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…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

American experimental composer Charles Ives, whose day job was serving as executive of several insurance companies in New York City, was born on October 20, 1875 in Danbury, Connecticut.

Regarded as an American Original, early on Ives was influenced by the whole panoply of 19th century music he encountered as a young man as well as such sonic experiences as hearing bands playing simultaneously in small-town parades.

Having formally studied with Horatio Parker at Yale, Ives later went off on his own, experimenting with polytonality and polyrhythm, microtones, tone clusters, and improvisatory elements. Somewhat mysteriously, he stopped composing in the late 1920s, well before his death in 1954.

An hour-long documentary by Anne-Kathrin Peitz, The Unanswered Ives: Portrait of a composer, Wall Street giant and pioneer of sound, is available for subscribers on Medici-TV.

Listen to a performance of Ives’ First Violin Sonata by Stefan Jackiw and Jeremy Denk here, and of his Fourth Sonata by Jinjoo Cho and Shuai Wang here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

This weekend, two of Northeast Ohio’s peripatetic instrumental ensembles are touring the metropolitan area to perform multiple concerts in venues near you. Others are staying put to inaugurate new venues or are dressing up for All Hallows’ Eve.

On Friday at 7:30 at St. Jerome Catholic Church, soprano Kirsten Kunkle will join conductor John McLaughlin Williams and CityMusic Cleveland in a program featuring works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Samuel Barber, George Frederick McKay, and the world premiere of Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Ko’koomfena (Our Grandmother), a CityMusic commission.

The free concert will travel to the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus on Saturday at 7:30, and to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday at 2:30.

Beginning on Friday at 7:30 at Akron’s Westminster Presbyterian Church, Cleveland’s period instrument ensemble Les Délices will tour “Bohemian Rhapsody,” featuring works by Franz Krommer, Georg Druschetzky, and Katerina Victoria Dusikova-Cianchettini, as well as Mozart’s Oboe Quartet (starring Debra Nagy), and a collection of traditional Czech folk tunes arranged for the ensemble. This program will reappear on Saturday at 7:30 at Forest Hill Presbyterian Church, and on Sunday at 4 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River. You’ll need tickets. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30,  CityMusic Cleveland begins its current four-concert tour of the area with “Sounds of Home” at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights (pictured). John McLaughlin Williams conducts, and soprano Kirsten Kunkle will be featured in music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Samuel Barber, George Frederick McKay, and the world premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Ko’koomfena (Our Grandmother), a CityMusic commission. It’s free.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1621, Dutch organist and composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck died In Amsterdam, where he spent his entire career, although his fame spread elsewhere. He was known in Germany for his mentoring of young organists and in England for his keyboard compositions, which found their way into the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. [Read more…]

MIRÓ QUARTET PHOTO GALLERY:

Oberlin College and Conservatory have posted photos of the Miró Quartet’s complete Beethoven string quartet cycle celebrating the 30th anniversary of the ensemble’s founding at Oberlin in six concerts last weekend. Pictured: Saturday afternoon’s performance at the Allen Memorial Art Museum (credit: Abe Frato).

HAPPENING TODAY:

Unless you’ve already reserved free tickets to tonight’s recital by James (Zijian) Wei, the 2024 Mixon First Prize winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, you’re out of luck – the event in Kulas Hall at CIM is sold out.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German philosopher, philologist, poet, cultural critic and sometime composer Friedrich Nietzsche was born on this date in 1844. [Read more…]

R.I.P. SHIRLEY MORGENSTERN TOPILOW

Conductor Carl Topilow announced on social media over the weekend that his wife, Shirley Morgenstern Topilow, with whom he co-founded the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, passed away at home on Saturday at the age of 79. Read more here.

A memorial service and celebration of her life will be held on Wednesday, October 15 at 11 am at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights.

HAPPENING TODAY:

12 Noon – Tuesdays at the Covenant: organist Mikhail Grazhdanov plays music by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Juan Bautista José Cabanilles, Bernardo Storace & François Couperin at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES BOARD CHANGES:

“Following its annual meeting on October 9, The Cleveland Orchestra announced the election of Richard J. Kramer, former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, as Chair of its Board of Trustees. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German violinist, clarino trumpet player and composer Johann Christoph Pezel departed this life on October 13, 1694, having served as Stadtpfeifer and Stadtmusicus (a member of the municipal wind band) in Leipzig and Bautzen. (Pictured: the Nuremberg band) 

His music is frequently played these days by modern brass ensembles, but ensembles were more complex in Pezel’s time. As an example, listen to his Sonata Ciacona a 6 in a performance by the Baroque string band ACRONYM here (there’s a score to follow).

In 1912 on this date, Moravian-American composer Hugo Weisgall was born in Ivancice, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of eight, studying at Peabody and Curtis, and completing a doctorate in German literature at Johns Hopkins — which made him a valuable aide-de-camp to General George S. Patton during World War II. [Read more…]