By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Charnofsky’s playlist celebrates Juneteenth, and some other suggestions for marking the date

.`League of American Orchestras diversity report

. Almanac: Henk Badings’ electronic TV chamber opera (pictured)

HAPPENING TODAY:

In the Juneteenth broadcast of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, Eric Charnofsky features music by African American Composers today from 2-4 pm: Adolphus Hailstork’s Symphony No. 1, Hailstork’s Spiritual Songs (choir), William Grant Still’s Africa (Symphonic Poem), George Walker’s Perimeters (clarinet and piano), Jeffrey Mumford’s the focus of blue light (violin and piano) & Samuel Barber’s Ballade (piano). Click here to listen to the internet feed, or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area.

CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH

Since 2021, Juneteenth National Independence Day, a contraction of June 19th, has been an official federal holiday, marking the anniversary of the 1865 emancipation order that freed enslaved people in Texas some two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.

Here’s a selection of resources for marking  Juneteenth. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Weekend openings and performances

. $15k from NEA to Les Délices, Apollo’s Fire’s local programs next season

. Almanac: Births of Ysaÿe, Stravinsky, and Sir Paul McCartney

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

This weekend finds Ohio Light Opera, ChamberFest Cleveland, and Encore Chamber Music Institute in full swing. There’s lots to sample and dabble in alongside more well-known music. Visit our Concert Listings page for robust listings of these and other events — with composers, titles, and performers’ names.

Ohio Light Opera continues its run of Camelot at Freedlander Theater at The College of Wooster on Saturday. Read preview articles here, here, and here. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. New episodes from Ohio Light Opera & ChamberFest Cleveland

. Guitar Society announces International Series

. Almanac milestones for Theodore Bloomfield, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Lang Lang & Henry Mancini

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2pm in the College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theater, Ohio Light Opera presents the second of thirteen performances of Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe’s Camelot (pictured), and at 7:30 in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance, ChamberFest Cleveland leads off its 2023 season with “Body and Soul,” bringing music by Purcell head-to-head with works by Carl Frühling and Dvořák. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. R.I.P. Gerhardt Zimmermann

. Eric Charnofsky broadcasts 500th edition of his classical music show on WRUW

. Marking the departures of John Ireland and Oliver Knussen & Benjamin Britten’s creation of a new musical fusion in Curlew River.

HAPPENING TODAY:

From 2-4 pm, Eric Charnofsky hosts the 500th edition of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, broadcast from the studios of WRUW at Case Western Reserve University. View the playlist in our Concert Listings, and click here to listen to the internet feed (or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area).

And tonight at 7:30, Apollo’s Fire presents a performance of its summer show, The Fiddlers of Dublin, in Bath. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Summer seasons launch and continue

. Zimmerman enters Hospice care, R.I.P. pianist George Winston

. Almanac remembers Carl Nielsen and the Copenhagen Wind Quintet, Frederick Delius, George Frederick McKay & Théodore Dubois.

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

These three days offer the continuation of a summer series sponsored by Apollo’s Fire, and summer festivals presented by Re:Sound, ENCORE, and Ohio Light Opera (pictured). Visit our Concert Listings page for robust listings of these and other events — composer names, composition titles, and performers.

Apollo’s Fire’s The Fiddlers of Dublin, created & directed by Jeannette Sorrell, plays at Holden Arboretum on June 9, 10 & 11 (four shows).

The Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival has scheduled seven events that run the gamut from A to Z (Alternative to Zany). Performances are at Convivium 33 Gallery unless otherwise noted: John Wiese // Brandon Lopez (Friday, June 9), Laura Potter + Ina McCormack // Douglas Farrand + Ryan Seward), AK Ensemble and guest Brandon Lopez (Saturday, June 10), Terminal Moraine // Kim Nucci // Emily Beisel (Saturday, June 10 at Crobar), and SLOWSPIN // Theresa May (Sunday, June 11). [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, June 7, 2023

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Ipanema Girl passes, Guitar Society seeks extra hands, CSO players join “Listen @ the Library”

. Almanac: Saluting three “Princes” of Music (pictured)

HAPPENING TODAY:

No live performances to alert you to today, which makes it a good time to plan your upcoming weekend, where you’ll have to make some informed choices from an extensive first-week-of-summer list. Visit our Concert Listings page for robust listings of these and other events —composer names, composition titles, and performers.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Astrud Gilberto, 83

Gilberto shot to fame with The Girl From Ipanema, the first song she ever recorded. It played a key role in making the Brazilian sound known as bossa nova a phenomenon in the United States. Read an article in The New York Times. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Not live, but lively: Charnofsky’s two-hour WRUW program on the radio and web

. In memoriam Kaija Saariaho (pictured)

. Almanac: focus on a prolific New England composer

HAPPENING TODAY:

With no live concerts on the schedule, enjoy some unusual selections from Eric Charnofsky’s Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music playlist. Today’s program on WRUW from 2-4 pm features Laurie Altman’s Homage a Stravinsky for Instrumental Octet, Charles Villiers Stanford’s String Quintet No. 1 in F, John Corigliano’s Promenade Overture, Lili Boulanger’s D’un vieux jardin & D’un jardin clair (piano), Stanley Grill’s 6 Songs (soprano/piano), Pavel Vejvanovsky’s Sonata in g (trumpet/organ),& Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 7 (organ/chamber orchestra). Click here to listen to the internet feed: or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area. .

Visit our Concert Listings page for robust listings of these and other events —composer names, composition titles, and performers. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Guitar festival and youth competition at CIM through Sunday

. She Scores, three concerts of works by women composers in CSU’s Drinko Hall

. Almanac: remembering Edward Elgar, Serge Koussevitzky, Emile Berliner (inventor of the microphone), and the release of Radio Shack’s TRS-80 personal computer

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Friday, June 12, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival continues its 23rd edition with recitals, master classes, and lectures in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. This year’s performances include duos (Solo Duo from Italy on Saturday at 7:30, and the Patterson/Sutton Duo on Sunday at 1), and solo recitals by Petra Polácková (pictured, Czech Republic, Friday at 7:30), lutenist Nigel North (England, Saturday at 4), and Hao Yang (China, Sunday at 4).

A special feature of this year’s guitar festival will be the live semi final and final rounds of the James Stroud National Classical Guitar Youth Competition in Mixon Hall. Semi-Finalists ages fourteen to eighteen will perform before the public and a panel of internationally acclaimed judges on Friday at 10 am and 1 pm, and four Finalists ages fourteen to eighteen will perform on Sunday at 6:30 (to be live streamed). Prizes will be announced at the close of this Round. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Keeping it in the Kern family (pictured)

. Replace-a-maestro: latest sudden ascent of a young conductor

. Almanac: Mexican-American guitarist and singer Lydia Mendoza, Groundbreaking pianist Louise Farrenc

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm, Piano Cleveland hosts a new episode in its 2023 Listening Series — Cleveland International Piano Competition Dynamic Duos: “It’s all Relative.” Olga Kern joins her son Vladislav in a presentation about the joys of working together as a musical family. Disciples Christian Church 3663 Mayfield Rd. Cleveland Heights. Click here for tickets.

IN THE NEWS:

From The New York Times:

Thomas Guggeis was a young repetiteur at the Berlin State Opera five years ago when he was asked a career-changing question: Could he conduct “Salome”?

He had worked with the singers, but this new production of Strauss’s opera was meant to be led by the veteran maestro Christoph von Dohnányi — until a dispute with the director led him to back out mere hours before the final dress rehearsal. So Guggeis went on in his place. And he was back in the pit on opening night. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Only one concert is scheduled for this weekend

. A selection of music for Memorial Day, formerly Decoration Day (pictured)

. Remembering William Bolcom, Niccolò Paganini, and Nikolai Sokoloff, and mentioning the births of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Iannis Zenakis, Helmut Rilling and the losses of William S. Gilbert, Josef Suk, and George Rochberg

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, May 27 at 8:00 pm, Carl Topilow leads the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and Chorus in Summon the Heroes: American Salute. The concert pays tribute to our Armed Forces, as well as the police and fire departments, and our first responders. Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, 44106. Tickets available online.

MUSIC FOR MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND:

Monday of this weekend was officially declared Memorial Day only in 1971, although commemorations of those who had perished in the U.S. Civil War had been organized within a few months of the cessation of hostilities in 1865. Among the first to hold such a memorial was a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina.

The event, when graves were traditionally adorned with flowers, was known as Decoration Day well into the 20th century, the name Charles Ives used for the second movement of his Holiday Symphony, discussed here in an episode of Keeping Score, created by Michael Tilson Thomas with the San Francisco Symphony (the other holidays are Washington’s Birthday, The Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving Day.) [Read more…]