by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Worth waiting for: Back before COVID came to town, the Cleveland Orchestra commissioned a concerto from Israeli composer Oded Zehavi for Mary Kay Fink, its principal piccolo player. It’s been waiting in the wings for a premiere ever since, but will finally be heard at Severance Music Center today at 7:30 (repeated Friday at 7:30 and Saturday at 8). Fabio Luisi conducts. Read a conversation with Fink here, and an interview with Zehavi here.

Imani Winds at Oberlin: Tonight at 7:30 in Warner Concert Hall, the Oberlin alumni-founded woodwind quintet collaborates with cellist Seth Parker Woods, pianist Cory Smythe, and actor Michael Braugher in a program anchored by Jeff Scott’s Fallen Petals of Nameless Flowers, which tells the stories of four Michiganders who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles. Read a preview here.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At noon, organist Jonathan Moyer will play selections from Johann Sebastian Bach’s German Organ Mass at the Church of the Covenant, and at 7:30, Oberlin faculty duo-pianists Haewon Song & Robert Shannon will put their twenty fingers together in works by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Shostakovich, Kapustin & Gershwin in Warner Concert Hall. You can watch webcasts of both recitals.

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

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Center for Arts-Inspired Learning is offering free lessons in violin, percussion, guitar, and keyboard/voice for Cleveland students from the 3rd to the 12th grade. The Spring Session of Inspiration Through Music runs from March 11 through May 17, and instruments will be provided. Click here for details.

The Violin Channel has announced that the Poiesis Quartet, violinists Sarah Ma (21) and Max Ball (21), cellist Drew Dansby (23), and violist Jasper de Boor (22), are among the 24 soloists and 11 ensembles that have been selected to advance to the semi-final round of the Concert Artists Guild Competition for 2024. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, Cleveland Chamber Choir (pictured, in “Choral Splendor: Old & New, ” 7pm at First Lutheran, Lorain), Contemporary Youth Orchestra (7pm at Tri-C Metro), Akron Symphony (Bruckner’s 4th at 7:30 in E.J. Thomas), Cleveland Philharmonic (with pianist Louis Wang, 7:30 at CSU), Oberlin Baroque Ensemble (7:30 in Fairchild Chapel) & The Cleveland Orchestra (Susanna Mälkki conducting, with pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, 8 pm at Severance).

On Sunday, CIM Opera Theater (Fledermaus at 3pm in Kulas Hall), Cleveland Philharmonic (a repeat of Saturday’s program at 3pm at Westlake PAC), No Exit presents Aether Eos (violinist/composer/visual artist Leah Asher and pianist/composer Christopher Goddard at 3 at Heights Arts), Cleveland Chamber Choir (a repeat of Saturday’s program at 4 at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.), Lakeland Civic Orchestra (4pm at Lakeland Community College), organist David Hurd (4:30 pm in Finney Chapel, Oberlin) & an Oberlin Faculty and Guest Recital (Ross Karre, percussion, the Eris Quartet, and Emily Cornelius, violin, 7:30 pm in Stull Recital Hall).

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

NEWS BRIEFS:

On Thursday on his website, Slipped Disk, British classical musical journalist Norman Lebrecht was the first of several sources to report the latest development from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Read “Cleveland Declares No Confidence in Chiefs” here.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

An 11am matinee at Severance Music Center features The Cleveland Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki, conductor, and Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano.

At 7 tonight, CIM Opera Theater: stages Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and the Cleveland Cello Society presents “Cello Plus One,” featuring six duos for cello plus another instrument.

Tonight at 7:30 pm Raphael Jiménez leads the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in Finney Chapel (webcast available) and at 8, vocalist Connor Bogart O’Brien joins Carl Topilow and Cleveland Pops Orchestra in Champagne & Shamrocks at Severance Music Center.

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

TODAY’S ALMANAC: [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, Trobár Medieval presents “I Sing a New Song, The Epic Journey of a Traveling Musician in the Middle Ages,” and at 7:30 Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki leads pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and The Cleveland Orchestra in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony at Severance Music Center.

Meanwhile, at Oberlin, tenor Joshua Blue will be featured with the Oberlin Sinfonietta in a program of music by Olly Wilson, Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Frazier & Wendell Logan led by Tim Weiss (webcast available).

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

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

On Thursday evening, Cuyahoga Community College released the lineup for its 45th Tri-C JazzFest, scheduled for June 20-22, 2024. View or download the press release here.

Ursuline College will honor Apollo’s Fire founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell as the 2024 recipient of its Women Who Light the Way Award “for her contributions to the world of music and her inspiration to women everywhere to pursue their dreams.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At Noon, organist Natalie Mealey plays music by Storace, J.S. Bach, Buxtehude & Frescobaldi at the Church of the Covenant, and at 5:30, Jim Riggs and Tyler Young offer a 50-minute rush hour program of music for organ and saxophone at Fairmount Presbyterian Church.

Tonight at 7:30, Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents cellist Steven Isserlis & pianist Connie Shih at Disciples Church, and the CIM Orchestra  pays a visit to Severance Music Center with guest conductor Leonard Slatkin.

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

INTERESTING READS:

British Cellist Steven Isserlis returns to Northeast Ohio tonight, where he studied with Richard Kapuscinski at the Oberlin Conservatory from 1976 to 1978, to play a recital on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series with pianist Connie Shih.

This is a good time to have a look at the multi-talented musician’s biography and involvements, richly detailed on his website. Among them, his writings. Click on “Steven’s Books” to read about Why Handel Waggled His Wig, the sequel to Why Beethoven Threw the Stew. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Visiting Artists: Conductor Philippe Herreweghe and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras join The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven & Haydn on Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 3 (read our Plain Dealer review here), the classical guitar duo of Hermelindo Ruiz and Samuel Diz (pictured) will be hosted by Cleveland Classical Guitar Society at the Maltz Saturday at 7:30), and organist William Porter plays at the Church of the Covenant Sunday at 4.

Other interesting events: soprano Sonya Headlam & pianist Joshua Konow perform music by Black composers Saturday at 7 at The Federated Church, and there are Oberlin Faculty Recitals by Dmitry Kouzov, cello & Thomas Bandy, piano on Saturday at 7:30 in Kulas Recital Hall & by pianist Tony Weinstein on Sunday at 4:30 in Warner Concert  Hall, and guitarist Jason Vieaux will play on the Music from the Western Reserve Series in Hudson on Sunday at 5.

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

INTERESTING READS:

Cleveland OpEds

In his regular Saturday newsletter, Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn gives a nod to the book, The Way We Are, containing 100 opinion pieces by Thomas Bier published by the newspaper between 1977 and 2022. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 4:30 pm violist Wendy Richman, singer Alice Teyssier, and composer David Reminick will present the world premiere Reminick’s The Story Book for viola and voice along with works by Richman, Kaija Saariaho, and Hildegard of Bingen in Oberlin’s Stull Recital Hall. At 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, guest conductor Philippe Herreweghe leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont and Symphony No. 6, and Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Jean-Guihen Queyras (pictured) is the soloist. And 8:00 pm CUSP presents LIGAMENT — Anika Kildegaard + Will Yager — and Ensemble Mercury at Convivium 33 Gallery. Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Cleveland Orchestra announced it has received a generous gift of $4.6 million from longtime patrons and supporters Myrna and Jim Spira. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Guest conductor Philippe Herreweghe and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras visit The Cleveland Orchestra for Beethoven and Haydn tonight at 7:30, the same hour that the Dalí Quartet play Latin works by Arriaga, Piazzolla, Revueltas, and Ginastera in CIM’s Mixon Hall (webcast available).

Two Oberlin Faculty & Guest Recitals also begin at 7:30. Lillian Gordis, harpsichord & Jérôme Hantaï, viola da gamba play music by Marais, François Couperin & J.S. Bach in  Kulas Recital Hall, while clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein joins the Verona Quartet for Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind in Warner Concert Hall (webcasts available for both performances).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances.

NEWS BRIEFS:

CIM composition professor Keith Fitch and his predecessor Margaret Brouwer have both been honored with the 2024 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

A string quartet from the chamber ensemble Wit’s Folly (Phaik Tzhi Chua & Guillero Salas-Suárez, violin, Jonathan Goya, viola & Jane Leggiero, cello) plays works by Joseph Eybler &  Joseph Haydn today at noon at the Church of the Covenant (live stream available).

Visit our Concert Listings for details of these and other performances.

INTERESTING READS:

In The Guardian, Kenan Malik weighs in on one of the several issues raised by the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Read “A century on from Rhapsody in Blue, debates about cultural ‘theft’ rage still” here.

For the recent Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, actor Bradley Cooper insisted on filming the Mahler “Resurrection Symphony” scene in Ely Cathedral live — he’d been studying conducting for six years just to prepare for that. “On-set sound mixer Steven Morrow recalls it as a terrifying proposition — miking 200 chorus and orchestra members performing live in an echoey cathedral. [Read more…]