by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS:

In today’s edition of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, Eric Charnofsky makes a nod to Easter and Spring with Benjamin Fuhrman’s Study After Hokusai, for clarinet and viola, Kenneth Leighton’s An Easter Sequence, Malcolm Arnold’s 1st symphony, and Rachmaninoff’s cantata, Spring. Also, the premiere recording of two piano pieces by Georges Mathias, French-born student of Chopin. It’s on from 2 to 4pm over WRUW from Case Western Reserve University. Click here to listen to the internet feed.

NEW CONCERTS ON THE CALENDAR:

It’s good to keep an eye out for interesting events that suddenly pop up on the Oberlin Conservatory Calendar. Like this week’s Messiaen Mini-Festival in Finney Chapel on Thursday and Friday April 21 and 22. The brainchild of conductor Timothy Weiss and organ professor Jonathan Moyer, the event includes Thursday discussions and Friday performances of two extended works by the French composer (pictured), who died 30 years ago. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS:

Eric Charnofsky’s WRUW radio slot today from 2-4 pm observes Alberto Ginastera’s 106th birthday (in absentia), and pulls some obscure works by Anron Arensky, David Maslanka, Adolphus Hailstork, Robert Schumann, and Janice Giteck off the shelf for a listen here.

The Cavani Quartet work with CSU student composers today at 4 in Drinko Recital Hall, at 7 pm, Les Délices proposes to reconcile early Romantic Lieder with the history of science (fairies meet microbes) in the next online episode of Salonera, and Youngstown State faculty Misook Yun, soprano, Sean Yancer, horn, and Caroline Oltmanns, piano (pictured) take on the diversity problem in German Lieder repertoire in a free 7:30 pm concert in Guzzetta Recital Hall at the University of Akron (also available online). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway with Mike Telin

FEATURED THIS WEEKEND: BW Bach Festival

Back for its 90th iteration after a two-year hiatus imposed by the pandemic, the Baldwin Wallace University Bach Festival packs nine concerts, recitals, master classes and lectures into two days this weekend on its campus in Berea, and spills over into the rest of the year with other Bach-related happenings.

“It’s pretty exciting, with all the artists coming back together from all over the place,” Festival artistic director Dirk Garner said in a telephone conversation earlier this week. “We’re really all so relieved to be performing live again instead of doing it virtually or not doing it at all.”

With the help this year of a generous grant from the Kulas Foundation, Garner has invited two Boston-based ensembles to perform individual concerts as well as to join Garner’s BWV Bach Choir on Friday evening, and BW faculty and student singers and instrumentalists on Saturday evening in four of the six cantatas that make up Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ON THIS WEEKEND:

Les Délices continues its live, premiere run of the Baroque opera The White Cat on Saturday at 3 and 7:30 and Sunday at 3 at the Breen Center, and CIM Opera Theater and New Music Ensemble repeat their Pocket Operas program on Sunday at 4 in Mixon Hall.

Orchestra concerts this weekend include the Akron Symphony with the flamenco dance Alice Blumenfeld and the Korean Three Drum Dancers (E. J. Thomas Hall Saturday at 8), and Lauren Berry and Connor Bogart solo in Broadway favorites with Carl Topilow and Cleveland Pops at Severance.

Visiting musicians will be hosted by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society (Berta Rojas, pictured, Saturday at 7:30 at Plymouth Church) and No Exit (The Unheard-of Ensemble exploring climate change with composer Christopher Stark and video artist Zlatko Ćosić at Spaces Gallery  Saturday at 8).

On Sunday at 1 at the Cleveland History Center, the Cleveland Arts Prize will celebrate African American History and Culture and its own 60th anniversary with pianist Dianna White-Gould, violist Christopher Jenkins, cellist Kahri Joyner, poet Raja Belle Freeman, and tenor Cornelius Johnson. The weekend concludes Sunday at 4 with Stars in the Classics’ spring cabaret at the Church of the Western Reserve. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ON TODAY:

Faculty and student musicians at Youngstown State and Oberlin are featured in a trio of performances today.

YSU’s Music at Noon features select woodwinds from the Dana School of Music.

This evening, the Dana Trio — Misook Yun, soprano, Sean Yancer, horn, and Caroline Oltmanns, piano — perform “Beyond Auf dem Strom,” featuring commissioned music by James Wilding, Margaret Griebling-Haigh, Cara Haxo, and Elliot Bark, and the preview of a work by Andres Weinkemeyer in advance of its future premiere.

And an Oberlin Faculty Recital by the Verona Quartet (pictured) — Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro, violins, Abigail Rojansky, viola, and Jonathan Dormand, cello, with pianist Peter Takacs — includes Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 9 and Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2, with an introduction by Professor Vladimir Ivantsov of the Russia and East European Studies Department. You can watch a live stream. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

They moved my station!
Beginning today, Monday, March 28, WCLV, Ideastream Public Media’s classical music service, will migrate from 104.9 FM to 90.3 FM. This frequency change will extend classical music access to approximately 1 million additional listeners. National Public Radio news will now come from WKSU, which will begin broadcasting at 89.7 and 104.9 on March 28. Click here to read more about the changes, which are designed to expand coverage for the region.

Eric Charnofsky is spending his two-hour Monday slot on WRUW radio in the company of Karl Goldmark, James Primosch, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Jacob Druckman. Join him for the internet feed at 2 pm.

Tonight at 7:30 pm, and for the first time in a long while, Oberlin’s jazz faculty will share the stage with their students in the Oberlin Jazz Ensemble in a side-by-side from Finney Chapel. The program featuring music by Ray Brown, Marian McPartland, Ivan Lins, and Jay Ashby will be livestreamed. [Read more…]