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…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS:

Events in Ukraine are on everyone’s mind, but musicians are engaging with the crisis through consciousness-raising and fundraising performances.

Oberlin Conservatory Faculty pianists Scott Cuellar, Peter Takács, Tony Cho, Yulia Fedoseeva and Haewon Song, clarinetist Richard Hawkins, French hornist Jeff Scott, bassoonist Drew Pattison, violinists Francesca dePasquale and David Bowlin, violist Kirsten Docter, cellists Dmitry Kouzov and Andrei Ionita, bassist Derek Zadinsky and members of the Verona Quartet will play a benefit concert tonight at 7:30 in Oberlin’s First Methodist Church. Donations will be directed to UNICEF Ukraine, Red Cross Ukraine, and Razom.

The CIM Orchestra will perform at Severance Music Center tonight under Carlos Kalmar in a program featuring pianist Jacob Bernhardt in Prokofiev’s Third Concerto, as well as the first outing of a new piece by CIM’s Keith Fitch, Charles Ives’ amusing The Unanswered Question (the Druids have no comment) and Vaughan Williams’ Fourth Symphony. [Read more…]