by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, pianist Roman Rabinovich plays Felix Mendelssohn’s Concerto No. 1 with CityMusic Cleveland in the first stop on its March Orchestra Series. It’s free at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Pianist, conductor, pedagogue and lecturer Sir András Schiff announced in a statement through his agent on Wednesday that he has cancelled his concerts in the U.S. for the 2025-2026 season “in response to political changes in the United States.” The cancelled concerts include a recital tour scheduled for October 2025 and orchestral engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, scheduled for May 2026.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Overshadowing the birth of Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter on this date in 1915, and the 1948 duel on that date between CBS and NBC to broadcast the first symphony orchestra concert (CBS won by 90 minutes with a Philadelphia Orchestra program, and NBC was the runner up with a Toscanini-led NBC Symphony performance), German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach in 1685. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

On the Wednesday noon Brownbag series at Trinity Cathedral, mezzo-soprano Kira McGirr will sing a tribute to British contralto Clara Butt (1872-1936) featuring Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures with pianist Shiloh Roby. Oberlin College & Conservatory Professor Charles McGuire — an expert on Butt’s life and music — will discuss her career and the profound impact she had on music-making in Great Britain and early vocal recording. It’s free.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Departures: Danish-German organist and composer Nicolaus Bruhns died on this date in 1697. Arrivals: Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev was born on March 19, 1873 in Novgorod, followed exactly one year later by German composer Max Reger in Brand, Bavaria. [Read more…]

 by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Sponsored by St. John’s Cathedral’s Helen D. Schubert Concerts, Vincent Dubois, one of the four current titular organists of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, will play a recital featuring French cathedral favorites tonight at 7:30 at Trinity Cathedral (note the venue change due to organ renovation). Click here to watch Dubois rehearsing J.S. Baeh’s Prelude & Fugue in a minor on the Skinner/Muller organ at Trinity (pictured).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

On this day in 1927, legendary composer of musical theater John Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri.

A classically trained musician, Kander studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and later at Columbia University, where his teachers included Douglas Moore, Jack Beeson, and Otto Luening.

Early in his career he served as rehearsal pianist and then dance arranger for the original productions of Gypsy and Irma la Douce. He composed his first Broadway score, A Family Affair, with lyricists and book writers (and brothers) James and William Goldman. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

With no live performances scheduled for March 17, here are some classical music playlists to mark St. Patrick’s Day, honoring the patron saint of Ireland, who departed this life in c. 461.

Click here for WFMT Chicago’s “Irish Composers You Should Know”

Click here for Discover Music’s “Best Classical Music for St. Patrick’s Day”

and here for Your Classical’s “Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day With an Irish Flavored Classical Playlist.”

Three Irish composers conspicuously missing from those playlists should be mentioned: Sir Hamilton Harty (for his sumptuous arrangements of Handel’s orchestral suites), Victor Herbert (pictured, for his 43 operettas and his cello concertos, though he was born on the island of Guernsey and believed he was Irish by birth all his life), and Charles Wood (who taught Ralph Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells and wrote some 250 sacred works while teaching at Cambridge University).

Enjoy!

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

March 17 marks the 360th birthday of French Baroque composer, harpsichordist, and vocalist Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, who began her career as a child prodigy, and ended it as one of the most respected musicians of her time in all of France. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Ten events of all shapes and sizes appear in our Concert Listings this weekend.

Saturday: Cleveland Silent Film Festival screens a classic with live music by David Blazer at CPL, No Exit presents a retrospective of music by Greg D’Alessio at Praxis, The Resonance Project hosts pianist Irwin Shung at Forest Hills Church, North Coast Men’s Chorus sings Beatlemania at the Maltz, and Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Janáček & Beethoven at Severance.

Sunday: Suburban Symphony celebrates its 70th  Anniversary at Severance with Beethoven’ Ninth (pictured above: Domenico Boyagian rehearsing the orchestra and two community choirs), the Poesis Quartet plays works by Cleveland Composers Guild members at CSU, North Coast Men’s Chorus repeats Beatlemania, Arts at Holy Trinity, Akron, presents the Gold Tones Jazz Orchestra, Music at Bath hosts slide guitarist Austin Walkin’ Cane, and Oberlin Conservatory welcomes organist David Higgs for the annual David Boe Memorial Concert. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in a matinee concert featuring Igor Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka (11 am at Severance Music Center), CityMusic Cleveland plays chamber music (7 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop), No Exit presents a retrospective of works by composer Greg D’Alessio, plus first performances of two new pieces (7 pm at SPACES), Cleveland Pops Orchestra honors Oscar nominees and winners (7:30 at Severance Music Center), and the International Contemporary Ensemble presents “Composing While Black, Volume I” (7:30 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel).

IN MEMORIAM: Sofia Gubaidulina, 93

The New York Times reports that “Sofia Gubaidulina (pictured above), a Tatar-Russian composer who defied Soviet dogma with her openly religious music and after decades of suppression moved to the West, where she was feted by major orchestras, died on Thursday at her home in Appen, Germany.”

Read an obituary by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

No Exit presents a retrospective of works by composer Greg D’Alessio (pictured), plus first performances of two new pieces (7 pm at Trinity Cathedral).

The Cleveland Orchestra plays Beethoven (the Fifth Symphony & Leonore Overture No. 3) and Leoš Janáček’s Suite From the House of the Dead arranged by Brno conductor František Jílek (7:30 at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst conducting).

And the Canton Symphony’s Divergent Sounds Series presents the Jen Maurer Project (7:30 at The Auricle).

NEWS BRIEFS:

Three Cleveland Institute of Music alumni are among the 17 composers to win 2025 Awards in Music from the New York-based Academy of Arts and Letters. Arseniy Gusev won a Charles Ives Fellowship worth $15,000, Gabriel Novak is one of several composers to win a $7,500 Ives Fellowship, and Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate won the Wise-Hinrichsen Award, a $5,000 prize supporting publication of a work by the C.F. Peters Corporation and Wise Music. Read the CIM press release here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

If you’re still working in an office, you can break up your evening commute with a 5:30 pm Rush Hour Concert at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights. Today’s performance features percussionist Ethan Strickland (pictured) in When Your Name Is Called,  “a program of invigorating new works.” Read about the artist here.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced the addition of seven new events to the third edition of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival, which will take place at Severance Music Center and partner locations throughout Cleveland from May 16-25. View the schedule here.

In more news from Severance Music Center, The Cleveland Orchestra has released its first recordings of the season: a new spatial audio recording of Julius Eastman’s Symphony No. 2 and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, led by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst.  [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Violin Channel reports that “Cellist Melissa Kraut has recently joined the faculty at DePaul University as a Professional Lecturer in the cello department … For the last nineteen years, Kraut served as co-head of the cello department at the Cleveland Institute of Music.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

With no performances on the agenda today in Northeast Ohio, we’ll jump backwards in classical music history to mark some important arrivals.

by Mike Telin

March 11 is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to celebrating birthdays. There’s composer Henry Cowell (Menlo Park, California) in 1897, accordionist and orchestra leader Lawrence Welk (Strasburg, North Dakota) in 1903, composer Xavier Montsalvatge (Girona, Spain) in 1912, composer and bandleader Mercer Ellington (Washington D.C.) in 1919, and vocalist and conductor Bobby McFerrin (New York, N.Y.) in 1950. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEWS BRIEFS:

Piano Cleveland will present Arts Alive: A Space Odyssey, featuring students from the Paul L. Dunbar Elementary School’s PianoLab on Wednesday, March 19, from 7-8 pm in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

“The students will guide audiences on an exhilarating journey, featuring musical works, dynamic choreography, captivating visual art, and evocative written word. As the stars align, you’ll travel to distant planets, get up close with a black hole, and witness the cosmos unfold in a breathtaking display of young talent.” The event is free, but tickets are required. More information here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Five years ago, The Cleveland Orchestra began the week by announcing that “due to ongoing developments related to coronavirus (COVID-19), the Orchestra will not travel to Europe (Linz, Vienna and Paris) and Abu Dhabi for the ensemble’s previously announced tour scheduled to take place during the next several weeks.”

That began a cascade of postponements and cancellations that effectively brought a halt to live music in Northeast Ohio, causing institutions, presenters and touring artists to come up with clever ways to cope with an uncertain future. (Photo above: Roger Mastroianni) [Read more…]