by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND: 

On Saturday: Tri-C presents Hammond B-3 virtuoso Matthew Whitaker (pictured, Eastern Campus, 7:30), Gospel Meets the Akron Symphony (E.J. Thomas, 7:30), Apollo’s Fire plays virtuoso concerti (St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts., 7:30), Robert Beckstrom leads the Lorain Civic Orchestra (LCCC, Elyria, 7:30), and cellist Mark Kosower solos with Thomas Guggeis & The Cleveland Orchestra (Severance, 8 pm).

On Sunday: The Cleveland Orchestra repeats Friday’s program (3 pm at Severance), Apollo’s Fire does the same (St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts., 4 pm), pianist Spencer Myer plays on Music From the Western Reserve series (Christ Church, Hudson, 5 pm), flutist Bart Feller performs at the U. of Akron (Guzzetta Hall, 5:30 pm), and organist David Blazer plays original music for Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 silent film The Circus (West Shore U-U Church, 7 pm)

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

Independence, MO-based organist Jan Krabill writes on her website:

Back for the 26th year! As always, my annual Super Bowl Sunday organ concert will begin at 2pm and conclude by 3:30, giving us all plenty of time to view all of the big game. And, as always, when our Kansas City Chiefs are in the Super Bowl, I’ll open the concert with a special piece in their honor. And, as always, this concert is FREE admission, and casual dress is fine. Come enjoy the fun! [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Tonight at 7:30, Apollo’s Fire’s latest itinerary continues at Rocky River Presbyterian before moving on to St. Paul’s Episcopal in Cleveland Hts. (Feb. 8 at 7:30 & Feb. 9 at 4). The topic is virtuosic Baroque works by Georg Philipp Telemann and Antonio Vivaldi, and the virtuosi include Daphna Mor, recorder, and Alan Choo, Emi Tanabe & Chloe Fedor, violins.

Also at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra is back home at Severance Music Center to begin a three-concert set led by Thomas Guggeis and featuring principal cello Mark Kosower in Henri Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain… Read Mike Telin’s interview with Guggeis here.

And tonight at 8, in a concert presented by Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project, sound artist Ipek Eginli gets together with harpist Stephan Haluska & cellist Liam Battle at Calicchia Gallery Studio in Cleveland. 

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Piano Cleveland has announced its collaboration with the Kent State University College of the Arts in creating a new Arts Entrepreneurship Residency Program designed to help emerging artists develop an entrepreneurial mindset to enhance their careers.  [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Tonight at 7:30, Apollo’s Fire’s latest itinerary begins at First Methodist in Akron, then moves on to Rocky River Presbyterian (Feb. 7) and St. Paul’s Episcopal in Cleveland Hts. (Feb. 8 at 7:30 & Feb. 9 at 4). The topic is virtuosic Baroque works by Georg Philipp Telemann and Antonio Vivaldi, and the virtuosi include Daphna Mor, recorder, and Alan Choo, Emi Tanabe & Chloe Fedor, violins. Tickets are available online.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

HEADLINES IN THE NEWS:

Paul Plishka, Prolific Soloist at the Met, Dies at 83 (NY Times)

Known for his liquid bass tones and flawless diction, he appeared in 88 roles, many of them comic, over 1,672 performances at the Metropolitan Opera.

Daniel Barenboim Announces He Has Parkinson’s Disease (NY Times)

“I am planning to maintain as many of my professional commitments as possible,” the conductor said. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 12 noon, Trinity Cathedral’s free Brownbag Concert series will host Case Western Historical Performance Ensembles. Those musicians will reassemble at 6 pm this evening for a Chamber Music in the Galleries concert in the Donna and James Reid Galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Also this evening at 6 pm, Piano Cleveland Live will present pianist Arseniy Gusev and violinist Shannon Lee (photo by Olivia Crumm) in a sneak peek at their new album Witraż (Stained Glass) at the Forest City Brewery.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

From an email on Tuesday: “The Cleveland Orchestra is pleased to announce that Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will return to Cleveland earlier than expected to lead an additional subscription week on February 27-28 and March 1. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At noon, organist Jonathan W. Moyer plays North German music by Matthias Weckmann, Wilhelm Karges, Heinrich Scheidemann, and Dietrich Buxtehude at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

Tonight at 7:30, the Gateways Brass Collective, the resident ensemble of the Rochester-based Gateways Music Festival, performs music by Kevin McKee, Margaret Bonds, George Walker, Herbert T. Smith, and others in Mixon Hall at CIM.

And the Oberlin Artist Recital Series continues at 7:30 in Finney Chapel with New York Philharmonic clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Emanuel Ax performing works by Robert Schumann, Jessie Montgomery, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, Florence Price, James Lee III, and Leonard Bernstein.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced two upcoming program changes. On February 20 and 22, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke will step in for Kelley O’Connor in Thomas Adès’s America: A Prophecy. And for the concerts on May 8, 9, and 10, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, the previously-unnamed new work written by Allison Loggins-Hull, the Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, now has a title: Grit. Grace. Glory. On that same program, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 3 will be replaced by Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Grammy Awards: The L.A. Times has compiled a list of all the 2025 Grammy Award winners. Congratulations to Elaine Martone, who won Producer of the Year – Classical. Click here to read the story (which looks as though it’s behind a paywall, but you can navigate past the pop-up).

Tuesday Musical has extended the deadline for applications for its 2025 scholarship competitions to 11:59 pm on February 7. Details here.

HAPPENING TODAY / TODAY’S ALMANAC:

With no live classical performances scheduled for today, let’s honor a famous composer whose birth anniversary comes up in our Rolodex.

On February 3, 1809, German composer and conductor Felix Mendelssohn began his short tenure in the world in Hamburg, where he also passed on in 1847 at the age of 38. Historically famous for reviving J.S. Bach’s Matthew-Passion in a performance in Berlin at the age of 20, he revisited that work at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig a dozen years later, revising some of his earlier revisions (read a Gramophone review here). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

First, two events that are not happening: a pair of CIM Opera Theater presentations of Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters on Saturday and Sunday afternoon at the Art Museum have been canceled.

On Saturday: ChamberFest Cleveland presents an InterACTIVE Music Series at East Cleveland Public Library from 1:00 to 3:30 pm, and Music at Main hosts jazz pianist Theron Brown at the downtown library. Concerts tonight at 7:30 include Cleveland Pops Orchestra in Music of Motown at Severance Music Center, and cellist Ian Maksin brings his Cello for Peace Tour to the Maltz PAC.

On Sunday: Arts at Holy Trinity Lutheran in Akron presents the University of Akron Jazz Ensemble, the Church of the Western Reserve presents a recital by organist Mario Buchanan (pictured), both at 4 pm, and Oberlin’s Technology in Music and Related Arts department shares creative work by students in its Berlin Winter Term Project in Stull Recital Hall.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cliburn Competition has named the 77 pianists who have been invited for screening auditions as the Forth Worth, Texas contest begins a new cycle. Read the story on The Violin Channel. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Chicago’s Schola Cantorum celebrates the 500th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina with a performance on the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series at St. John’s Cathedral. Michael Anderson will direct “a wide sampling of Palestrina’s sacred works, from motets and psalm settings to settings for the Mass and spiritual madrigals.

At the same hour, The Resonance Project (Guillermo Salas-Suarez, Baroque violin, Qin Ying Tan, harpsichord, and Brian Kay, Baroque guitar and percussion) will visit early Spanish Music in a program at Forest Hills Presbyterian Church.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

by Jarrett Hoffman

Franz Schubert was born on this date in 1797 in Vienna, while Philip Glass followed suit in 1937 in Baltimore. The connections don’t stop there: Glass has cited Schubert as an important influence, and in an interview in 2011, he even called Schubert his favorite composer. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, the Canton Symphony’s Divergent Sounds series presents Soleo. “Experience the mesmerizing fusion of Middle Eastern influences and progressive rock energy” at The Auricle. Tickets available online.

CANCELLATION:

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the CIM Opera Theater’s performances of Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters on February 1 and 2, at the Cleveland Museum of Art have been canceled. Refunds are being issued to all ticket holders.

For details of upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

New York’s OnSite Opera Shuts Down

From The New York Times; “For more than a decade, On Site Opera, a small but nimble performing arts group, brought opera to unexpected places: the Bronx Zoo, Madame Tussauds, cafes and soup kitchens. The company won acclaim for its innovative approach, including a Beethoven song cycle performed by phone during the pandemic.

“But on Tuesday, On Site Opera announced that it was shutting down, saying it could no longer keep up with rising costs. The company’s three full-time employees will lose their jobs; no further performances are planned.” The company was formed in 2012 by Oberlin alum Eric Einhorn (pictured above), who stepped down in 2023. [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

Guest conductor Tito Muñoz (pictured) leads the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra tonight in a program of two staples: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. That’s at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center.

Admission is free, but register online for tickets. CIM student Zachary Brandon is the featured violinist.

For more details on this and more upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Prague Summer Nights Young Artists Music Festival will be holding live auditions next Wednesday, February 5, from 5:40 – 7:40 pm at Oberlin Conservatory. The month-long program in the Czech Republic will put on four orchestra concerts and six fully-staged operas between June 16 and July 14. Application information is available here.

INTERESTING READ:

“Morgiane” — maybe the oldest existing opera by a Black American — was never staged after composer Edmond Dédé completed it in 1887. Until now.

The history of the 545-page epic, its relatively recent discovery, and the composer’s connection to Black opera in 19th-century New Orleans are all chronicled in a recent feature for the New York Times.

Kevin O’Brien writes: “Now, almost 125 years after Dédé’s death, an unlikely team, including a historian, an antiquarian music dealer, two librarians, and a pair of New Orleans natives, has come together to salvage Dédé, make relevant his legacy and stage his greatest work for the first time.” [Read more…]