By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday afternoon, Daniel Reith will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a “sensory friendly” concert at Severance Music Center specially designed for attendees on the autism spectrum. Activities include an instrument petting zoo, coloring stations, and photo opportunities.

Also on Saturday afternoon, Les Délices (pictured) will celebrate the release of two CDs at Bottlehouse Brewery. The period instrument ensemble will also perform on the Music From the Western Reserve series in Hudson Sunday at 5.

Saturday evening includes a Baldwin Wallace alumna recital by soprano Jennifer Rowley, a Cleveland Jazz Orchestra performance at the Maltz featuring trumpeter and vocalist Bria Skonberg, an Oberlin Jazz Ensemble concert, a Canton Symphony Pops concert with the Labra Brothers, and the third of four performances of Britten’s Albert Herring by Oberlin Opera Theater (final performance on Sunday afternoon).

The Verona Quartet will play on the Wooster Chamber Music Series Sunday afternoon, and other performances include the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (with Tri-C Film Academy),  and vocalists and cellists on the Sounds of St. James series in Lakewood. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Four events at 7 pm: Cleveland Jazz Orchestra plays at BLU Jazz+ in Akron, The Gesualdo Six (pictured) from the U.K. sing at Christ Presbyterian in  Canton, Les Délices celebrates the release of two new CDs at Waterloo Arts & the Baldwin Wallace Symphonic Wind Ensemble plays Clint Needham’s “Liturgy” in Gamble Auditorium.

The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble performs in Warner Concert Hall  at 7:30, and at 8, Oberlin Opera Theater continues a four-performance run of Benjamin Britten’s comic opera, Albert Herring, in Hall Auditorium. Read a preview here.

For details of these and other events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

The Gesualdo Six, founded at Cambridge University in 2014 for a performance of Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories in Trinity College Chapel, sings a 7 pm concert at Malone University in Canton, joined by the Malone University Chorale.

At 7:30 pm, the University Of Akron presents its annual Collage concert, showcasing students and faculty from its music, art, and dance departments in E.J. Thomas Hall.

And at 8 pm, Oberlin Opera Theater opens a four-performance run of Benjamin Britten’s comic opera, Albert Herring, in Hall Auditorium (pictured: Oberlin’s 2014 production with Daniel McGrew as Albert). Read a preview here.

For details of these and other events, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READS:

Louis Armstrong Gets the Last Word on Louis Armstrong

“You can name a thousand great instrumentalists or you can name a thousand great vocalists, but he’s the only person you could find who changed the way people played their instruments and the way people sang. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At noon, organists Jonathan Moyer & Oziah Wales will play a Halloween program at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle. You can watch via livestream. For details, visit our Concert Listings.

Or enjoy a private, 3 hour and 52 minute concert of Halloween selections curated by the folks at Spotify.

INTERESTING READS:

About yesterday’s N.Y. Times review:

The online review of Apollo’s Singers’ performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Jeannette Sorrell that we referenced in Monday’s Diary appeared in the paper’s print edition today. One small detail was still missing: any reference to Cleveland! [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday at 5pm, the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club, Mark Stover, director, will join the Brass Choir from Firestone Community Learning Center, Akron in a concert at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Massillon.

Sunday will feature four orchestra concerts. The Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra will don costumes for a “Halloween Spooktacular” at Severance Music Center at 2 pm (pictured), the same hour when more than 40 musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra and friends will begin playing A Day of Music for Israel at Temple Tifereth Israel (music continues until 8 pm).

At 3:30 pm, Domenico Boyagian will lead the Suburban Symphony in music from the British Isles at Beechwood High School Auditorium, and at 4 pm, Steven Smith and Cleveland Chamber Symphony will perform Marta Ptaszyńska’s Flute Concerto with Sean Gabriel, Charles Ives’ Set for Theatre Orchestra, and Christopher Auerbach-Brown’s Constellation No. 6 – The Cicadas in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace.

Also on Sunday at 4, members of BlueWater Chamber Orchestra (Andrea Belding & Nancy Patterson, violins, James Rhodes, viola & Kent Collier, cello), will play Arriaga, Gershwin & Mendelssohn at St. Noel in Willoughby Hills. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

On Friday at 12:15 noon, Sheryl Modlin, who usually plays the carillon at the Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights, will present a program of spooky music on the McGaffin Tower bells in University Circle. You can enjoy it in person, or online.

Also on Friday, Baldwin Wallace Opera will stage Handel’s Giulio Cesare at 8pm in the Helen Theatre in Playhouse Square.

And at midnight between Friday and Saturday in Finney Chapel, Oberlin organ majors will present the annual Halloween Edition of their celebrated Friday Night Organ Pump.

For details, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm, the Oberlin Sinfonietta, Timothy Weiss, conducting, with faculty cellist Darrett Adkins (pictured), play Chen Yi’s Duo Ye for chamber orchestra and Philip Cashian’s Concerto for Cello and Strings in Warner Concert Hall. There’s a free webcast as well.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

The prolific keyboard composer Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples on this date in 1685, the son of composer Alessandro Scarlatti, and the third eminent member of the Class of ‘85 that includes Handel and J.S. Bach. Scarlatti spent most of his career in Spain churning out some of the most imaginative keyboard music of the period — his 555 Sonatas, which have become favorite program starters for keyboardists ranging from Liszt to Horowitz to Hamelin. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday’s events begin at 7 with Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival’s mashup of Bach & Bartok with pianists Zarina Melik-Stepanova & Alexandra Nguyen & Jamie Ryan & Josh Ryan, percussion, in Gamble Auditorium.

Marking the 25th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s murder in Wyoming, on Saturday at 7 Avon Lake UCC, Gregory Ristow will conduct the first of two performances by Cleveland Chamber Choir & Lakewood High School Chamber Choir of Craig Hella Johnson’s affecting modern oratorio, Considering Matthew Shepard. The program will be repeated on Sunday at 4 at Trinity Cathedral (rehearsal pictured above).

Also on Saturday, at 7:30, organist Robert Mollard will join Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony for Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Worship, Ottorino Respighi’s Church Windows & Camille Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony at. E.J. Thomas Hall.

On Saturday at 8 pm, Jeannette Sorrell will lead Apollo’s Fire in a one-night-only performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt with Amanda Forsythe & Sonya Headlam, sopranos, Cody Bowers, countertenor, Jacob Perry, tenor, Edward Vogel, baritone, and Apollo’s Singers in Kulas Hall at CIM.

Saturday wraps up with “A Night in Hollywood,” an 8 pm concert by Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Carl Topilow, conducting, at Severance Music Center.

There’s more to Easter Island than its iconic statues, as pianist Mahani Teave will prove in her 2 pm recital on Sunday on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Island native will perform works from her debut album, Rapa Nui Odyssey.

And there’s more keyboard music on Sunday: At 4 pm, organist Daniel Colaner will play a solo recital at the Shrine of St. Stanislaus, and at 5 pm, pianist Zsolt Bognár will perform on the Music From the Western Reserve series at Christ Church, Hudson. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus will host composer and conductor Eric Whitacre (pictured), with cellist Mingyao Zhao & pianist Daniel Overly in a Severance Music Center performance of Reena Esmail’s When the Violin and Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil.

Across East Boulevard, but also at 7:30, JoAnn Falletta will guest conduct the CIM Orchestra, with Micah Kroeker, trombone, in Brian Raphael Nabors’ Upon Daybreak, Ferdinand David’s Concertino for Trombone, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet in Kulas Hall.

And across town at 8 at Convivium 33 Gallery, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project will present Dutch composer, vocalist, poet and visual artist Jaap Blonk.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READS:

New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe sums up the character and career of the Emerson String Quartet on the eve of their final performances at Alice Tully Hall. Read “After 47 Years, the Emerson Quartet Has One More Weekend” here.

According to a 2023 report on racial, ethnic and gender diversity prepared by the League of American Orchestras, Black musicians account for just 2.4 percent of orchestra members in the United States.

But not at the Gateways Music Festival, which this week will celebrate the 30th anniversary of an initiative established in 1993 by Juilliard-trained pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, CIM alumna Elisabeth Kufferath (pictured) will play mostly contemporary music both on violin and viola on the LCCC Signature Series in Elyria.

At the same hour, CityMusic Cleveland clarinetist Daniel Gilbert will “Celebrate Black Elegance” with soprano Elizabeth Hanje, tenor Trevis Guillory & bass-baritone Benhur Mosazghi at East Mount Zion Baptist Church (repeated on Friday at 8:30 La Sagrada Familia, Saturday at 7:30 at the Shrine of St. Stanislaus & Sunday at 4:30 at St. Sebastian in Akron).

Also tonight at 7:30, the Canton Symphony’s Divergent Sounds series will present JT’s Electrik BLACKOUT at The Auricle.

For details, visit our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

San Francisco Classical Voice remembers publisher Stephen Rubin, who founded the Rubin Institute for Musical Criticism, which now funds a number of print and online classical music publications including ClevelandClassical.com. Read that article here, and his New York Times obituary here. [Read more…]