by Jarrett Hoffman

SAVE THE DATE:

Pianist Evgeny Kissin will visit Cleveland for a solo recital on April 24, 2022 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center. The program of music by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart will mark his first performance at Severance since soloing in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy in March 1997.

Tickets go on sale October 25, with a limited number of on-stage seats available, and pre-sale for Cleveland Orchestra subscribers and donors is already underway as of yesterday.

INTERESTING READS:

The New York Times shared an important pair of profiles yesterday and today: conductor Eun Sun Kim (music director of San Francisco Opera, and both the first woman and first Asian to hold that post in one of the country’s largest opera companies), and composer Sofia Gubaidulina (before her 90th birthday this Sunday).

And writing for The New Yorker, Paul McCartney himself shares the history of how The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby came to be — and how the band did as well. “All these small coincidences had to happen to make the Beatles happen, and it does feel like some kind of magic.” Read here.

IN MEMORIAM:

Producer, recording editor, and oboist Thom Moore passed away of cancer on October 16. Moore was a founding member and the president of Five/Four Productions, and was previously the producer and senior recording editor for Telarc International, during which time he won four Grammy Awards.

He studied oboe at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and over the years was principal oboe in such ensembles as Red {an orchestra}, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Trinity Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Ballet, Cleveland Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, in addition to performances with The Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

Donations in his memory can be made to the Kaboom Collective, aimed at immersing musicians ages 15-25 into many different sides of the arts and entertainment industry.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

We start with the name of Charles Ives — born on October 20, 1874 in Danbury, Connecticut — but linger there only briefly. (Read our almanac from last year for a deep Ives dive.) Instead we’ll focus on another American composer born on this same date three years later in Louisville, Kentucky who was also an authority on folk music, in her case of the Southern Appalachians.

That would be Josephine McGill, whose book Folk-Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, originally published in 1917, contains ballads and other English folk songs “notated from the singing of the Kentucky Mountain People” after her visits to Knott and Letcher Counties, and arranged with piano accompaniment by McGill herself.

Thanks to the digital offerings of the library of the University of Kentucky, the entire book is accessible for free. Warm up your vocal cords and dig in for some sight-singing — but please, first lock yourself in a sound-proof room. (And that’s not a commentary about the quality of the music.)

After thumbing through the book, focusing in particular on the ballads, which McGill notes are particularly valuable from a literary perspective, I discovered at least one gem: The Greenwood Side, also known as The Cruel Mother, on page 83. It jumped off the page with its dark lyrics (a mother kills her illegitimate children before meeting their ghosts) and its tune, both mournful and slightly bouncy in 6/8 time. 

[Read more…]

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12:00 pm, Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concerts will feature James Kealey (Rochester, NY) in a program featuring both The Newberry and Chancel Organs. The playlist includes J.S. Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in G, BWV 550 & Cecilia McDowall’s Church bells beyond the stars. César Franck’s Pièce Héroïque, Calvin Hampton’s Lullaby (Suite II) and Louis Vierne’s Final (Symphony No. 6, Op. 59). Church of the Covenant, 11205 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering.

At 7:30 pm the Dana Symphony Orchestra will perform works by Chris Pilsner, Kenji Bunch, Johan Halvorsen & Florence Price. Powers Auditorium, De Yor Performing Arts Center, Federal Plaza West, Youngstown. Tickets available online.

Also at 7:30 pm, Tuesday Musical launches its new season with VOCES8, U.K. a cappella ensemble (pictured). Presented in cooperation with the University of Akron’s Kulas Concert Series, “Choral Dances: from Bach to Irving Berlin,” includes Byrd’s Sing Joyfully, Britten’s Choral Dances from Gloriana, Nat King Cole’s Straighten Up and Fly Right, Irving Berlin’s Cheek to Cheek, Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, Rachmaninoff’s Bogoroditse Devo, Jake Runestad’s Let My Love Be Heard, Palestrina’s Magnificat Primi Toni, J.S. Bach’s Bourée (arr. Swingle), Thomas Weelkes’ As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending, Orlando di Lasso’s Dessus la Marche D’Arras, Jerome Kern’s I Won’t Dance and Van Morrison’s Moondance E.J. Thomas Hall, University of Akron, 198 Hill St. Tickets available online. Click here to read our preview article.

Today we thought we’d revisit Jarrett Hoffman’s Daily Diary contribution from last year. It’s an interesting piece that’s well worth another look.  

MUSICAL SCULPTURES:

Four hundred years after his birth on this date in 1605, English polymath Thomas Browne was commemorated by his adopted home city of Norwich with a series of sculptures commissioned in his honor. One of those was a large, marble brain — perfect as a representation of that famous thinker, but also as a resting spot for pigeons, who apparently can be seen drinking rainwater from its folds.

That got me wondering about other fun sculptures — especially ones that are right out in the open, and that are related to music. Locally, among all the beautiful statues in the Cultural Gardens is Romanian composer George Enescu. Then there’s the ROCK BOX, a collection of loudspeakers along E. 9th St. that play music from Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. [Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

HAPPENING TODAY at 7:30 pm, the latest episode of Les Délices’ SalonEra brings together bassoonist Catalina Guevara Víquez Klein, violinist Karin Cuellar Rendon, and soprano Raquel Winnica Young to explore the legacy of “The Phoenix of Mexico,” Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), as well as their own personal connections to that poet, composer, and protofeminist.

The program includes music by de la Cruz, Rafael Castellanos, Antonio Durán de la Mota, and Andrés Flores. Read a preview article by Mike Telin here, and register here to view online.

If you didn’t get a chance to celebrate HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH, which lasted from September 15 to October 15, that program from Les Délices is an excellent way to do so, with its mix of works by composers from Mexico, Guatemala, and Bolivia.

Another recommendation on that front: the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s Creative Fusion series, presented this past summer in partnership with the Mexican Committee of Cleveland.

Among the three artists-in-residence, guitarist and composer Hermelindo Ruiz used his platform to shine a spotlight on fellow Puerto Rican composer Juan Felix Acosta De Arce (Ojos de Ensueño), to highlight the Puerto Rican genre of Danza (To Soar Beyond), and to musically address the feeling of being part of, yet separate from, mainstream American culture (Music for Interaction).

The latter piece, which Ruiz wrote for CCGS Education Program students, involves not only performance and improvisation, but also spoken word as students and parents share memories and emotions around their Puerto Rican heritage (screenshots above).

And guitarist, composer, and singer Anastasia Sonaranda portrayed the diversity of cultural and musical styles from her native Mexico. Her four videos represent the styles of “son jalisciense” (Son de la Negra), “son huasteco” (Cuyahoga Weeping) “son istmeño” (La Llorona) and “son jarocho” (El Cascabel). She also brought in other art forms — choreography and poetry — to approach those styles in different ways.

Read more about the Creative Fusion videos here, and watch them all here.

Along the lines of both Sonaranda and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, check out these graphics from the Boulanger Initiative to learn more about other women composers of Hispanic heritage: Narcisa Freixas, María Grever, Rocío Sanz Quirós, Maria Teresa Prieto, Pauline Viardot, and Teresa Carreño (thanks to the Akron Symphony for sharing).

Finally, an article from NPR addresses the name of this month-long celebration. “What’s the harm in lumping together roughly 62 million people with complex identities under a single umbrella?” Vanessa Romo writes. “Is a blanket pan-ethnic term necessary to unite and reflect a shared culture that is still largely (infuriatingly) excluded from mainstream popular culture? Or the more basic question: ¿Por que Hispanic?”

Moving from international to LOCAL NEWS items, nominations are being accepted here until January 6 for the sixth annual Music Educator of the Year Award, sponsored by the Canton Symphony.

A new podcast from the Bop Stop and Gilazar Media, Jazz and Conversation, is now available. Click here to sit down virtually with saxophonist Bobby Selvaggio and guitarist Dan Wilson as they discuss musical influences, touring with a family, and Wilson’s new album Vessels of Wood and Earth, with live music interspersed throughout the episode.

And for anyone interested in classical musicians branching out into other genres, Cleveland Chamber Choir alto Moriah Sprit (below) recently collaborated with Ravenna-based electronic pop-rock band Circadia in their cover of Run Wild, originally by For King & Country. Watch the music video here.

In TODAY’S ALMANAC, wish a happy birthday to New Orleans-born trumpeter, composer, educator, and Jazz at Lincoln center artistic director Wynton Marsalis, who turns 60, and whose oratorio Blood on the Fields was the first jazz work to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

Turning 75 is Canadian composer Howard Shore, a three-time Academy Award winner for his scores to the film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings.

We also honor the passing of French composer Charles Gounod, who passed away on October 18, 1893, and who is most famous for his twelve operas, including the popular Faust.

And of American songwriter Gussie Lord Davis, who died on this date in 1899. Born in Dayton, Davis went on to become the first Black songwriter to reach fame in New York’s Tin Pan Alley scene.

by Daniel Hathaway

EVENTS THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday is the 400th anniversary of the death of Dutch composer and organist Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (read more in the Almanac below), an occasion to be marked by a 4:30 pm Oberlin historical keyboard faculty and guest recital in Fairchild Chapel. The recital is part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the John Brombaugh meantone organ. See the detailed program and connect to a live stream here. (The Dutch government has honored the composer on a 25 guilder banknote, above.)

Also happening on Saturday: Carousel with the Chagrin Valley Studio Orchestra (repeated on Sunday), and the first of two Cleveland Philharmonic concerts in Westlake (the second is on Sunday at Cleveland State University).

Sunday is busy. Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra with cellist Alisa Weilerstein performing a Joan Tower concerto, and Joela Jones, the Orchestra’s keyboard principal playing her last concert before retiring. Harmonia features East European folk music at the Maltz PAC. The Parma and Suburban Symphonies play fall concerts in Parma Heights and Beachwood. And Dallas Symphony organist Scott Dettra solos with the Youngstown Symphony at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Expanding on its earlier article about travel visa problems experienced by the Danish Quartet, today’s New York Times print edition chronicled recent cancellations by conductor Thomas Dausgaard, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, Russian singers in the Met Opera’s Boris Godunov, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (a 10-city tour), as well as some cliff-hanger situations involving such artists as Lang Lang.

“Even in normal times, it can be difficult for visiting artists to obtain the visas they need to perform in the United States. Now they face even longer lines and staff shortages at American embassies and consulates around the world. The earliest available appointments for visa interviews in some cities are for next spring, months after some artists have scheduled performances.” Read the article here.

Another Times article that appears in print today follows up on the recent controversy involving University of Michigan distinguished composition professor Bright Sheng. Read Jennifer Schleussler’s A Blackface ‘Othello’ Shocks, and a Professor Steps Back From Class here, and a Times opinion piece, What I See in the Latest Blackface ‘Scandal,’ by John McWhorter here.

The Oberlin Conservatory is beginning a multi-year partnership with the Detroit Chamber Winds and Detroit’s Carr Center to commission composers to “explore the African diaspora through the lens of contemporary American chamber music.” Resonate will result in performances of works by Courtney Bryan, Michael Frazier, Adolphus Hailstork, Nathalie Joachim, George Lewis, Patrice Rushen, and Pamela Z. at the participating institutions, including Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance, the Michigan State University College of Music, and Western Michigan University School of Music. Read a story by Cathy Parlow Strauss here.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

On October 16 1621, Dutch organist and composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck died in Amsterdam, where he spent his entire career, although his fame spread elsewhere. He was known in Germany for his mentoring of young organists and in England for his keyboard compositions, which found their way into the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. (A modern edition of this vast collection of keyboard music was co-edited by British musicologist William Barclay Squire, who was born on October 16, 1855.) [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

EVENTS TODAY:

The Astralis Chamber Ensemble plays a program of music by Arthur Foote, Philip Glass, Jacques Castérède, Paul Patterson and Jacques Ibert at Messiah Lutheran Church in Fairview Park tonight at 7, and at 7:30, the Chagrin Valley Studio Orchestra moves to Chagrin Valley Little Theatre to continue its run of Carousel performances.

Also at 7:30, Oberlin Conservatory begins a Fridays @ Finney series featuring its large ensembles in a new rotation plan. The first program brings the Oberlin Orchestra (pictured) and Contemporary Music Ensemble to the Finney Chapel stage for a program of recent music conducted by Rafael Jiménez and Timothy Weiss.

As Erich Burnett writes on the Conservatory website, at the heart of the change is “an emphasis on more — and more diverse — repertoire, greater flexibility in terms of ensemble sizes, and increased performance opportunities for students,” as well as “an intentional shift in repertoire selection to be less reliant on works from the traditionally recognized Western canon and more focused on newer works by composers of wide-ranging cultural backgrounds and experiences.” Attend in person (it’s free) or watch the live stream.

Details in our Concert Listings.

APOLLO’S FIRE IN NYC:

Jeannette Sorrell will lead Apollo’s Fire and Singers in four performances of Handel’s Messiah with members of the New York Philharmonic on December 14, 15, 17, and 18 at Riverside Church in New York City. Popular soprano Amanda Forsythe is among the soloists. Planning a visit? Click here for ticket details.

INTERESTING READ:

The pandemic has upset travel plans for countless musicians, among them the Danish String Quartet. Read a story in the Los Angeles Times about the ensemble’s recent harrowing experiences in obtaining the necessary P1 visa to tour the West Coast this month. The quartet, who visit the U.S. three or four times each year, is scheduled to perform on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series in January, by which time (fingers crossed!) things should be operating more smoothly.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Exactly one year ago, the strings of The Cleveland Orchestra donned face masks and took their places behind widely-spaced individual music stands on the Severance Hall stage in a pre-recorded concert distributed on the Orchestra’s Adella streaming platform. Last night, the Orchestra gave their first in-person performance in the newly-named Mandel Hall since the pandemic shut public concerts down. Another step toward normality.

Speaking of concert halls, two celebrated performance venues opened their doors on October 15: Boston Symphony Hall in 1900, and the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco in 1932, the first municipally-owned opera house in the country. When San Francisco audiences return, they’ll be more comfortable, the management having replaced the original seats with more spacious ones to accommodate the bodies of 21st-century patrons.

Organists should take note of the birth on this date in 1868 of Hamilton C. MacDougall, who founded the American Guild of Organists in 1896 while teaching at Wellesley College from 1900-1925. With some 275 chapters and 12,000 members throughout the United States and abroad, the AGO has recently invested its energies into the recruitment and training of young musicians. Click here to watch Oberlin graduate Katelyn Emerson’s video A Reason to Practice, which she wrote, recorded, and produced for the American Guild of Organists’ Virtual Pipe Organ Encounter 2021.

Fans of new music in Latin America should celebrate the debut of Puerto Rican composer Rafael Apont-Ledée, born on this date in 1938. He studied in Madrid, and moved on to Buenos Aires to work with Alberto Ginastera before returning to his native Caribbean Island in 1965 to become one of the leaders in the new music movement of the 1960s. Listen to a compilation of four of his works here.

And on this date in 1964, Broadway mourned the final curtain call of composer and lyricist Cole Porter, who created both book and music for more than 20 musicals — mostly in the 1930s, but his late career hit, Kiss Me, Kate revived the popularity of a composer renowned for his witty, urbane lyrics. During his undergraduate days at Yale, Porter wrote some 300 songs, one of which is sung here by the Whiffenpoofs, of which he was a member.

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm with a program titled “New Beginnings,” Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra will return in full force to Severance Music Center for the first time since March 2020. The evening will include Richard Strauss’ Macbeth, Joan Tower’s A New Day (for cello and orchestra) with Alisa Weilerstein, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5. Tickets are available online. Click here for COVID-19 protocols.

This week’s concerts will mark the final performances by Joela Jones (hands pictured above) as the Orchestra’s principal keyboard. Jones, whose tenure has spanned 54 seasons, will be presented tonight with the Orchestra’s 25th Distinguished Service Award. Click here to read an interview with Jones and here for an interview with Alisa Weilerstein.

At 8:00 pm – BW Opera presents the fourth and final performance of Handel’s Alcina directed by Scott Skiba. The outdoor performance will be held on the steps of the Boesel Musical Arts Center at Baldwin Wallace University, 49 Seminary St. in Berea. Food trucks will be available. Free general admission for the lawn and street (bring your own chairs or blankets, first come, first served), and 50 reserved seats are available at $25 (click here).

IN THE NEWS:

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced on Wednesday that it had chosen Nathalie Stutzmann, a conductor and singer from France, as its next music director. Stutzmann, 56, will be only the second woman in history to lead a top-tier American orchestra when she takes the podium in Atlanta next year. Read the New York Times article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Today marks the passing of American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, who died on this date in 1990 of a heart attack in his New York apartment at The Dakota. He was 72 years old.

Unfortunately for Northeast Ohio audiences, his sole appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra was a 1970 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony at Blossom.

In our August 25, 2020 Diary, Daniel Hathaway honored Bernstein’s birth by going behind the scenes for a look at “Lenny” in rehearsal — a process even more revealing than a resulting performance.

Hathaway wrote: “I had the honor of studying with Bernstein in the conducting class at Tanglewood in the early ‘70s, and of singing in Mahler 2 with the Harvard-Radcliffe Choruses and the Boston Symphony on a radiant summer afternoon during that time.” Click here to watch Bernstein rehearse Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring during the 1987 International Conductor’s Competition and Master Course at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. And in a separate clip, he takes the triangle players in Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette aside for a brief tutorial.”

September 8 marked the 50th anniversary of the world premiere of Bernstein’s MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers commissioned for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the nation’s capital in 1971. Click here to read more about the work.

Click here to watch Bernstein lead the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in his Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story.”

 

by Jarrett Hoffman

HAPPENING TONIGHT:

8:00 brings two options: one in person and outdoors, the other over the web and airwaves. BW Opera continues its run of George Frideric Handel’s Alcina outdoors on the steps of the Boesel Musical Arts Center, while WCLV’s Ovations will feature CityMusic Cleveland in music by Jungyoon Wie, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Ellen Taffe Zwilich. Read our preview about the Wie and Coleridge-Taylor works, which were programmed together this past April.

Details about both events in our Concert Listings.

VIDEOS & PODCASTS:

To help welcome families back to Severance this season, The Cleveland Orchestra has prepared a digital family concert featuring the Factory Seconds Brass Trio (above, right), and hosted by Meaghan Heinrich. From the looks of it, there’s something for everyone, whether you’re drawn in by the performances, the music (Poulenc’s Sonata for Horn, Trumpet, and Trombone), the story (a tale of Parisian love “brought to life by the antics of a mischievous cat!”), the artwork by Kate Atherton (one example pictured above, left), or the opportunity to create your own art. Watch here.

And the ASO’s Unorchestrated podcast finishes up its series on the Akron Symphony Chorus with a discussion about There’s a Stirrin’ in the Water, written by Chuck Myricks Jr. and Jesse Ayers in 2016. Joining host Tom Moore are the two co-composers, as well as Chorus Director Chris Albanese. Musical excerpts, of course, are included along the way, both from a November 2016 performance and from May 2021. Listen here.

IN THE NEWS:

Ahead of his recent speech at the Conservative Party conference, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson walked onstage accompanied by the music of indie band Friendly Fires. The group had not given advance permission, and in any case they were not pleased with the association. But the matter isn’t always that simple. Writing for the BBC, Mark Savage investigates the rules around politicians’ choices of music, both in the U.S. and the U.K.

And the Teatro Comunale di Bologna has named Oksana Lyniv as its next music director, making her the first woman to assume that position for an Italian opera company. Read the article from Opera Wire here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Previous Diary entries (here and here) have highlighted English-born violist and composer Rebecca Clarke, who died on this date in 1979 in New York City. Today we’ll shine a spotlight on another, lesser-known, and living Clarke, of no relation. That figure would be Australian musician Zana Clarke, born on October 13, 1965.

A composer, recorder player, and violinist, Zana Clarke has also taught Medieval improvisation and early instrumental music at the University of New England — an interest that intertwines with those other musical pursuits. Her compositions, mainly for the recorder, often bear Medieval influences, but combine them with contemporary techniques such as “vocalized recorder,” or singing while playing to create two individual melodic lines.

A great example is her Swamp — listen here, ignoring the shaky video, to enjoy a fascinating blend of the Medieval and the modern, as performed by Jo Arnott at the premiere in 2005.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

CONCERTS TODAY:

The Noon concert at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle will feature Bangor, Maine organist Kevin Birch at the 17th-century style gallery organ in works by Sweelinck, Weckmann, Bolt, and J.S. Bach.

And tonight at 7 in University Circle, the Cleveland Institute of Music will host the touring Sphinx Virtuosi and cello soloist Thomas Mena in a program highlighting Black and Latino composers. You’ll need a free seating pass for the concert in Kulas Hall.

On the West side of town, violinist Franceca dePasquale and pianist Scott Cuellar will join the Verona Quartet for a faculty recital in Warner Concert Hall at Oberlin at 7:30 pm (concertos by Lowell Lieberman and Ernest Chausson).

And at 8 pm in Berea, if the weather holds, BW Opera will present the second of four performances of Handel’s Alcina on the front patio of the Boesel Musical Arts Center (pictured). Some 50 reserved seats ($25) come with chairs. Free seating on the lawn if you bring your own chairs or blankets.

SAVE THE DATES:

Kent State University will hold a Celebration of Life for the late Richard D. Worthing, on Saturday, October 16 at 1:00 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall. Worthing, who died in 2020, taught music theory, analysis and orchestration, served as coordinator for the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, and Assistant Dean of the College of Fine and Professional Arts, and was named Dean Emeritus upon his retirement. Details here.

The Metropolitan Opera will simulcast its October 23 matinee performance of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, its season opener, and the first title by a Black composer to be staged by the company. Click here for a list of area theaters and to reserve tickets.

The 90th episode of the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival to be held from April 8-10, 2022, will feature guest appearances by the period string band ACRONYM, the Diederot Quartet, and a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. (More information to come in January). On Wednesday, October 27 at 8 pm, WCLV 104.9 will rebroadcast the 2021 Virtual Bach Festival Mass in B Minor Retrospective.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1872, Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Yorkshire, a village after which the British composer named one of the popular hymn tunes he wrote while serving as editor of The English Hymnal, published in 1906. (Listen to an arrangement made and played by Todd Wilson with the choir and instrumentalists of First-Pilgrim Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 2014.)

The range of RVW’s work was vast. To suggest just two radically different compositions that reflect his lifelong interests, let’s choose Along the Field and A Vision of Aeroplanes.

The former represents his close association with English folksong, of which he collected numerous examples and made arrangements for various combinations of voices and instruments. He so internalized that repertoire that he could write easily in the style, as in his settings of Edwardian poet A.E. Housman in Along the Field, simply but eloquently scored for solo voice and violin. Listen here to a performance of the cycle by soprano Marie Henriett Reinhold and violinist Dietrich Reinhold.

The other extreme finds Vaughan Williams exploring the full range of drama at his disposal as an early 20th century composer. Orchestrally, this expresses itself in his symphonies and in such works as Job, a Masque for Dancing, with its frightening musical depictions of Satan, but otherwise in his charmingly titled setting of the Vision of Ezekiel from the Hebrew scriptures for organ and chorus. The organ part is as fearsome for the keyboardist as the musical declamation is for the singers. Stay with it to the end in this performance by the University of Cambridge’s Clare College Choir.

And it was on this date in 1887 that Australian soprano Mrs. Helen Porter Armstrong made her sensational operatic debut in Brussels. We know her best by her stage name, Nellie Melba, as well as for two culinary items named in her honor, Melba Toast, and Peach Melba. Here’s a restored studio recording of the celebrated diva singing the finale of Act I of La traviata.

by Jarrett Hoffman

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 3:00 at the Maltz, the Case/University Circle Symphony Orchestra, led by Kathleen Horvath, plays an all-Czech program of music by Dvořák and Smetana. And at 8, BW Opera and director Scott Skiba present Handel’s Alcina in an outdoor production on the steps of the Boesel Musical Arts Center. Details and links in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

This Indigenous Peoples’ Day is the first one to be recognized by proclamation of a sitting U.S. president.

“For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures,” President Biden wrote on Friday. “Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.”

Let’s reflect on two recent and local musical events to honor Indigenous culture of the Americas.

We begin this past summer with Mexican guitarist, composer, and singer Anastasia Sonaranda (above, middle), who was one of three guest artists involved in the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s Creative Fusion virtual series.

Through her residency, Sonaranda sought to illustrate the diversity of styles in Mexican music. The waltzlike “son istmeño” style, developed in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (which mostly lies in the Mexican states of Veracruz and Oaxaca), was aptly represented by La Llorona, a popular folk song that originated in that same region.

A key element of the arrangement by Sonaranda and Rodrigo Lara Alonso (educator and Latinx Community Liaison for the Guitar Society) is a text that was written for the occasion by Irma Pineda Santiago (above, left), a Oaxacan-born poet who is also a 2020-22 United Nations representative to Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

The poem, Gunaa runna, is written in the Indigenous language of Isthmus Zapotec or Diidxazá. The Zapotec group of around 50 languages is spoken by 490,000 people, according to the 2020 census, the majority of them in Oaxaca, with the Isthmus area being among the most proud in maintaining that tongue.

Given that the poem reflects on the figure of La Llorona (literally “the weeping woman”), it’s helpful to know the basics of the folklore in advance: a woman has drowned her children, then herself — for various reasons depending on the particular variation of the story — and now roams as a ghost mourning them.

Now, watch the video, which begins with Santiago in recitation — songlike in itself given the tonal aspect of the Zapotec languages — before introducing the musical soloists: on guitar Sonaranda, and on voice Martha Toledo Mar (above, right), herself a Zapotec singer-songwriter from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

You’ll also hear over 100 guest musicians: students from CCGS Education and from the Orquesta Juvenil de Guitarras de la Ciudad de México, as well as amateur and professional guitarists from Cleveland and Mexico.

Moving north, let’s end by revisiting Les Délices’ September 2020 SalonEra episode “Recovering Roots.” The program shone a spotlight on baritone Jonathon Adams, whose ancestry can be traced back to two groups of Indigenous people primarily from what is now Canada: the Métis (themselves a mix of Indigenous and European — mostly French — descent) and the Cree.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Live music is back in a big way this weekend, beginning with Oberlin’s Opening Festival, “Music, Sports, and the Enduring Influence of Ancient Greece,” the third annual cycle of themed kickoff concerts shepherded by violin professor Sibbi Bernhardsson (pictured) with input from his faculty colleagues. Read an article by Erich Burnett here, and either join the four-concert festival in person or watch online Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 pm and 7:30 pm. In between, the theme is developed in symposia at 4 pm each day as well as in a listening party on Saturday at 10 pm when Conservatory students and Oberlin Athletics varsity team captains share their favorite music playlists from Warner Concert Hall.

Also on Saturday evening, the Stow Symphony plays its fall concert in Tallmadge.

Also on Sunday, the Chagrin Studio Orchestra continues its run of Carousel performances at 2, At 3, you have your choice of the CIM Orchestra at Severance Music Center under new conductor Carlos Kalmar, Cleveland Composers Guild at First Baptist, the CWRU Symphonic Winds at the Maltz PAC, MusiCLE’s Porchester Concert at the Cozad-Bates House, or the Akropolis Reed Quintet from the University of Michigan in Guzzetta Hall at Akron U.

But there’s more: on Sunday at 4, the Cavani Quartet continues its Beyond Beethoven cycle at the Music Settlement, and organist-composer Mark Thewes performs at First Church in Painesville. At 7:30, the Canton Symphony breaks its long silence with a concert of music by Ibert, Stravinsky, Haydn, and Margarer Brouwer’s The Art of Sailing at Dawn.

See our Concert Listings for details and links to live streams.

INTERESTING READS:

In last weekend’s Diary, we linked to a Van Magazine article about a recent attempt to complete Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony using AI. A followup review by Jan Swafford considers the success of the undertaking.

In the end, what were the creators of the AI Tenth Symphony actually trying to do? Did they want to create a piece that would be added to the Beethoven repertoire, played by orchestras everywhere? I hope that they weren’t attempting something that futile. Were they more modestly trying, like the creators of Watson and Deep Blue, to demonstrate the potential of computers to think faster and more pointedly than humans in mimicking human endeavors? If so, I’ll concede that they more or less succeeded: After an impressive feat of programming by its human proprietors, AI produced something that sounds unquestionably like a piece of music, only a gangly and forgettable one.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Earlier this week, the Michigan Daily reported that University of Michigan composition professor Bright Sheng had been removed from teaching an undergraduate class following the screening in a composition seminar of the 1965 version of Shakespeare’s Othello where actor Laurence Olivier appeared in blackface. Read the article here.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

Meet, if you haven’t already, two composers with Cleveland connections who were born on October 9 in 1869 and 1922 respectively.

Hearing a performance of Tannhäuser at the age of 18 inspired Cleveland-born Henry Lawrence Freeman to compose opera, and by his death in 1954, he had written scores for at least 23 titles, 21 of which are preserved in manuscript at Columbia University. He also founded two opera companies — one at the age of 22 in Denver that bore his name, and the Negro Grand Opera in 1920 in New York. The Martyr — the first opera to be produced by an all-black company, was staged in Chicago in 1893 and in Cleveland in 1894. [Read more…]