by Jarrett Hoffman

FIVE EVENTS TONIGHT:

Two at 7:30, three at 8.

First, Apollo’s Fire and violinist Alan Choo trace the path from Biber to Bach (preview here), and Opera Western Reserve shares a re-imagining of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.

Then the Cleveland Pops Orchestra performs a salute to John Williams (preview here), pianist Nicholas Underhill plays Ryan Charles Ramer’s Sonata No. 6 in the presence of art that was inspired by the music, and Oberlin Opera presents Handel’s Acis & Galatea (preview here).

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEW FACES!

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced six new appointments (pictured above). The beginning of this season saw bass section member Derek Zadinsky win the position of assistant principal bass, while Michael Ferraguto joined the ensemble as head librarian, and Amy Zoloto as bass clarinetist and clarinetist. As of this past week, the viola section features a new player in William Bender, to be joined in January by Gareth Zehngut (a COYO alum). And the start of the new year will also bring Charles Paul into the bass section.

Music director Franz Welser-Möst has now appointed nearly half of the current Cleveland Orchestra members.

“Selecting Cleveland Orchestra musicians is the biggest artistic investment we make,” he said in a press release. “In close consultation with a musician panel, I always look for absolutely the best fit, which includes an extremely high standard of musicality for a world-class ensemble. When we pick the best players for a top team, we are not allowed to make a compromise. I’ve heard hundreds of people audition in nineteen years and I am extremely proud of the collaboration with musicians who have advised me so well. When that special person shows up, we all know they are the right person.”

Another warm welcome is in order over at the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, where Kristopher Morron (above) has been named Music Director and Conductor. “This opportunity is like a dream come true,” Morron said in a press release. “I can’t wait to bring all my experience and infectious enthusiasm for music-making to the role.”

Morron comes to CYO with a broad background in music, from his start on the trombone, into the study of jazz at Tri-C and Bowling Green, and into an array of other genres (including funk, experimental folk, New Orleans-style brass, and afrobeat) as a member of several Cleveland-based groups, and as a composer and arranger.

“Our students will benefit from having a person at the podium who understands what it takes to create vastly different kinds of music, including the innovative repertoire we are performing,” said director of educational programming Ben Kipp.

Morron took up the baton beginning in 2004 teaching band and orchestra, received his master’s at Case Western in 2015, and served as a graduate conductor for the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony. “Music education is about a lot more than the music,” he said. “We’re creating a space where students can be themselves while pursuing excellence as musicians, citizens, and individuals.”

[Read more…]

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 pm Apollo’s Fire will present Violin Fantasy — Tracing the Path from Biber to Bach. Co-director and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell, and co-director and violinist Alan Choo, will lead works by Buxtehude, Biber, Pachelbel, Weiss, Reinken, J.S. Bach, Pergolesi, and transcriptions of their music. Rebecca Myers, soprano and Elisa Sutherland, mezzo-soprano are featured soloists. First Methodist Church, 263 E. Mill St., Akron. Tickets are available online. The program will be repeated around Northeast Ohio through Sunday. Check out Concert Listings page for locations and times.

Also at 7:30 pm, Thierry Fischer conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Messiaen’s Les Offerandes Oubliées, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with Tom Borrow (pictured) as soloist, and  Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Mandel Hall at Severance, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. Tickets are available online. Click here for COVID-19 protocols. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 3:00.

At 8:00 pm Oberlin Opera will present Handel’s Acis & Galatea at Hall Auditorium. Jonathon Field directs and Matilda Hofman conducts the Oberlin Orchestra. “Handel’s stirring adaptation of the ancient Roman myth explores the ways in which we are transformed by loss—and how we cling to hope amid the pain.” Runtime: 2 hours, including one intermission. Tickets are available online. Click here to read a preview article. Performances continue through Sunday.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, an armistice brought World War I to an end. In yesterday’s Washington Post, Michael E. Ruane wrote: “The catastrophe of the Great War, as it was then called, had claimed 116,000 Americans, through combat, disease and other causes, and killed millions more people around the world.” Read the full article here.

Armistice Day was first held at Buckingham Palace one year later. Since then many countries have renamed November 11 Remembrance Day, while the United States chose the name Veterans Day in 1954, following World War II and the Korean War. Today, this federal holiday honors those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces in war or peace, whether they’re living or deceased, provided they have not been dishonorably discharged.

Perhaps no place honors those who answered that call to serve more appropriately than Arlington National Cemetery. And no location within the Cemetery honors those who lost their lives more poignantly than the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Today marks the centennial of the first soldier to be laid to rest in the Tomb of the Unknown, and in honor of the occasion, D.C.-based opera company UrbanArias commissioned a song cycle from composer Shawn Okpebholo and poet Marcus Amaker. The film version of their new cycle, UNKNOWN, is now available  online.

Another newly-created work honoring veterans that is being screened nationwide this weekend is Modern Warrior LIVE. The immersive narrative and musical experience chronicles one man’s journey — U.S. Army Veteran and Warren, Ohio native Jaymes Poling, who shares the story of his three deployments in Afghanistan and subsequent transition back home. The film, with its dramatic musical underscore, honors those who have served and highlights resilience and post-traumatic growth.

The artistic team includes trumpeter Dominick Farinacci, broadcast journalist and Vietnam War Veteran Leon Douglas Bibb, theatrical creator and storyteller Emmett Murphy, vibraphonist, pianist, composer and arranger Christian Tamburr, lighting designer Garrett Caine, vocalist Shenel Johns, pianist and pastor Dr. Lafayette Carthon Jr., poet and spoken-word artist Orlando Watson, vocalist and composer Will Blaze, percussionists Jamey Haddad and Salar Nadar, drummer Gabe Jones, and bassist Walter Barnes Jr.

On-demand screening is available today through November 14. Click here for ticket information.

by Jarrett Hoffman

HAPPENING TODAY:

The schedule heats up starting tomorrow, but today our lone calendar listing belongs to organist Florence Mustric, who will play works by Franck and Widor at Trinity Lutheran Church at 12:15 pm as part of a program titled “More from those fabulous French.” Freewill offering.

IN THE NEWS:

Tomorrow marks the centennial of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. In honor of that occasion, D.C.-based opera company UrbanArias commissioned a song cycle from composer Shawn Okpebholo and poet Marcus Amaker, who had previously worked together on the acclaimed song Two Black Churches. The film version of their new cycle, titled UNKNOWN, will receive its premiere online tonight just after midnight, at 12:01 am.

The work examines war from several angles, making use of different characters with their own individual identities and perspectives, as well as varying musical styles over the course of five movements.

Michael Andor Brodeur’s feature about UNKNOWN in an article for The Washington Post is worth reading in full. But among the highlights, he points out that the work “offers a new mode of memorial and a reimagined take on what makes a piece of music patriotic,” and that its songs strike a balance “between the catastrophe of war and the intimacy of loss.” Read the article here, and watch a trailer here.

And in The New York Times, Javier C. Hernández interviews Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center artistic directors David Finckel and Wu Han, in part seeking their response to criticisms that the Society’s programming is overly conservative.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Where Finckel and Han defend themselves against the notion of conservatism in music, Henri Rabaud (born on this date in 1873) embraced it. “Modernism is the enemy,” the French conductor, composer, and pedagogue was known to say. Funny, then, that during his nineteen years directing the Paris Conservatoire, one of the most famous students to come out of that institution was Olivier Messiaen.

Rabaud’s most famous works include his symphonic poem La procession nocturne, his cantata Daphné (which won him the Prix de Rome in 1894), and his Solo de concours for clarinet and piano. But perhaps it’s even better to watch something while listening to his music?

Among the movies he scored was the 1927 French silent film Joueur d’échecs (“Chess Player”), which involves a chess-playing automaton secretly controlled by a skillful player, set against the backdrop of the Polish movement for independence from Russia. 

Here’s one scene near the end featuring some interesting changes of mood, some compelling shaping of tension, and some unfortunate mickey-mousing (matching movement to music — a scoring technique that has generally fallen out of favor) among those figures wielding swords. It’s unintentionally humorous looking back, and that’s always fun.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

CONCERTS TODAY:

Today’s lunchtime Carillon Concert by George Leggiero in University Circle features the premier of Pilaster by Matthew Saunders, a piece written as part of a year-long partnership with the Cleveland Composers Guild. Read a preview article here.

Tonight at 7, CIM Opera Theater celebrates A Century of Singing at CIM, a Met-style gala concert featuring student and alumni singers with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra performing opera favorites. And down the street at 7:30 pm, Czech guest conductor Jakub Hrůša, and British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason join The Cleveland Orchestra for the second in a four-day home stand at Severance.

And jumping west into Lorain County, tonight’s Fridays @ Finney features the Oberlin Orchestra, Rafael Jiménez, conducting, in the premiere of Eclipse by Oberlin grad Theo Chandler (pictured), plus Ole Schmidt’s Hommage à Stravinsky (1985), and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D (1901). You can also catch the performance via live stream. Click here.

NEWS BRIEFS:

PianoCleveland has announced the winner of the audience prize in its recent PianoFlicks video project competition. 8-year-old Aegean Niu of Perth, Australia, improvised a piece titled Beethoven’s Coronavirus. Watch it — and view all the other submissions — here.

INTERESTING INTERVIEW:

Last season, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music surprised the music industry by announcing its acquisition of Opus 3 Artists, one of the few surviving artist management firms. The new partnership raised important issues that SFCM President David Stull addresses in a Musical America One to One interview. (Stull was formerly Dean of the Oberlin Conservatory). Watch the interview with MA’s Susan Elliott here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On November 5, 1929, Ukrainian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky made his American debut at Oberlin College, an event announced in a New York Times article the month before. Oberlin seems to have scooped three major orchestras here, and it would be interesting to know more about that appearance.

On November, 5, 1989 Ukrainian-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz departed this life at the age of 85. His last public performance took place on June 21, 1987 in Hamburg. Click here to watch another performance on that same final concert tour, this one in the Goldener Saal of the Wiener Musikverein. Note the exuberant comments!

And November 5, 2012 marked the death of American composer Elliott Carter at the age of 103. Click here to read a New York Times appraisal of the ‘Master of Complexity’ by Anthony Tomassini.

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30 pm, in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center, Jakub Hrůša leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the first of four performances of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in a, and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6. The playlist also includes Elgar’s Cello Concerto with Sheku Kanneh-Mason as soloist. The program is repeated on Friday at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 8:00 pm, and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Click here to read a Preview article and here to purchase tickets.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Today we remember composer, organist, pianist and teacher Gabriel Fauré, who died in Paris on 4 November 1924 at the age of 79. Recognized as one of the most influential French composers of his time, his musical style inspired many 20th-century composers. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, and notes that his harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the teaching of harmony for later generations.

Born in Pamiers, Ariège, in the south of France on May 12, 1845, his musical talents were revealed while he was still a boy. As a nine-year-old he was sent to the Ecole Niedermeyer music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. It was there that he met Camille Saint-Saëns, who would become a lifelong friend.

Following his graduation Fauré earned his living as an organist and teacher — leaving him little time for composition. He would later hold the post as organist of the Église de la Madeleine and go on to become the director of the Paris Conservatoire.

Fauré was a founding member of the Société Nationale de Musique, formed in 1871 with the mission of promoting new French music. The membership included Romain Bussine, Saint-Saëns, Georges Bizet, Emmanuel Chabrier, Vincent d’Indy, Henri Duparc, César Franck, Édouard Lalo and Jules Massenet.

Maurice Ravel dedicated his String Quartet to Fauré, a respected teacher and mentor. Even after his retirement from the Conservatoire at the age of 75, he continually made himself available to young composers, including members of Les Six.

In a centenary tribute the musicologist Leslie Orrey wrote in The Musical Times that Fauré’s music is “More profound than Saint-Saëns, more varied than Lalo, more spontaneous than d’Indy, more classic than Debussy, Gabriel Fauré is the master par excellence of French music, the perfect mirror of our musical genius.”

Perhaps Fauré’s most well-known work is his Requiem Op.48. Click here to listen to Robert Shaw lead the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Judith Blegen (Soprano) and James Morris (Baritone).

by Daniel Hathaway

TUESDAY’S AGENDA:

At noon, Jonathan Moyer takes advantage of the two very different organs at the Church of the Covenant, playing a Bergamasca by Samuel Scheidt and Johann Pachelbel’s Aria Quarta on the 17th-century-style instrument in the rear gallery, followed by a Mendelssohn Andante and Dudley Buck’s The Last Rose of Summer on the large, eclectic instrument in the chancel. Nice to have a choice! The concert is free.

Details in our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

Last Thursday’s performance of the Brahms Requiem by the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus was remarkable for a number of reasons, but one of the most noticeable was that the 120 singers performed wearing special face masks. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ran a story a few days ago about Joan Fernley, a soprano who designed such a device that improved the performing experience for singers. “Fearnley says she couldn’t find a mask online that was suitable for the needs of a singer. ‘They were really close to the lips and you would breathe in and you would suck the fabric right into your mouth. You would open [your mouth] wide to make a tall vowel and the mask would pop off,’ she said. Her design has caught on with vocalists around the world. Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Some random milestones to recall on November 2 in classical music history,

On this date in 1887, Swedish coloratura soprano Jenny Lind died in England at the age of 67. Having made her mark in opera, she retired at the age of 29 in 1849, but the next year undertook a 93-concert tour of the U.S. under the management of P.T. Barnum. She raised today’s equivalent of nearly $11 million, endowing free schools in her native country and contributing to charities. Lind settled in England in 1852, raised three children, and taught at the Royal College of Music.

Jumping across into the mid-20th century, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Piano Concerto had its debut on November 2, 1945 by Rudolf Firkusny and the Boston Symphony with Richard Burgin on the podium. An instrumental work by Menotti, who was known principally as an opera composer? Give it a try in this performance by Earl Wild and the Symphony of the Air under the baton of Jorge Mester.

On this date in 1979, Peter Shaffer’s musical Amadeus, opened in London.

And on November 2, 1960, Greek American conductor Dimitri Metropoulos died of a heart attack in Milan while rehearsing Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Orchestra of La Scala. Here’s some footage of Metropoulos rehearsing part of Liszt’s tone poem, Faust, with the New York Philharmonic.

by Daniel Hathaway

CONCERTS TODAY AND TOMORROW:

On Saturday, the BGSU Men’s Chorus continues its tour in the area with a 4pm program at First Congregational Church in Tallmadge and TrueNorth Chorale and Chamber Orchestra perform in Bay Village at 7.

Two Oberlin events on Saturday evening at 7:30 pm include a Faculty/Guest Recital by NEXUS Chamber Music with English hornist Robert Walters, and an organ recital by former professor William Porter with Michael Lynn, flute and recorder.

Porter’s recital is the harbinger of two events on Sunday marking the 40th anniversary of the 17th-century style North German meantone organ by John Brombaugh and Associates in Fairchild Chapel (pictured). Alumni play a tag team recital at 2:30 pm, and a 7:30 pm Vespers Concert will feature the Collegium Musicum, directed by Steven Plank, faculty organists Jonathan Moyer and Christa Rakich, Porter and guests.

Halloween inspires programs by the Euclid Symphony and the Kent State Orchestra, both on Sunday at 3, and other performances include composer, arranger, and organist Dan Miller (2 pm in Parma Heights), the Jerusalem Quartet on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society Series (3 pm at the Maltz PAC), the CIM New Music Ensemble with Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (4 pm in Mixon Hall), saxophonist Gabriel Piqué and pianist Casey Dierlam Tse on the Music From The Western Reserve series (5 pm at Christ Church, Hudson), and an Oberlin Jazz Society jam session with Caleb Smith (7:30 pm at the Birenbaum).

Details in our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

It’s time for the annual celebration of Hallowe’en, and probably also time to put that apostrophe back in its name, which is a contraction of “All Hallows Eve,” the day before the Christian feast of All Saints’ Day. So on Sunday there will be “ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night” out and about.

A variety of scary mix tapes is available, but Dark Classical, one of the better collections to listen to on Hallowe’en, will give you an hour and 45 minutes worth of thrills and chills while you’re waiting to pass out sugary treats.

Everyone has their own favorite hair-raising music, and comments on the aforementioned collection have lamented the omission of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, and proposed adding Schnittke’s Requiem, and the “Dance of the Knights” from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

My own recommendation for generating goose bumps is “Satan’s Dance” from Ralph Vaughan William’s Job: A Masque for Dancing, based on drawings by William Blake (left, Satan smiting Job with boils). The composer dedicated his 1930 work to conductor Sir Adrian Boult, who leads it here with the London Philharmonic at the age of 83. (Satan enters around 4:12).

A bit scary in its own way, George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children was first performed on October 30, 1970 at the Library of Congress by the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, which included mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani, pianist Gilbert Kalish, and boy soprano Michael Dash. The piece was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, named for the American music patroness and composer who was, by coincidence, born on October 30, 1864 in Chicago.

Click here to watch a more recent performance by faculty and fellows at the 2016 Bang on a Can Summer Marathon at MASS MoCA’s Summer Festival. [Read more…]