’s archives yield an interesting arrangement of J.S. Bach’s E-minor Lute Suite for marimba performed by James Leonard. And James Morris and Joan Sutherland star in the MET Opera’s Don Giovanni from a performance way back in 1978. Details here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1874, Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem was first performed at the church of San Marco in Milan, ending a long requiem saga for the composer, who had originally proposed a collaborative work by several Italian composers to honor Gioachino Rossini after his death in 1868. [Read more…]