By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Cleveland Orchestra and Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

. Cleveland Chamber Choir seeks Artistic Director, Cast change for The Girl of the Golden West, and TMA to hold the final round of Scholarship Competition

. Important beginnings that led to the modern grand piano, the phonograph record, and orchestra tours

HAPPENING TODAY:

7:30 pm – The Cleveland Orchestra: Franz Welser-Möst, conductor, Alisa Weilerstein, cello. Loggins-Hull’s Can You See? Barber’s Cello Concerto, and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4 (revised 1947 version). Severance Music Center.

7:30 pm – Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble: Tim Weiss directs Conservatory instrumentalists and vocalists in a workshop performance of Stephan Hartke’s Rhino!, an opera in four scenes, directed by Jonathon Field. Warner Concert Hall.

IN THE NEWS:

The Cleveland Chamber Choir, a Cleveland-based professional choir, is seeking a new Artistic Director beginning with its 10th Anniversary season in 2024-2025. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Lunchtime concert, a Rimsky one-act, pianist Maria Pires at Severance, percussion and gospel at Oberlin

. La Scala expands online programming, farewell to Gordon Lightfoot

. Almanac: how Heinrich Biber ended up in Salzburg

HAPPENING TODAY:

Trinity Cathedral’s free Bach Fest continues both in-person and online at noon, when Julie Andrijeski will play the G Major Violin Sonata and organist Todd Wilson will follow with the E-flat Trio Sonata (webcast available).

[Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Charnofsky’s latest discoveries, and the challenges of producing Don Giovanni

. Almanac: remembering Leo Sowerby (pictured)

HAPPENING TODAY:

As he does every Monday from 2-4 pm, Eric Charnofsky goes searching for unusual and underperformed works for his program Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music. Featured today: Anton Arensky’s Suite No. 3 “Variations” for Two Pianos, Yelena Firsova’s Misterioso (in memoriam Stravinsky) for string quartet, Charles Ives’ selected songs for baritone and piano, John Heiss’s Whimsies (flute and piano), Nino Rota’s Cello Concerto No. 2 & Dietrich Buxtehude’s Sonata in G for violins, gamba, and basso continuo. Click here to listen to the internet feed: or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Weekend concert agenda (by category)

. Maltz Family Foundation gifts $10 million to Blossom, Memory is a muscle, writes Angela Hewitt

. Almanac: highlighting Michael Daugherty, “Duke” Ellington & Robert Shaw

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND (BY CATEGORY):

Orchestras: The Cleveland Orchestra continues its set featuring the premiere of Wynton Marselis’s Trumpet Concerto (Michael Sachs, Franz Welser-Möst on the podium, Friday at 7:30 & Saturday at 8), the Oberlin Sinfonietta and Oberlin Chamber Orchestra perform on Friday at 7:30, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra makes its 88th annual trip to Severance (Jungho Kim conducting, with cellist Dane Johansen in the Dvořák Concerto, Sunday at 3:30), and the Canton Symphony and Chorus present a program featuring the Dvořák Requiem (Gerhardt Zimmermann, conducting, Sunday at 7). [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Bach at noon

. Liu at Oberlin, Apple finally speaks classical music

. Remembering Margaret Bonds

HAPPENING TODAY:

Trinity Cathedral’s BachFest continues at noon today with violinist Andrew Sords performing the B-Minor Partita, and organist Todd Wilson playing the E-minor Trio Sonata. It’s free and you can enjoy it both in person and as a live stream.  Details in our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

San Francisco Chronicle critic Joshua Kosman writes about Apple’s new classical streaming service, which finally speaks the language of classical musicians and solves many of the search problems that the latter have found so frustrating when using other sources of streaming music. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. The latest playlist from Charnofsky’s Monday show

. The Hammond B-3 story and its jazz stars (pictured: Jones, Baccus Sr., DeFrancesco)

HAPPENING TODAY:

Bored with the usual classical radio fare? Try Eric Charnofsky’s two-hour CWRU program “Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music” which  airs every Monday from 2-4 pm. This week’s featured music includes Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet #1, Olivier Messiaen’s Hymn for Orchestra, Cliff Eidelman’s Night in the Gallery, Tom Lopez’s The Piper’s Son (piano and electronics, Reynaldo Hahn’s Violin Sonata in C & Don Walker’s Cummings Country (SATB chorus, vibraphone, contrabass). Click here to listen to the internet feed, or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Chicago inventor Laurens Hammond filed a patent on April 24, 1934 for a new electric organ, an event that produced consequences he couldn’t have imagined at the time. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. BW Bach Festival heads a long list of weekend performances

. Almanac: A Handel disaster, a Margaret Brouwer environmental cantata premiere, Shakespeare + Vaughan Williams, a perfect marriage of words and music

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Multiple performances include the 91st Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival, which begins on Friday evening when the Boston-based Baroque string band ACRONYM plays an all-Bach concert featuring two of J. S. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos, along with one of his cantatas, and more. The special guest is Catharina Meints, viola da gamba.

Guest conductor Bernard Labadie continues a four-concert run with The Cleveland Orchestra featuring soprano Lucy Crowe on Friday evening (through a Sunday matinee), Les Délices salutes Renaissance patron Isabella D’Este in Akron Friday evening, program repeated Saturday evening in Lakewood and Sunday afternoon in Shaker Hts.

The Cleveland Philharmonic presents competition winner Marina Ziegler (violin, in the Sibelius concerto) on Friday evening at CSU and Sunday afternoon in Westlake, Jay White leads Quire Cleveland in multiple settings of the Lord’s Prayer on Friday evening in downtown Cleveland, repeated Saturday evening in Chesterland and Sunday afternoon in Rocky River, and Cleveland Ballet premieres Anna Segal’s new score Symphony of Life on Friday evening in Playhouse Square, repeated Saturday evening. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Two lunchtime concerts & piano duos at Beachland Ballroom

. Almanac: remembering Germaine Tailleferre, who is easy to recognize in photos of Les Six, the group of French & Swiss composers based in  Montparnasse who represented a neo-classical protest against both Wagnerism and impressionism.

Can you match names to faces? Pictured with Tailleferre are Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), and Francis Poulenc (1899–1963). Photo from the Cleveland Memory Project donated by Katharine Warne.

HAPPENING TODAY:

12:00 pm – BrownBag Concerts: Bach Fest. Zhan Shu, violin (D minor Partita) Todd Wilson, organ (Prelude and Fugue in f, BWV 534. Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave. Cleveland. Free.

12:00 pm – Chamber Music in the Atrium Lunchtime Concert featuring students from the Cleveland Institute of Music: Manuel Lok, & Yuwa Roten, violins, Aubrey Williamson, viola, Aria Posner, cello, & Madelin Wilks & Alton French, bassoons. Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd, Cleveland. Free. [Read more…]

By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Charnofsky’s playlist, new LD episode

. Chamber Choir auditions

. Almanac: remembering Herbert Elwell

HAPPENING TODAY:

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music: hosted by Eric Charnofsky. Featured music: John Harbison’s Seven Poems of Lorine Niedecker (soprano/piano), Paul Lansky’s Talking Guitars (guitar duet), Carl Stamitz’s Symphony in C, David Maslanka’s Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, John Carollo’s Awakenings for String Orchestra & Charles Villiers Stanford’ s Sonata Eroica in g for Organ. Click here to listen to the internet feed: or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area.

7:30 pm – Les Délices — SalonEra 3.7: Ximenez: Music & Politics. Karin Cuellar-Rendon and the Ximenez Quartet trace the early nation-building efforts of 19th-century Latin American composers Pedro Ximénez Abril Tirado (Bolivia-Peru), José Bernardo Alzedo (Chile), and Chiquinha Gonzaga (Brazil) who integrated elements of the European classical tradition with local musical genres. Available online and as a podcast. Episodes stream free from their premiere date thru June 30, 2023. Click here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Concerts upon concerts

. Oberlin grad named Utah Symphony assistant conductor

. Almanac: remembering Handel, Neville Marriner, and Charlie (Sir Charles) Chaplin

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Friday at 7, Columbian cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia plays at the LatinUS Theater, Cleveland’s No Exit plays new music at Spaces Gallery (repeated at Kent State Saturday at 8), and BW’s Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble perform in Berea. At 7:30 Transient Canvas visits CSU, and at 8, vocalists Christiane Noll and Ben Davis join Cleveland POPS for “The Teams of Broadway” at Severance.

Saturday’s 12:30 matinee features the American Guild of Organists’ Great Lakes Regional Competition for Young Organists at Fairmount Presbyterian, and evening concerts include the Akron Symphony (Christopher Wilkins leads Mahler 3 at 7:30) and The Cleveland Orchestra (with Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm, Leif Ove Andsnes at the keyboard for Debussy and Mahler 1 at 8 — repeated on Sunday at 3). [Read more…]