By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

At its Severance Music Center concerts through Saturday, Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra are debuting Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud’s new percussion concerto featuring Christoph Sietzen. Whereas the Reality Trembles shares the program with Tchaikovsky’s “Ukrainian” Symphony.

Also on Saturday, the Canton Symphony will give the first performance of Jeff Scott’s Song of the Uirapuru, led by music director designate Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz, and BlueWater Chamber Orchestra will feature pianist Yaron Kolhberg and trumpeter Austin Cruz in Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto in a performance at the Church of the Covenant.

Sunday’s schedule welcomes American pianist Maxim Lando (pictured, replacing Jan Bartoš) to the Art Museum under the auspices of the Tri-C Classical Piano series, and Arts at Holy Trinity in Akron begins marking its 40th anniversary with Miguel Esperanza Flamenco Fusion.

Check our Concert Listings for details of these and forthcoming events.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

October 7, by Mike Telin

Today we celebrate cellist, cultural ambassador, and humanitarian Yo-Yo Ma, born on this date in 1955 in Paris. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12:15 Noon, George Leggiero performs on the McGaffin Carillon in University Circle.

At 7:30, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the second of three subscription concerts featuring Christoph Sietzen (pictured) in Johannes Maria Staud’s new percussion concerto.

And at 8 pm, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project presents Jonah Parzen-Johnson, baritone saxophone & flute, Bbob Drake, sound artist, and Kristen Ban Drake, poet, vocalist, and analog synth player at Convivium 33 Gallery.

Check our Concert Listings for details of these and forthcoming events.

CONCERT UPDATES:

The Tri-C Classical Piano Series has announced a change in artist for its recital on Sunday at 2 at the Art Museum. Maxim Lando will replace Jan Bartoš, who is ill. Program to be announced.

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society has announced a venue change for its opening concert on October 17. The Belcea Quartet will play at Disciples Church rather than at Plymouth.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The North Carolina radio station which had announced a ban on Metropolitan Opera broadcasts earlier in the week, has reversed course after meeting with harsh responses on social media. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

All three of today’s events will take place in University Circle at 7:30 pm.

Guitarist Tal Hurwitz plays at the Maltz PAC under the banner of the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the premiere of Johannes Maria Staud’s Whereas the Reality Trembles featuring percussionist Christoph Sietzen plus Tchaikovsky’s “Ukrainian” Symphony, and saxophonist Steven Banks joins pianist Xak Bjerken for a recital in Mixon Hall at CIM. Check our Concert Listings for details of these and forthcoming events.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Oberlin has added another MacArthur Foundation award to its impressive list of thirteen previous winners. “Composer and pianist Courtney Bryan (pictured above), a 2004 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory whose works explore the African American experience through a range of musical and sociopolitical influences, has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for 2023, one of the nation’s most prestigious and lucrative honors.” [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At noon, organist Mayumi Naramura & Baroque cellist Grace Mockus play music by Sweelinck, Byrd, Purcell, Domenico Gabrieli & Salvatore Lanzetti at the Church of the Covenant.

And at 7:30, the Russian Duo and friends — Oleg Kruglyakov, balalaika, Terry Boyarsky, piano, Eliesha Nelson, viola, Peter Wright, tenor, and Chris Bohan — offer music by Tchaikovsky and stories by Chekhov at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

Check our Concert Listings for details of these and forthcoming events.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Last week the Management and Musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra ratified a new, three-year trade agreement that includes adjustments to compensation, and changes to working conditions “that benefit both the institution and the musicians.” Read a press release here. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, a 3pm Baldwin Wallace Faculty Recital features J.R. Fralick, tenor, Christine Fuoco, piano, and Khari Joyner, cello, a 4pm Stars in the Classics classical cabaret at Praxis Fiber Gallery includes dance and the first performance of a work inspired by memories of Euclid Beach Park, and a 7:30 performance by Les Délices and Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble in Kulas Hall at CIM repeats Friday’s program, “The Pow’r of Music.”

On Sunday, The Cleveland Orchestra repeats its season opener at 3pm with Franz Welser-Möst on the podium and Daniil Trifonov at the Steinway (pictured — read our review on Cleveland.com here), new music director Kevin Jones plays a 4pm organ recital at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, and at 6pm, CIM celebrates the life and compositions of its celebrated alumna Dolores White.

Check our Concert Listings for details of these and forthcoming events.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

SEPTEMBER 30

Today marks the anniversaries of the birth of Irish composer and organist Charles Villiers Stanford (1852) and Russian violinist David Oistrakh (1908), and the death of American composer and music critic Virgil Thomson (1989). [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

On Friday at Noon, the Cleveland Museum of Art presents Soh-Hyun Park Alrino (pictured), in a lunchtime lecture and concert featuring traditional Korean Sanjo on the Violin.

Friday evening sees the opening of the Akron Symphony season with music director Christopher Wilkins & guest conductor Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate leading a narrated orchestral work drawing on the culture and history of Tate’s Chickasaw heritage, plus Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

Also on Friday: the B-W Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Les Délices, Oberlin Orchestra (with pianist Stanislav Ioudenitch) and Hub New Music all perform at 7:30. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Pianist Daniil Trifonov joins Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra in the first Severance Music Center concert of the season at 7:30 pm. On the docket: Brahms’ First Piano Concerto & Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony (repeated on Sunday at 3, and live streamed on the Orchestra’s Adella and Deutsche Grammophon’s Stage+ platforms).

At 6:30, Welser-Möst and Cleveland Orchestra President and CEO André Gremillet will join in a season preview conversation in Reinberger Chamber Hall.

And tonight at 8, Canton Symphony hornists Ben Reidhead and Micah Northam will perform during Canton Symphony Uncorked in the center of The Pavilion at Gervasi Vineyard.

Check our Concert Listings for forthcoming events.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Two American musical scholars and a pair of contemporary composers share birthdates on September 28, and a British musical humorist bade adieu to the world of classical music, leaving it a bit less serious about itself than before. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Friday at 7:30, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series will present The Emerson String Quartet (pictured), who are retiring after 47 years on the road, in a Finney Chapel concert topped off by Beethoven’s outrageous Große Fuge. Read a preview here and buy tickets  online.

At the same hour, The Cleveland Orchestra continues its four-day run of Amadeus (repeated Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 2). Read our review on Cleveland.com here.

Also on Friday at 7:30, Cleveland State University will throw a 60th Birthday Concert for composer Andrew Rindfleisch on Friday at 7:30, when Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble, Meridian Arts Ensemble, & pianists Geoffrey Burleson and Shuai Wang play a free program of his music in Drinko Hall.

Two interesting events are on for Saturday. At 3 at Heights Theater, Les Délices presents Salonera Sessions: Songs for Social Justice in which Renaissance lute songs, African American Spirituals, and traditional Lebanese melodies become vehicles for storytelling by countertenor Michael Walker & tenor Haitham Haidar. And at 7:30 at Praxis Fiber Workshop, violinist Edwin Huizinga, violist Aniela Eddy & and cellist Cullen O’Neil, present Bach’s Goldberg Variations in “Goldberg with Guts” (playing on gut strings — get it?)

Arts Renaissance Tremont begins its new season on Sunday at 4 at St. Wendelin Church with the Cavani String Quartet, plus violist Ayane Kozasa & poet Mwatabu Okantah. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Unusual concerts by two orchestras:

At 7:30 The Cleveland Orchestra presents the first of four screenings of Miloš Forman’s 1984 Mozart biopic Amadeus, adapted from Peter Shaffer’s 1979 stage play, with three more to come on Friday at 7:30, Saturday at 8:00, and Sunday at 2. Richard Kaufman conducts the live score.

At the same hour, the Youngstown Symphony presents NYC-based drag performance artist and professional strings musician Thorgy Thor in “From Brahms to Bruno Mars,” with Lawrence Loh on the podium.

City Music Cleveland has less outrageous Mozart in mind for its 7:30 concert at Fairmount Presbyterian: his Concerto in C for 2 Violins featuring Jung Min Amy Lee & Kyung Sun Lee, along with music by George Walker, Tōru Takemitsu, and Joseph Bologne.

And the 7:30 Warner Concert Hall performance by Oberlin Sinfonietta. includes Gabriella Smith’s Brandenburg Interstices, Shuying Li’s Eight Immortals and the Sea, and Pierre Jalbert’s All Is Now. Timothy Weiss conducts, and Alexa Still is the featured faculty flutist. (The concert is free and will be streamed). [Read more…]