By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At Noon, organist Jonathan W. Moyer (pictured) plays a free recital on both organs at the Church of the Covenant. On the menu: music by Vincent Lübeck, Petr Eben & Max Reger.

Check our Concert Listings for more details and future performances.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On September 19, 1972, French pianist Robert Casadesus died in Paris. Known especially for his interpretations of Mozart’s concertos, he recorded a number of them with George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra (sometimes credited as “The Columbia Symphony” for contractual reasons). Listen here to nos. 21 and 24 in recordings remastered in 2018. Beginning in 1975 and for its first ten seasons, the Cleveland International Piano Competition was known as the Casadesus Competition.

On this date in 1829, German music publisher Gustav Schirmer was born in Saxony. After moving to New York, in 1866 he founded the music publishing house that bears his name. (Another Schirmer, Gustav’s nephew Ernest C., founded E.C. Schirmer Music Company in Boston in 1921). [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

BREAKING NEWS:

On Friday afternoon, Quire Cleveland released the following statement:

We regret to announce that Quire Cleveland has canceled its final concert series, Churches of the Same God: Mass Settings of Byrd and Tallis, scheduled for September 29, 30, and October 1, 2023, in the aftermath of the release of “Parish & School Policy on Issues of Sexuality and Gender Identity” by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. While Quire Cleveland does not agree with or support this policy, the decision to cancel the concert series was made solely to protect the safety and well-being of Quire’s singers, concert attendees, and hosting churches in the context of ongoing social media activity encouraging disruption of the concerts as a means of protesting the policy. All contracted singers will be compensated for the full concert series according to the terms of their singer agreement.

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Friday at 12:15, University Circle carillonneur George Leggiero plays a 30-minute concert on the 47-bell McGaffin Carillon. Listen live outdoors or click here for a live stream.

Up for a road trip? On Saturday at 7:30, Carl Topilow leads the Sinta Sax Quartet and the Firelands Symphony in William Bolcom’s Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet, Gershwin’s An American in Paris, and works by Copland, Williams, and Glass at Sawmill Creek Convention Center in Huron.

Saturday at 8 at Convivium 33 Gallery, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project hosts Dragonchild x Sunken Cages//Lemon Quartet, with Steve Clements, piano, Corey Farrow, electric piano, Keith Freud, saxophone, and Gabe Schray, bass in a pay-what-you can concert.

The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society begins its Classical Series on Sunday at 3 at the Maltz PAC with a recital by Australian artist Stephanie Jones (pictured), including works by J.S. Bach, Richard Charlton, Ross Edwards, Jakob Schmidt, Quique Sinesi, Rostislav Golubov, Astor Piazzolla & Antônio Carlos Jobim. Read a preview here. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

There are no concerts in Northeast Ohio to note, but keep an eye on our Concert Listings as the new season begins to gather momentum.

NEWS BRIEFS:

The New York Philharmonic announced on Tuesday that it had secured a $40 million donation from the financier Oscar L. Tang, a co-chairman of its board, and his wife, Agnes Hsu‐Tang, an archaeologist and art historian, the largest contribution to the endowment in the ensemble’s 181-year history.

The donation will be used to endow the Philharmonic’s music and artistic director chair starting in the 2025-26 season, when Gustavo Dudamel, the 42-year-old leader of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, becomes music director designate. Read the article in the New York Times.

Also in the Times, architectural critic Michael Kimmelman writes that “The Perelman Performing Arts Center, a glamorous $500 million project, may yet turn the World Trade Center into a neighborhood. Read “A Spectacular Marble Cube Rises at Ground Zero” here. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 pm, the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Perspectives presents Mike Block, cello (CIM alum and member of the Silk Road Ensemble), and Balla Kouyaté, balafon (West African xylophone) in a program to be announced from the stage of Mixon Hall. The show is sold out, but you can watch the webcast here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1764, French composer Jean Philippe Rameau died at the age of 80 in Paris. After filling a number of organist positions in the provinces, he finally moved to the capital and took up writing opera at the advanced age of 50. He premiered Hippolyte et Aricie in 1733, immediately igniting a stylistic controversy with the followers of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who had been the reigning composer in France to that point. Described as tall and exceptionally thin, Rameau’s personal appearance was captured by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle in a famous watercolor (above). [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Tri-C Classical Piano Series

. Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Board of Trustees to meet

. Happy Birthday, Arvo Pärt

HAPPENING TODAY: 

At 7:30 pm Tri-C Classical Piano Series presents Jean-Marc Luisada, piano (pictured) in “Au Cinéma ce Soir,” a concert rescheduled from Sunday, September 10 due to flight cancellations. The performance is now at Tri-C’s Metro Campus Auditorium and all ticket orders for September 10th will be honored.

Visit our Concert Listings for details of forthcoming performances

NEWS BRIEFS:

Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Board of Trustees will meet on September 13 at the Cleveland Public Library – Louis Stokes Wing 2nd Floor – Conference Room B. 325 Superior Avenue, Cleveland. The meeting will also be livestreamed. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

BREAKING NEWS:

Sunday’s Tri-C Classical Piano recital  by Jean-Marc Luisada has been rescheduled for Monday and the venue has been changed.

Franz Welser-Möst recently had a cancerous tumor removed and will need to undergo treatment between his conducting engagements for the next twelve to sixteen months. His first period of treatment will begin at the end of October. Regrettably, Welser-Möst must withdraw from all engagements from late October until the end of the year. He plans to resume his conducting engagements in January 2024. His doctors are confident of a full recovery. (Message posted on his website 9/8/23.)

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The marriage of music and film, high on this week’s agenda, continues on Friday at the Cleveland Silent Film Festival with The Heart of Cleveland & the experimental soviet documentary, Man with a Movie Camera, and on Saturday with All Quiet on the Western Front. Live scores will be played by Colorado’s Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

On Saturday at 2pm, baritone Jason Fuh & and pianist Edward Bak will compare the solo vocal works of Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky in their free program, Russian, Realistic and Romantic at the Cleveland Museum of Art. And on that evening at 7 pm at Blossom, the Akron Symphony will present Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy accompanied by high-definition video. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Who was that masked man? Before the Lone Ranger, there was Zorro, the populist hero who undermined the Spanish authorities in old California. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. starred in the 1920 silent film, The Mark of Zorro, which will be screened tonight at 7:30 at the Cleveland Silent Film Festival with a live score played by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Check our Concert Listings for details.

NEWS BRIEFS:

South Korean violinist Seohyun Kim, 14, has won the International Tibor Varga Violin Competition in Sion, Switzerland. If her name sounds familiar, in 2022, she took first prize at Oberlin’s Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition. Mike Telin caught up with her for an interview after that victory. Click here to read.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra has announced its 86th season, with concerts led by Victor Liva to be given at Cleveland State University, Westlake Performing Arts Center and West Shore Universalist Unitarian Church. Click here for details. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

No live concerts on Tuesday’s agenda, but have a look at the Concert Listings to see what’s on the horizon later this week.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Free Instrumental Lessons

The Center for Arts Inspired Learning invites Cleveland residents from the 3rd to the 12th grade and CMSD students to receive free beginner to intermediate instrument instruction. Click here for details of the Inspiration Through Music/Play It Forward! ® Cleveland after school programming. The fall session runs from September 11 to November 17.

INTERESTING READ:

Keeping score: Riccardo Muti reflects on a lifetime in music

“The 82-year old conductor (pictured above), who recently stepped down as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director after 13 years at the helm, is in ebullient form, reminiscing about Queen Elizabeth II visiting his dressing room at La Scala and staying – longer than protocol permitted – for 23 minutes, then railing against the opera world where ‘stage directors have now become the gods.’ [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday and Sunday at 7 at Blossom, Susie Benchasil Seiter will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in two more performances of “Disney in Concert: the Sound of Magic,” a retrospective of the first hundred years of the Walt Disney Company, including Peter Pan, Moana, Aladdin, The Jungle Book, Frozen, The Lion King, Fantasia, Encanto, & Disney Parks classics.

Local #4 Music Fund presents the Hingetown Jazz Festival on Saturday at 4, featuring Jackie Warren and the Sammy DeLeon Latin Jazz Trio, the Johnny Cochran Trio, the Max Schhlenk Quintet, the Theron Brown Trio, the Tommy Lehman Quartet, the Jamey Haddad Quartet, and the Vanessa Rubin Quartet.

On Sunday at 2:30, the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble, Edwin Huizinga, violin, Michael Lynn, flute, Rebecca Landell Reed, cello & viola da gamba & Mark Edwards, harpsichord, will give a faculty concert in Kulas Recital Hall which you can experience live, or catch on  a webcast.

And later that afternoon, The Cleveland Opera & Cleveland Ballet present their annual Opera in the Italian Garden concert in the Italian Cultural Garden on East Boulevard. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

This weekend at Blossom, Susie Benchasil Seiter will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in three performances of “Disney in Concert: the Sound of Magic,” a retrospective of the first hundred years of the Walt Disney Company, including Peter Pan, Moana, Aladdin, The Jungle Book, Frozen, The Lion King, Fantasia, Encanto, & Disney Parks classics. The program debuts tonight, Friday at 7, and repeats on Saturday and Sunday.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Sir John Eliot Gardiner has withdrawn from all concerts to focus on his mental health after punching a singer. The world-renowned British conductor struck a member of his own chorus, William Thomas, in a furious backstage row following a concert in France, and has now decided to withdraw from all of his concert commitments to focus on his mental health with a counseling course. Read a story from The Telegraph here.

Click here to read a related article, John Eliot Gardiner and the stubborn archetype of the bully maestro, by Michael Andor Brodeur in The Washington  Post. [Read more…]