by Daniel Hathaway

INTERESTING READS:

Writing in The New Yorker, Alex Ross notes that “At ninety, Arvo Pärt and Terry Riley still sound vital. Both composers remain intriguing outliers, notable for the stubbornness with which they have held to their youthful convictions.”

And in The Guardian, Emma Thompson speaks of her ‘intense irritation’ with AI. “The actor and screenwriter told late night talkshow host Stephen Colbert that she took issue with Microsoft’s Copilot offering to rewrite her scripts for her.” Although this article is about words, the issue affects all the arts.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German organist and composer Samuel Scheidt was baptized on this date in 1587 in Halle, where he spent his whole career after studying in Amsterdam with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

Just back from heading up the jury for the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, pianist Garrick Ohlsson turns his formidable interpretive powers to the music of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart in performances of the Viennese genius’s Concerto No. 23 with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra. The concerts on Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center will also include Tyler Taylor’s Permissions, and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish.” Tickets are available online.

The Poesis Quartet (pictured) — violinists Sarah Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor, and cellist Drew Dansby — return to their ensemble’s birthplace at the Oberlin Conservatory this week for coachings and a performance of John Adams’ Absolute Jest with Raphael Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra on Friday at 7:30 in Finney Chapel.  Jiménez has more contemporary music planned for this program, including Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, Angelica Negrón’s Campos Flotantes, and Zhou Tian’s Transcend. It’s free, and will also be live streamed. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, pianist Garrick Ohlsson will play the first of three performances of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra. The concerts on Thursday and Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3 in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center will also include Tyler Taylor’s Permissions, and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish.”

Mozart’s 23rd piano concerto will also be performed by Antonio Pompa-Baldi in a 7:30 concert this evening by the Cleveland Institute of Music Virtuosi in Kulas Hall, along with the composer’s Divertimento in D, K. 136 and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Todd Phillips leads the ensemble.

NEWS BRIEFS: 

The Guardian writes that the 9th century manuscript for an Easter rite discovered “hiding in plain sight” in a private collection near Philadelphia may now claim to  contain the oldest extant example of Western musical notation. Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1864 American music patroness and composer Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge was born in Chicago. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HONORED:

The Violin Channel reports that Cleveland violist Samuel Rosenthal is one of 37 artists selected from a pool of more than 200 applicants to advance to the semi-final round of Young Concert Artists’ (YCA) Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, “which differ from a competition, as there are no rankings and each candidate competes against a standard of excellence, not each other.” Read Rosenthal’s bio here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Whatever happened to Maria Anna Mozart, “Nannerl,” the composer’s beloved older sister, who died on October 29 in 1829? An accomplished pianist in her own right, she is said to have written music herself, although none survives. Her life was re-imagined in René Féret’s 2010 French language film, Nannerl, la sœur de Mozart. Watch a trailer here, and learn how you can rent the movie. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, The Pandan Quartet plays music by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate and Ludwig van Beethoven on the Tuesday noon series at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

Tonight at 7:30 in Finney Chapel, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series presents VOCES8 (pictured), the globally-touring British a cappella ensemble that performs everything from early Renaissance music to traditional folk song, contemporary and popular music, plus their own arrangements.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

Because of his connection to Northeast Ohio — thirteen years as concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell — we’ll focus today on Josef Gingold, the Russian-born violinist who was born on this date in 1909, and became one of America’s foremost pedagogues of his instrument. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, on the Lorain County Community College Signature Series in Elyria, violinist Clara Kim (pictured) plays her program People and Places — six works by JunYi Chow, Jessica Ackerley, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Sarah Gibson, and Christopher Stark, each inspired by a location that shaped their creation.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Let’s start reflecting on October 27 in music history with the inspiring story of German organist and composer Helmut Walcha, born in Leipzig on this date in 1907. Blinded as a result of a smallpox vaccination at the age of 19, Walcha went on to become assistant organist at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, moving on to the Friedenskirche in Frankfurt am Main in 1929, then to the Dreikönigskirche there in 1944, where he spent the rest of his career until his death in 1991. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony three more times this weekend at Severance Music Center — Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm. The famous work can stand alone, but these performances will preface it with Jean Sibelius’ Tapiola.

Cleveland Chamber Choir (pictured) will give two performances of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil in its hour-long version — coupling the Russian composer’s choral masterpiece with Reena Esmail’s A Winter Breviary, which celebrates the movement from winter to spring just as Rachmaninoff marks the progress from darkness to light. Friday’s 7:30 concert is at Trinity Cathedral and Saturday’s in Fairchild Chapel at Oberlin College. Gregory Ristow conducts.

No Exit will open its 17th season of new music concerts with “American Descent” on Saturday at 7 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop. On the menu: Garth Knox’s Viola Spaces, Geoffrey Burleson’s Cryptic Locomotion, June Young Will Kim’s After days of rain, construction fills the air, and the world premiere of Andrew Rindfleisch’s American Descent.

And on Sunday at 2:30, at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra will celebrate its 90th anniversary season with a program featuring Fanny Mendelssohn’s Overture in C, Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures (with mezzo soprano Kira McGirr), Clara-Jane Maunder’s The Coast (U.S. premiere), and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1. Eric Benjamin conducts.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

The prolific keyboard composer Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples on October 26, 1685, the son of composer Alessandro Scarlatti, and the third eminent member of the Class of ‘85 that includes Handel and J.S. Bach. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7 at Kent State University, No Exit new music ensemble will launch its 17th season with American Descent, featuring works by Garth Knox, Geoffrey Burleson, June Young and Will Kim, as well as the world premiere of American Descent, “a passionate rumination on our present time in America” by Andrew Rindfleisch (pictured). Concert repeats Saturday at 7:30 at Praxis Fiber Workshop.

An extended ensemble — Transient Canvas (Amy Advocat, clarinet/bass clarinet and Matt Sharrock, percussion), John Faieta, trombone, Geoffrey Burleson, piano, Ann Yu,violin and David Russell, cello will join No Exit for the Rindfleisch.

Also tonight at 7:30, Franz Welser–Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra,  Chorus and solo quartet in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center. The Orchestra will pair it with Jean Sibelius’s Tapiola. Concert repeats on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

CANCELLATION:

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced the cancellation of Italian pianist Beatrice Rana’s October 29 recital at Severance Music Center due to “personal circumstances beyond her control.” The event will not be rescheduled, and the box office will contact ticket holders about refunds.

INTERESTING  READ:

Writing in Early Music America, Kivie Cahn-Lipman, Oberlin grad, founder of the Baroque String band ACRONYM and cello professor at Lawrence University, asks “Can AI decipher a manuscript better than you?’’ Read about his experiment with ChatGP and a 17th-century motet by Giovanni Valentini here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Continuing the celebration of the reopening of its newly-renovated Kulas Hall, tonight at 7:30 The Cleveland Institute of Music will host Sphinx Virtuosi, the flagship ensemble of the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, in a program that highlights the breadth and depth of music by Black and Latino composers.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today’s calendar mostly records historic finales, perhaps none so tragic as that of French Baroque composer Jean-Marie Leclair. On this date in 1764, he was murdered in his home, supposedly by his jealous nephew, although no one was ever tried for the crime.

Making a more natural departure, Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti, father of the prolific keyboard composer Domenico, died on this date in 1725 in Naples at the age of 65. In his memory, we suggest listening to his extraordinary setting of Stabat Mater for ten solo voices and organ, performed here by Ars Nova Copenhagen, led by Paul Hillier and recorded in the Garnisonskirken in April, 2014.

Another in memoriam is due to Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, who was welcomed into the heavenly cello section on this date in 1973 at the age of 96. In a 1955 documentary filmed at his home in Prades, France, he talks with a former student about various subjects including his exile during the Franco regime, and plays one of Bach’s solo suites, in the revival of which he played a central role. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

An unusually busy Tuesday brings the first of three distinguished British choirs to Cleveland during October. Stephen Layton will lead Polyphony (pictured) in works by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Francis Poulenc, Arvo Pärt, Eric Whitacre, Charles Villiers Stanford and others tonight at 7:30 in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights.

What amounts to a mini-festival of English vocal ensembles continues on October 28 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel with Voces8, and on October 30 with The Gesualdo Six at the Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights. And later this season, St. Paul’s will present the Westminster Abbey Choir on April 29, 2026.

But getting back to Tuesday: today at Noon, organist Jonathan Moyer will play selections from Olivier Messiaen’s Le Livre du Saint–Sacrement at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle, and tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will host the Belcea Quartet at Disciples Christian Church and Tuesday Musical will present pianist Marc-André Hamelin in major works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Maurice Ravel at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On October 21, 1896 American composer and conductor Howard Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, 26 years after its founding by Czech, German, and Scandinavian settlers (and named after the eastern wahoo, a shrub indigenous to the area). [Read more…]