by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 on the University of Akron’s Kulas Concert Series, Galen Karriker conducts the UA Wind Symphony with featured soloists Liam Teague, steelpan (pictured) and Hunter Ashcroft, saxophone, in Guzzetta Recital Hall.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Akron’s Tuesday Musical has announced the First- and second-place winners of its 2025 Scholarship Competition who will compete again in the Final Round/Winners Concert on Sunday, May 4 at 2:30 pm in Guzzetta Recital Hall at The University of Akron. Click here to see the participants.

“The audience will vote on the winner of the John M. Ream Jr. DDS People’s Choice Award of $500. Two additional performance scholarships — one for $1,000 and one for $2,000 — will also be awarded. This year’s judges are conductor Dean Buck, composer Margi Griebling-Haigh, and retired journalist and music critic Elaine Guregian. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

With eighteen performances scheduled for Saturday and Sunday this week, our Concert Listings reflect the extraordinary vitality of classical music in Northeast Ohio. Here’s who’s performing (visit our Concert Listings page for details).

Saturday: 4:00 pm – Les Délices: The Mermaid (pictured, Seán Dagher), 7:00 pm – Warren Philharmonic, 7:30 pm – Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Duo Chinoiserie. 7:30 pm – Canton Symphony Orchestra. 7:30 pm – Lorain Civic Orchestra. 7:30 pm – UA Steel Drum Band Concert. 8:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Kazuki Yamada, conductor, and Francesco Piemontesi, piano.

Sunday: 2:00 pm – Divinity Lutheran Church Arts in Action: Duo Balalaika. 2:00 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra. Family Concert Series: Scheherazade. 3:00 pm – Keyboard Conversations with Jeffrey Siegel. ​​4:00 pm – Les Délices: The Mermaid. 4:00 pm – Master Singers Chorale. 4:00 pm – Lakeland Civic Orchestra: Songs and Dreams. 5:00 pm – Music from the Western Reserve: Greta Pasztor Chamber Ensemble. 5:00 pm – Music at Bath Concert Series: Singers Companye. 7:00 pm – CityMusic Cleveland: April Chamber Concert. 7:00 pm – Greater Cleveland Flute Society: Cleveland Composers’ Connection. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, Canadian organist Ken Cowan, professor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, will play works by Franz Liszt, Jean Roger-Ducasse, Iain Farrington, Gaston Litaize, and Edward Elgar on the restored 1927 E. M. Skinner organ in the Helen Rockwell Morley Memorial Music Building in Painesville.

At the same hour, CIM Opera Theater will present the final performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Mimi Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square.

Tonight at 7:30, Les Délices will present “The Mermaid,” a program of traditional sea shanties and country dance tunes, plus music by Henry Purcell and Franz Joseph Haydn at Akron Civic Theater.

Also tonight, guest conductor Kazuki Yamada and pianist Francesco Piemontesi join The Cleveland Orchestra for Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, and the Orchestra completes the 7:30 program with Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

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

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On April 25, 1861, Italian composer Marco Enrico Bossi was born in Salò (he died while crossing the Atlantic in 1925, returning from an organ concert tour to New York and Philadelphia). While serving as director of conservatories in Venice, Bologna, and Rome, he found time to write some 150 compositions, including this Concerto in a for organ, string orchestra, horns and timpani. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, guest conductor Kazuki Yamada and pianist Francesco Piemontesi join The Cleveland Orchestra for Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, and the Orchestra completes the evening’s program with Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1. Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Tickets available online.

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

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On April 24 of 1801, Joseph Haydn put the final touches on his oratorio The Seasons and performed it on the same day at the Schwartzenberg Palace in Vienna. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, CIM Opera Theater presents Mozart’s Don Giovanni (pictured) at Mimi Ohio Theatre in Playhouse Square. Read preview articles here and here.

And to mark its 75th Anniversary, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society has booked Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art for five evenings and has engaged the Jerusalem Quartet to play all fifteen of Dmitri Shostaktovich’s string quartets in chronological order, creating a timeline of the composer’s life in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. The third program tonight at 7:30 includes Quartets 7-9, and will be preceded by a 6:30 lecture by James Wilding. Read a preview article here.

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

INTERESTING READ & LISTEN:

When New York’s Frick Collection was nearing the completion of its renovation, the museum needed to acquire a new concert grand piano for its 220-seat concert hall to replace an instrument it had been renting. The choice was narrowed to three Steinway “D” models — an 1882 instrument nicknamed Palisandra, a 1965 piano called Volodya, and a 2017 concert grand built in Hamburg, Steinway’s German hometown. Then Jeremy Denk was retained to put each of them through a rigorous audition. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Today is Earth Day 2025. There are numerous ways to observe this year’s theme,  “Our Power, Our Planet,” with its focus on renewable energy and encouraging people to take action for the environment. Cleveland Metroparks suggests 50 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day at Home.

To mark its 75th Anniversary, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society has booked Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art for five evenings and has engaged the Jerusalem Quartet (pictured) to play all fifteen of Dmitri Shostaktovich’s string quartets in chronological order, creating something of a timeline of the composer’s life in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. The second program tonight at 7:30 includes Quartets 4-6, and  will be preceded by a 6:30 lecture by James Wilding.

And to mark the 200th Birthday of the City of Akron, Tuesday Musical has organized a Bicentennial Concert tonight at 7:30 in E.J. Thomas Hall. The program features the brass and percussion sections of The Cleveland Orchestra in the world premiere of Peter Boyer’s Festive Fanfare, plus works by Giovanni Gabrieli and Modest Mussorgsky.

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

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Museum of Art has announced that its Solstice Event will return on Saturday, June 21 from 7:00 pm to 12 midnight. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

To celebrate its 75th Anniversary, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society has booked Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art for five evenings and has engaged the Jerusalem Quartet to play all fifteen of Dmitri Shostaktovich’s string quartets in chronological order, creating something of a timeline of the composer’s life in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. Tonight’s 7:30 program includes Quartets 1-3, and each evening will be preceded by a 6:30 lecture by James Wilding

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

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On April 21, 1749, a public rehearsal of Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music took place — against the composer’s wishes — at London’s Vauxhall Gardens. Obviously not respecting social distancing, an impressive crowd of 12,000 turned out, causing traffic jams for three hours on London Bridge. [Read more…]

The Diary is taking the weekend off and will return on Monday.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, the Cleveland Celtic Ensemble will perform on the Brownbag Series at Trinity Cathedral.

At 6 pm, Piano Cleveland Live will present Zhu Wang and Cleveland Playhouse artists Madalyn Baker and Nathan Nelson in a medley of favorites from the American musical theater canon at Hofbräuhaus Cleveland.

Then at 7:30, Raul Midón, the blind singer-songwriter and guitarist will play a blend of “smooth folk, alt-pop, and jazz” in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

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

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Apollo’s Fire has announced its season plans for 2025-2026. Read the details here.

ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival has released its tenth anniversary season, which will take place from June 2-22 in Gates Mills. “This year’s theme, By Leaps and Bounds, will launch us into our next decade with a celebration of dazzling classical music inspired by movement and dance.” Read more here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

12 Noon — Chamber Music in the Atrium hosted by Piano Cleveland and featuring pianist Zhu Wang. Ames Family Atrium, Cleveland Museum of Art.

Also at 12 Noon – Organist Owen Metz plays Marcel Dupré’s Symphonie-Passion, Op. 23 on the Tuesday Noon Concerts at the Church of the Covenant, University Circle.

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

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Mike Telin

We begin today’s birthday celebrations back in 1688 when German violinist and composer Johann Friedrich Fasch entered this world on April 15 in Buttelstedt, Thuringia. [Read more…]