by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30,  CityMusic Cleveland presents the first of several performances around town of Symphony of Secrets. Brendan Slocumb (pictured) leads works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Florence Price, Domenico Cimarosa, Astor Piazzolla, Felix Mendelssohn, and Arturo Marquez at East Mount Zion Baptist Church. (Repeated at other venues this week).

Visit our Concert Listings for details.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Piano Cleveland has announced the 56 contestants who will participate in the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer from July 28 through August 10. Click here to view the photo gallery and personal bios. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Back home from leading a group of Oberlin organ majors who spent Winter Term organ-hopping in Germany, Jonathan W. Moyer plays works by Claude Balbastre, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Jehan Alain, and his own Fanfare: “The Trumpet Sounds Within-a-my Soul” on the Tuesday noon series at the Church of the Covenant. Listen in person or catch a live stream.

Visit our Concert Listings for details.

INTERESTING READ:

“Composer and conductor John Williams is one of the most respected and beloved figures in music. He reflects with League [of American Orchestras] President and CEO Simon Woods on the beginnings of his career, a lifetime in music, and his love for orchestras.” Read the article from Symphony here.

NEW PODCAST:

Kevin McLaughlin has released a new podcast on his “At The Jazz Band Ball” platform. Jazz Soundies 1940-1946 features early music video soundtracks from Louis Jordan, Duke Ellington, Roy Eldridge, Anita O’Day, Fats Waller, The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, et al. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The chamber ensemble Wit’s Folly will play a program titled Passing the Baton: Joseph Haydn and his Musical Successors on Saturday at The Brownhoist in Cleveland and on Sunday at Hudson Library and Historical Society, both at 2 pm.

Baldwin Wallace Opera continues its run of Taking Up Serpents (pictured), with an eclectic score by Kamala Sankaram and libretto by Jerre Dye inspired by his roots in the Deep South, on Saturday at 3 & 8 pm and Sunday at 3, all at the Kleist Center for Arts & Drama in Berea.

On Saturday at 8 at Severance Music Center, Cleveland Pops Orchestra and Classical Mystery Tour present A Tribute to the Beatles featuring music from the early days through the solo years.

And on Sunday at 4, organist Daniel Colaner plays a recital at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Hts.

Visit our Concert Listings for details.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Canton Symphony writes that the Orchestra has reached the halfway point to its $250,000 goal in the Gerhardt Zimmermann Memorial Campaign, having raised $127,000 in gifts and multi-year pledges since last July to honor its former music director. That total includes a $100,000 gift from the estate of the late William P. Blair that will be matched by all pledges made before June 30. Read more here. [Read more…]

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…]