by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Apollo’s Fire’s “¡Hispania! A Voyage from Spain to the Americas” wraps up its run (Saturday at 8, St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.), as does The Cleveland Orchestra’s Nordic program (Saturday at 8 at Severance), and Baldwin Wallace Opera’s The Merry Widow (Saturday at 3 & 8 and Sunday at 3 in Gamble Auditorium.)

Heights Arts Close Encounters will feature Cleveland Orchestra members (Sunday at 3 at Dunham Tavern), Arts Renaissance Tremont will present Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower (pictured) with Tatiana Lokhina, piano & the Cavani String Quartet (Sunday at 4 at St. Wendelin), Factory Seconds Brass — Cleveland Orchestra second chair players Jack Sutte, trumpet, Jesse McCormick, horn & Richard Stout, trombone — will play on Hudson’s Music from the Western Reserve Series (Sunday at 5 in Christ Church), and the Los Angeles-based contemporary music ensemble Wild Up will showcase music by Julius Eastman in Mixon Hall at CIM (Sunday at 7:30).

For details of these and other events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

CONTINUING SERIES: Apollo’s Fire’s “¡Hispania! A Voyage from Spain to the Americas,” featuring soprano Sophia Burgos & flamenco guitarist & singer Marija Temo (7:30 at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.), The Cleveland Orchestra with guest conductor Dalia Stasevska & mezzo-soprano Josefina Maldonado (pictured, 7:30 at Severance), & Baldwin Wallace Opera presents Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow (8 at Gamble Auditorium).

SINGLE EVENTS: CityMusic Chamber Series featuring clarinetist Daniel Gilbert, violinist Kiarra Saito-Beckman, cellist Anna Kuo & pianist Donna Lee in Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat (7 at Praxis Fiber Workshop), and Local #4 Music Fund presents tenor saxophonist Drew Hosler & pianist Eric Charnofsky (7 at Disciples).

For details of these and other events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at Noon, Yaron Kohlberg, president of PianoCleveland and second prize winner in the 2007 Cleveland International Piano Competition will play a one-hour concert in the Atrium of the Cleveland Museum of art, and just around the corner, organist Oziah Wales will play J.S. Bach, J.C. Bach, and Johann Pachelbel at the Church of the Covenant (the Covenant recital will also be live streamed).

For details of these and other events, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Byron Janis, 95. The Hollywood Reporter notes that “Byron Janis, the celebrated classical pianist who studied with Vladimir Horowitz, recorded previously unknown Chopin waltzes from manuscripts he unearthed and became a cultural hero in the U.S. after performing in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has died.” Read the obituary here.

NEW HENLE PRIZE FOR CIPC

PianoCleveland writes that “G. Henle Verlag, publisher of the world’s most authoritative editions of classical sheet music, has announced it will sponsor an award named the G. Henle Verlag Urtext Prize for the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition (CIPC). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Nothing’s happening today in the classical music calendar, but look ahead here and plan your next two weeks.

NEWS BRIEFS:

British journalist Norman Lebrecht wrote in yesterday’s Slipped Disc that “Mark Jackobs of the Cleveland Orchestra has responded in dignified fashion to his peremptory dismissal by the turbulent Cleveland Institute of Music.” (Pictured: Jackobs & CIM viola studio.) Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

An interesting collection of milestones, first performances, &  happenings to note on the eighteenth day of March. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

FEATURED SOLOISTS: Garrick Ohlsson in Mozart’s last piano concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra (Sat. at 8 & Sun. at 3 at Severance Music Center), violinist Laura Hamilton with CityMusic Cleveland (Sat. at 7:30 at St. Stanislaus & Sunday at 4 at St. Noel), harpist Yolanda Kondonassis and soprano Amanda Powell with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra (Sat. at 8, Church of the Covenant) & pianist Eric Charnofsky with Heights Chamber Orchestra (Sunday at 3 at the Maltz).

OPERA: Oberlin Opera Theater (pictured) stages Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, the first opera ever from 1605 (Sat. at 8 & Sun. at 2, in Hall Auditorium).

PIANO RECITALS: No Exit presents pianist Shuai Wang in PianoDada (Sat. at 7, at Heights Arts) and Donna Lee performs on the Kent Keyboard Series (Sun. at 5 in Ludwig Recital Hall).

OTHER ENSEMBLES: Choral Arts Cleveland celebrates over 400 years of choral music (Sat. at 7 at Disciples), Oberlin Jazz Ensemble (Sat. at 8 in Finney Chapel).

EXPERIMENTAL: CUSP presents Jessica Ackerley & Jeremy Bible (Sat. at 8 at Convivium 33 Gallery).

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Alan Choo increases the reward for the return of his stolen violin and writes about “the mysterious power of music” in a Facebook post. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Shuai Wang will be featured in No Exit’s “Piano Dada” at Kent State, the Baldwin Wallace Men’s Chorus sings at St. John’s Cathedral, CityMusic Cleveland moves “Rediscovered Classics” to Lakewood Congregational, pianist Jackie Warren (pictured) celebrates the centennial of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Cleveland Jazz Orchestra at the Maltz, and Oberlin Opera Theater continues its run of Claudio Monteverdi’s 1605 L’Orfeo in Hall Auditorium.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Esa-Pekka Salonen announced on Thursday that he would step down as music director of the San Francisco Symphony when his contract expires next year. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Three multi-concert series will launch tonight.

At 7:30, pianist Garrick Ohlsson, replacing Igor Levit, joins Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, and the Orchestra fills out the program with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, “Romantic” (repeated through Sunday afternoon).

At the same hour, Annunziata Tomaro leads CityMusic Cleveland in Max Richter’s The Four Seasons Recomposed (after A. Vivaldi) with violin soloist Laura Hamilton at Fairmount Presbyterian (repeated in different venues through Sunday afternoon.

And at 8 pm, Oberlin Opera Theater stages Claudio Monteverdi’s 1605 L’Orfeo in Hall Auditorium, directed by Stephanie Havey with an orchestra of period instruments led by Christian Capocaccia. There are four performances through Sunday afternoon.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Cleveland Orchestra reports that concertmaster David Radzynski has stepped down “by mutual decision” effective March 3. Read the press release here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At Noon, organist Evan de Jong will play works by George Muffat and John Bull, and J.S. Bach’s Partita on ‘Sei Gegrüßet, Jesu Gütig” at the Church of the Covenant (live stream available). 

And three events are scheduled for tonight at 7:30 pm. The Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents the Dover Quartet (pictured) at Plymouth Church in Shaker Hts., Akron’s Tuesday Musical presents the Kyiv Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra on its “Tour of Peace” with members of the MultiPiano Ensemble (Israel) at E.J. Thomas Hall, and harpsichordist Jay Krasnow plays 18th century German transcriptions in Harkness Chapel at CWRU.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

PASSINGS:

Today’s New York Times reports that “Eric Carmen, whose plaintive vocals soared above the crunching guitars of the 1970s power-pop pioneers the Raspberries before his soft rock crooning made him a mainstay of 1980s music, has died. He was 74. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

There are sixteen events in our calendar that we’ll file by title here, and give further information in our Concert Listings.

Saturday: Apollo’s Fire’s family concert (11am at the Art Museum), Irish singer-songwriter Andrew McManus (2pm at the Main Cleveland  Public Library), pianist Shuai Wang in No Exit’s Piano Dada (7pm at the Bop Stop), Cleveland Repertory Orchestra (7pm at Disciples), Les Délices in Jonathan Woody’s Song of Orpheus (7:30 at Inlet Dance @ Pivot Center), the Stow Symphony (7:30 at Tallmadge Alliance Church) and The Cleveland Orchestra with guest conductor Fabbio Luisi & principal piccolo Mary K. Fink (pictured with composer Oded Zehavi, photo by Roger Mastroianni, 8pm at Severance).

Sunday: Youngstown Symphony (2:30 at Stambaugh Auditorium), pianist Yefim Bronfman in a solo recital (3pm at Severance), the Parma Symphony with violinist Andrew Sords (3pm at Valley Forge H.S.), Cleveland Winds with the Cincinnati Wind Band (3pm at the Maltz), Western Reserve Chorale and orchestra in Brahms’s German Requiem (3pm at Church of the Saviour, Cleveland Hts.), Les Délices in Jonathan Woody’s Song of Orpheus (4pm at Disciples) & CityMusic Chamber Series (6pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

No Exit’s Year of Surreality presents Piano Dada with Shuai Wang (7pm at CSU’s Drinko Hall), The Cleveland Orchestra led by Fabbio Luisi (pictured) gives the second performance this weekend of the new piccolo concerto commissioned for Mary Kay Fink (7:30, Severance Music Center, repeated Sunday at 3), the Kenyon College Chamber Singers perform on their Spring Tour (7:30 at Fairmount Presbyterian), Les Délices follows Orpheus to the Underworld in the premiere of a new work by Jonathan Woody (7:30 at Akron Civic Theater), and the Western Reserve Chorale & Chamber Orchestra perform Brahms’ German Requiem (7:30 at Lakewood Methodist, repeated Sunday at 3:30 at Church of the Saviour).

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

MERCH FOR WOMEN’S DAY:

Van Magazine is offering a perpetual calendar for International Women’s Day that features 250 female composers. “Hang it on your wall, and automatically refute ‘but there just weren’t any women composers back then’ arguments, no verbal effort required. The best news: this calendar can be reused year after year.” Price reduced to $8.50. Click here to order. [Read more…]