by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Depending on which tradition you follow, today is either Candlemas (the end of Christmas celebrations for many Christians), or Groundhog Day. (More winter? Probably.)

On Friday at 12:15 Noon, University Circle’s McGaffin Carillon will ring in Black History Month with a special program played by Sheryl Modlin (pictured).

On Friday evening at 7 the string quartet Wit’s Folly will play a program titled Passing the Baton: Joseph Haydn and his Musical Successors at the Bath Church (repeated elsewhere this weekend).

Ready for something strange — like snake handling? On Friday at 8 at the Kleist Center in Berea, Baldwin Wallace Opera stages the first of four performances of Taking Up Serpents, with an eclectic score by Kamala Sankaram and an original story inspired by playwright Jerre Dye’s roots in the Deep South.

Visit our Concert Listings for details.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Yesterday, Van Magazine reported the latest development in a continuing situation at the Cleveland Institute of Music. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

If you planned ahead and booked your seats early, you could be enjoying a concert by Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma tonight at Severance Music Center. It’s sold out, but you can read about the performance in a review by our correspondent Peter Feher in Friday’s Plain Dealer (and on cleveland.com).

February 1 marks the beginning of Black History Month. Check our Concert Listings for special events.

And scroll down to today’s Almanac to celebrate the premieres of works by Puccini and George Walker (pictured) and the birthday of a renowned Black poet on this date in history.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Ideastream Public Media has announced the launch of JazzNEO, “the first and only full-time jazz channel serving Northeast Ohio, “ featuring hosts Dee Perry, Dan Polletta and John Simna. Scheduled to debut on February 26, JazzNEO will broadcast on 90.3 HD2 and livestream on JazzNEO.org. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at noon, the Church of the Covenant’s Tuesday Organ Plus series presents Kailah Grace Robbins, flute, Kotomi Inaba, viola da gamba & cello, William Rehwinkel harpsichord & organ in a program of Baroque chamber music. There’s a live stream available as well.

And tonight at 7:30 pm at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland, Thomas Fielding (pictured) the cathedral’s new music director, introduces himself with an organ recital of works by Max Reger, J.S. Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude, Thomas Fielding, Charles-Marie Widor, Henri Mulet and himself.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Akron’s Tuesday Musical Association reminds us that applications for its 68th Scholarship Competition are being accepted online through this Thursday, February 1. The competition is open to Ohio students majoring in music performance and/or music education. Click here for more information.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

January 30 marks the death of French composer Francis Poulenc in Paris in 1963. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

This busy weekend will feature two more concerts connected to the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival.

On Saturday at 7 pm, the festival presents Bach 52, with Nicholas Phan, tenor (pictured), Debra Nagy, oboes & director, Gaia Saetermoe-Howard, oboes, Rebecca Reed, viola da gamba and cello & Mark Edwards, harpsichord and organ. In his ongoing Bach52 podcast and recording project, Phan asks  “Is Bach’s music for everyone?”

Then on Sunday at 2 pm. Steve Reich’s Proverb and Piano Phase will be presented side by side with Bach’s cantata, “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” BWV 4, featuring members of BWV: Cleveland’s Bach Choir and Rob Kovacs, piano. Both events will take place in Gamble Auditorium in Berea.

On Saturday and Sunday at 3 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art, CIM Opera stages Tom Cipullo’s 2007 opera Glory Denied, guest directed by Kathryn Frady & conducted by Kamna Gupta, based on the Vietnam-era experiences of Colonel Floyd James “Jim” Thompson, America’s longest-detained prisoner of war.

Also on Saturday, at 6:30 pm Emanuela Friscioni & Julia Russ will make the third attempt to play their twice-postponed-by-weather, four-hand piano concert, “Celestial Harmonies” at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Gates Mills. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2:30 pm in Cartwright Hall, the Kent State Orchestra sponsors a student composers workshop.

Tonight at 7, the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival continues its ancillary events with “American Partita,” featuring Fire & Grace & Ash (pictured). Violinist Edwin Huizinga, guitarist William Coulter and mandolinist Ashley Hoyer will blend the music of J. S. Bach with American fiddle tunes in Gamble Auditorium.

And tonight at 8, visionary flutist Robert Dick and harpist Stephan Haluska will celebrate the release of their new album, Crop Circles in a Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project performance at Convivium 33 Gallery. Read a preview here.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Ohio Light Opera has announced online orchestral auditions for its 45th season at the College of Wooster. Click here for the application form. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today at 3 pm in Gamble Auditorium, the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival presents Troubling Voices in Bach’s St. John Passion, a lecture by Michael Marissen, professor emeritus at Swarthmore College, and at 7:30 pm, the Canton Symphony’s Divergent Sounds Series hosts Anya Van Rose at The Auricle.

Not happening tonight: a concert by the new music collective The Third Law at the Bop Stop, canceled due to illness.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Let’s begin by celebrating the birth on this date in 1913 of Polish composer Witold Lutosławski (pictured above), whose highly respected music — some of which still sounds very fresh — might nevertheless be a bit vague in the minds of many listeners. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concerts at the Church of the Covenant resume  today with a recital by organist Oziah Wales. If the weather turns out to be an impediment, you can click here for the live stream.

Tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society hosts pianist Marc-André Hamelin and the Takács Quartet at Disciples Church for piano quintets by Florence Price and Antonín Dvořák, plus Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade. Come at 6:30 for a pre-concert lecture by Emily Laurance.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

The New York Times reports today in both its digital and print editions on The Cleveland Orchestra’s performances last weekend at Carnegie Hall. Click here to read Oussama Zahr’s “Critic’s Notebook” entry “The Cleveland Orchestra Says a Lot, but Only Through Music.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

This date in 1894 saw the first performance of Antonin Dvorák’s own arrangement of Stephen Foster’s Old Folks at Home with vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh at a  concert of African American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in New York City. [Read more…]

by Max Newman

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The Canton Symphony performs “Celtic Celebrations” (Amy Beach’s “Gaelic Symphony” & Felix Mendelssohn’s “Scottish Symphony”) under Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz (pictured, Saturday at 7:30), & the Youngstown Symphony features conductor Lawrence Loh and violin soloist William Hagen in the Beethoven Concerto (Sunday at 2:30).

Other performances include the Cleveland Cello Society Scholarship Winners Recital (Judson Manor on Saturday at 4), the rescheduled four-hand piano recital by Emanuela Friscioni & Julia Russ (St. Francis of Assisi in Gates Mills, Saturday at 6), two Apollo’s Fire Baroque Bistro series events — “The Wandering Minstrels” with Anna O’Connell and Friends (at Akron’s BLU Jazz+ Saturday at 8 and Cleveland’s Music Box Supper Club Sunday at 12:30), & a Cleveland Composers Guild Chamber Music Concert featuring works by Collegiate Competition Winners, including Gracelynn Jack’s Less Than Ten Days (Sunday at 3, Fairmount Presbyterian).

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

IN THE NEWS:

“Conde Nast Is Folding Pitchfork Music Magazine Into GQ And Laying Off Staff. The move will result in an undetermined number of layoffs at the website.” Read the article here.

Tuesday Musical‘s executive director Cyndee Snyder reminds us that applications for the 2024 Annual Scholarship Competition are open through February 1, 2024. “Some categories fill up fast, so don’t wait.” Apply here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NOT HAPPENING TODAY:

The concert by pianists Emanuela Friscioni & Julia Russ (pictured) at St. Francis of Assisi in Gates Mills has been RESCHEDULED for Saturday, January 27 at 6pm due to weather. The recital by organist Joshua Stafford on the Schantz instrument at Christ Presbyterian in Canton has been POSTPONED due to weather.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

IN THE NEWS:

Turmoil continues at Cleveland Ballet. Ideastream reports that “The Cleveland School of Dance is now Cleveland Ballet Theatre. It was started in 2000 by Gladisa Guadalupe, who subsequently founded Cleveland Ballet in 2015. The two entities later became partners, but are now severing any ties. Earlier this month, Guadalupe dismissed instructors connected to the Cleveland Ballet. The company responded with the announcement of its own in-house school, the Academy of Cleveland Ballet. Read the story here.

And Chicago is losing an early music ensemble. The Chicago Tribune reports that Third Coast Baroque is ceasing operations. Read story here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, in a repeat of Wednesday’s program, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in three symphonies: Sergei Prokoviev’s Second & Fifth, and Anton Webern’s only. Come early for a Concert Preview lecture by Eric Charnofsky. (Read our review of Wednesday’s performance on Cleveland.com.)

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

PETER SCHICKELE, 88

“Peter Schickele, an American composer whose career as a writer of serious concert music was often eclipsed by that of his antic alter ego, the thoroughly debauched, terrifyingly prolific and mercifully fictional P.D.Q. Bach, died on Tuesday at his home in Bearsville, a hamlet outside Woodstock, N.Y. He was 88.” Read the New York Times obituary by Margalit Fox here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Perhaps the most interesting anniversary on this date is not of a birth, a death, or a premiere, but of a dinner. The host was John F. Kennedy, the featured guest was the 79-year-old Igor Stravinsky, and the setting in 1962 was The White House.  [Read more…]