by Stephanie Manning

INTERESTING READS:

In light of recent attacks against the Asian American community, prominent Asian classical musicians are speaking out in two recent articles in the New York Times.

In “A Violinist on How to Empower Asian Musicians,” Jennifer Koh (pictured) calls on the classical music industry to do better when it comes to artists of Asian descent. The renowned soloist, who graduated from Oberlin, details her experience as an Asian American woman in classical music, writing: “It is highly misleading to say that Asian Americans are overrepresented in what remains an overwhelmingly white and male field.” Read the full article here.

And in “Asian Composers Reflect on Careers in Western Classical Music,” Tan Dun, Du Yun, Bright Sheng, Unsuk Chin, and Huang Ruo discuss both their shared experiences and individual stories from their time in the Western classical world. Two of the five artists, Du Yun and Huang Ruo, are also graduates of Oberlin Conservatory. Read these powerful interviews here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this day in 1882, Richard Wagner‘s opera Parsifal premiered in Bayreuth, Germany. The German composer’s last completed opera, Parsifal (or Parzifal, as it was originally spelled) is based on an epic poem from the 13th century that tells the story of the knight Parzifal and his search for the Holy Grail.

This was the first work Wagner composed specifically for the acoustic of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which had opened seven years earlier. This year, in partnership with Deutsche Grammophon, the Bayreuth Festival will stream its 2016 performance of Parsifal online for free on August 10. Learn more here.

One of the many orchestral conductors to record the music from Parsifal was Serge Koussevitzky (pictured), who was born on this date in 1874. Listen to his Boston Symphony Orchestra recording of the “Prelude” from Act I and “Good Friday Spell” from Act III here.

These recordings were made during the Russian-American conductor’s final years with the Orchestra, which he led from 1924 to 1949. His tenure was an exciting time of change, as the conductor commissioned works from major composers such as Stravinsky (Symphony of Psalms), Hindemith, Barber, and Copland.

Before his conducting career, however, Koussevitzky was a double-bassist who performed as principal bass at the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. He also gave solo recitals around Europe, and his repertoire included his own double bass concerto, composed in 1902. Listen to a performance by Luis Cabrera Martin and the Netherlands Philharmonic here.

Born in Berkeley, CA on this date in 1921, oboist John de Lancie (pictured) is well-known for his 30-year tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra. However, his path to get there was not without detours — while serving as principal of the Pittsburgh Symphony, he was drafted into the army during World War II.

While in Germany, de Lancie repeatedly visited Richard Strauss in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and suggested the composer write an oboe concerto. Strauss initially refused, but published one soon after, which is widely regarded as one of the best solo oboe works of the 20th century. The autograph of the score bears the inscription “Oboe Concerto – 1945 – suggested by an American soldier.” Read more about that story here. 

After returning to America, de Lancie joined Philadelphia as second oboe and succeeded Marcel Tabuteau — his former teacher — as principal when Tabuteau retired. He remained in that position for 23 years, from 1954 to 1977, before passing off the seat to his student Richard Woodhams — extending the Tabuteau oboe lineage into the next generation.

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND EVENTS:

Saturday and Sunday provide piano fans with their last opportunity to get to know the 26 contestants in the Cleveland International Piano Competition — after Sunday’s Round 2, Session 6 performances, the field will be whittled down to eight hopefuls as the competition moves into the Semifinal, Chamber Music, and Concerto Rounds. The early round sessions have been pre-recorded from locations around the globe, and you can tune in on Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 pm to listen in for free (or catch them later, on-demand).

Alas for procrastinators, Saturday’s Ohio Light Opera performance of Trial by Jury and Stars in the Classics’ garden concert are both sold out. But on Sunday evening at 7:00 pm, guest conductor Rafael Payare and violinist Stefan Jackiw will appear with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom in music by Prokofiev and Dvořák, and lawn and pavilion tickets are available here. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni from last weekend, courtesy of The Cleveland Orchestra.)

INTERESTING INTERVIEW:

Musical America editor Susan Elliott holds a one-on-one conversation with Harold Brown, who took on the position of chief diversity and inclusion officer for the Cincinnati Symphony last March with the mandate “to effect change and broaden the institution’s personnel profile to better reflect its diverse community.” Watch here.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

We’ll start by mentioning the birth of Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch in Geneva on July 24, 1880, who served as the first president of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1920-1925.

Then we’ll move on to celebrate the anniversaries of two of the great vocalists of the 20th century: soprano Adele Addison, born in New York on July 24, 1925, and contralto Maureen Forrester, born (as Kathleen Stewart) in Montréal on July 25, 1930.

Although trained in opera, Addison appeared most frequently in the 1950s and 60s in orchestral concerts and recitals. Listen here to her performance in the solo quartet of the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell in April of 1961 (bonus: Richard Lewis is the tenor).

Addison’s supple voice was well suited to Baroque music, and she became a favorite of Leonard Bernstein. Listen here to Handel’s “Come unto him” from Messiah with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic in 1956.

Among her other credits, Addison’s voice was dubbed in for Dorothy Dandridges’ in the 1959 film version of Porgy and Bess, and she was soprano soloist for the world premiere of Poulenc’s Gloria with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony in 1961. Listen to “Bess, you is my woman” here (the voice of Robert McFerrin — father of Bobby — is also dubbed in, this time for Sidney Poitier).

As a young singer in Canada, Forrester made strong impressions on CBC talent shows, and received her big break in New York when Bruno Walter chose her as one of the soloists for Mahler’s Second Symphony. She also sang in the conductor’s farewell performances with the New York Philharmonic in 1957.

A true contralto, Forrester’s vocal gifts come to the fore in this 1957 performance of Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody with the Orchestra de Radio-Canada, led by Igor Markevich. But her singing could also be light and lively, as in this duet from J.S. Bach’s Cantata BWV 78 with soprano Lois Marshall and pianist Yehudi Wyner from a 1974 recital at Mt. Orford, Québec. “Wir eilen mit Schwachen doch emsigen Schritten” translates as “We run with eager but faltering footsteps,” an image that the composer captures brilliantly.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS:

Looking for outdoor music? Try Sheryl Modlin’s 12:15 pm concert on the McGaffin Carillon in University Circle (also live streamed), the 2:00 pm Ohio Light Opera performance of Trial by Jury in Wooster, or Canton Symphony musicians’ 6:00-8:30 pm event, Music in the Beech Creek Botanical Garden in Alliance (billed as an “adult evening”).

Online, tonight at 7:00 pm, the Cleveland International Piano Competition continues with Round 2, Session 4, featuring pre-recorded, 30-minute programs by Roman Lopatynskyi (27, Ukraine), Martín García García (24, Spain), Svetlana Andreeva (32, Russia), and Byeol Kim (31, South Korea).

Both live and online, the Kent Blossom Music Festival faculty recitals continue with the Miami String Quartet, who perform at 7:30 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall at KSU. Violinists Benny Kim and Cathy Meng Robinson, violist Scott Lee, and cellist Keith Robinson will play Haydn’s Quartet No. 30 in E-flat (”Joke”), Erwin Schulhoff’s Quartet No. 2 (1925) & Dvořák’s Quartet No. 10 in E-flat.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Oberlin Jazz Percussion Professor Billy Hart has been named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Read the Oberlin news release here.

And the Oberlin-Como Piano Festival, a five-day virtual celebration of the Conservatory’s partnership with Italy’s Accademia Internazionale Del Pianoforte Lago Di Como, recently offered online, is now available for on-demand viewing.

The sessions include interviews and master classes with Yefim Bronfman (“Piano Concerti of Beethoven and Brahms”), William Grant Naboré (“The Marvel of the Baroque on the Pianoforte”), Dang Thai Son (“Conversations with Chopin”), Robert Spano (“Performing Piano Concerti: A Conductor’s View”), and Oberlin-Como Director Stanislav Ioudenitch (“The Golden Age of Piano Virtuosity: Legacy of Lake Como”). Watch here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Italian composer and harpsichordist Domenico Scarlatti died on this date in 1757, perhaps from exhaustion after composing 555 sonatas which have become favorite recital openers for many modern pianists, and technically demanding exercises for keyboardists in general. Thanks to the Petrucci Library, all of them are available here in eleven volumes edited by Kenneth Gilbert. Keyboardists: hone your sight reading by taking on one sonata every day, a challenge that will either thrill or frustrate you for the next year and a half!

Johann Sebastian Bach left us some 200 church cantatas, and speaking of challenges, British composer and conductor William Gillies Whitaker, born on this date in 1876, set out to perform all of them. He succeeded, presenting a third of them in Newcastle and the rest in Glasgow with his Bach Choir.

A number of conductors have recorded all the sacred cantatas, including Karl Richter, Masaaki Suzuki, John Eliot Gardiner, Helmuth Rilling, Nikolaus Harnoncourt with Gustav Leonhardt, and Ton Koopman. I’ve had friends who made it a habit to listen to one cantata every Sunday morning, an inspiring regimen that could take four years to complete. It would be interesting to listen to a single conductor’s interpretations, or to mix and match them. Time to get started!

July 23 marks the birthdates of a number of American composers who may not be familiar household names: Ben Weber (born in 1916 in St. Louis), Jerome Rosen (1921 in Boston), David Noon (1946 in Johnstown, PA), John Carbon (1951 in Chicago), and Steven L. Rosenhaus (1952 in Brooklyn, NY).

Another challenge: get to know the works of these sometimes prolific figures, using the following as points of departure. For Weber, his Piano Concerto (performed by William Masselos with the NY Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein). For Rosen, his String Quartet No. 1. For Noon, his Saxophone Quartet No. 1. For Carbon, his Fantasy-Nocturne for piano and orchestra. And for Rosenhaus, a “Meet the Composer” interview on Zoom, and his chamber work for soprano, string quartet and piano, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pigeon.

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 7:00 pm the Cleveland International Piano Competition holds a Watch Party featuring Trivia Night. Yaron Kohlberg and Zsolt Bognár will host and test your knowledge of the piano and music. Teams can be up to six people, so bring your friends (or make new ones) and enjoy great music and a chance to win a Cleveland musical prize package. Music Box Supper Club, 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland. Tickets: $65 includes your first beverage and the Music Box Buffet. Click here to purchase tickets online or call 216.242.1250.

Also at 7:00 pm is Round 2, session 3 of Cleveland International Piano Competition. Contestants perform their Second Round solo recitals of 30 minutes from around the world. Ziyu Liu (22, China), Daria Parkhomenko (29, Russia), Rafael Skorka (32, Israel), and Bowen Li (24, China). Click here at start time. Free.

At 8:30 pm it’s Ohio Light Opera’s Rare and Well Done, a concert comprising thirteen songs connected with historical personages, composed by such operetta luminaries as Jacques Offenbach, Franz von Suppé, Arthur Sullivan, and George Gershwin. Characters range from queens to sculptors to actors to composers. Live streamed from Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre, no audience present. $20. Buy tickets here.

IN THE NEWS:

The Violin Channel wants to know what you’re thinking. Click here to access the article and online survey.

INTERESTING READS:

There are two interesting New York Times articles: in one, Javier C. Hernández examines the question “Asians Are Represented in Classical Music. But Are They Seen?” Click here to access the article. The other is a conversation with conductor Oksana Lyniv, who, after 145 years, will become the first woman to lead a production at the Bayreuth Festival. Click here to read.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1796, Cleaveland was established as a settlement by the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company and named after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland. (Although he supervised the design of what would become our modern downtown, he returned home shortly thereafter and never returned to Ohio.) The name of the settlement was shortened in 1831, allegedly in order to fit on the masthead of The Cleveland Advertiser, and it wasn’t until 1836 that the settlement became incorporated as a city.

Culture took even longer to arrive on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, a history laid out by Cleveland State University professor J. Heywood Alexander in his article in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Jazz began to flourish in the early 20th century (read a parallel article by Joe Mossbrook and Chris Columbi here.)

Fast forward to 2020 to take a tour of the city with Cleveland Orchestra cellist Alan Harrell, who plays Bach in a number of different locations, and follows that up by popping up all over Northeast Ohio in a second video.

And on this date in 1933, soprano Caterina Jarboro appeared in the role of Aïda at the New York Hippodrome, the first Black female opera singer to perform in the United States. A year earlier, Jules Bledsoe made history by singing the role of Amonasro in the same opera, the first Black singer to appear in that role. His performance came in the second and last season of Stadium Opera at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a series whose first season, sponsored by The Cleveland Press, also saw the premiere of Shirley Graham’s Tom-Tom. Alas, no recordings are available.

On this day in 1949, Alan Irwin Menken was born in Manhattan. A prolific composer and songwriter, Menken is best known for his scores and songs for Disney films. The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995) have each earned him Academy Awards. A personal favorite is his score for Little Shop of Horrors. Click here to listen to “Dentist!” from the 2003 Broadway Revival Cast Recording.

by Jarrett Hoffman (Almanac) & Stephanie Manning (Events & News)

EVENTS TODAY:

The Kent Blossom Music Festival Faculty Concert Series continues tonight at 7:30 pm with a performance by Demarre McGill, flute (pictured), and Rodolfo Leone, piano. The Kulas Visiting Artists will present works by Valerie Coleman, Lowell Liebermann, William Grant Still, and Yuko Uebayashi from Ludwig Recital Hall. Click here for tickets & here for a link to the free live stream.

Two concerts from the Ohio Light Opera are on today’s calendar. The 2:00 pm performance of the comic opera Trial by Jury is sold out, but you can reserve $20 tickets here for the 8:30 pm live stream of The Daring of Diane (American premiere of the Viennese operetta). 

Other events today include the Stars in the Classics Summer Garden Concert, “From Beethoven to Bernstein,” at 6:30 pm in a garden in Orange Village. This performance is sold out, but you can order tickets here for the second concert on July 24. And at 7:00 pm, Dominico Boyagian will conduct the Suburban Symphony in a program of Rossini, Schubert, and Dvořák. This concert comes with a freewill offering and will take place on the lawn of the Church of the Western Reserve.

IN THE NEWS: 

Oberlin Conservatory has published an obituary for Richard Hoffman, professor of composition emeritus, who died June 24 at the age of 96. A native of Vienna, Hoffman worked as Arnold Schoenberg’s secretary, then became an assistant professor of composition and music theory at Oberlin in 1954 and remained there for 50 years — tied for the longest tenure in the Conservatory’s history. Read the obituary by Erich Burnett here.

The Birmingham Opera Company has also announced a recent death — artistic director Sir Graham Vick died on July 17 from Covid complications at the age of 67. Vick founded the Company in 1987, which has become well-known for its community engagement programs focused on non-traditional opera audiences. Read the obituary in The Guardian here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One virtuoso and two inventions arrive on the shores of our almanac today.

Violinist Isaac Stern was born on this date in 1920 in Kremenets, Poland (now Ukraine), though he didn’t stay there long — his family moved to San Francisco when he was only 14 months old. After making his public debut at age 15 as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Stern went on to achieve great success in just about every way you can measure.

Onstage, he was a national and international presence, performing frequently in Israel, and making groundbreaking tours of China and the Soviet Union.

In the studio, he recorded a long list of famous concertos and contemporary music, in addition to dubbing the violin playing of actors in many films, including Fiddler on the Roof (1971).

His trophy case was certainly not lacking, from his Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by George H.W. Bush, to his six Grammys — four as a concerto soloist and two as a chamber musician.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

EVENTS TODAY:

Just one local performance to plug: the BlueWater Chamber Ensemble (Stephen Tavani, Rachel Englander, Maria Monday, and Nancy Patterson, violins, Laura Shuster and James Rhodes, violas, and Linda Atherton and Derek Snyder, cellos), will play Mozart’s Divertimento in F, K. 138, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, and Mendelssohn’s Octet, Op. 20 in Evans Amphitheatre at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights. It’s free.

NEWS BRIEFS:

In addition to its forthcoming concert by Chanticleer on July 27, Tuesday Musical is resuming its “Music al fresco: Passport 2021” series of world music performances on the front lawn of West Akron’s historic Barder House. Three Sunday afternoons will feature “Irish Fiddle with Opus 216” (August 29), the Moises Borges Quartet in Brazilian samba and bossa nova (September 12), and Zydeco with Mo’ Mojo (September 26). Click here for details and tickets.

Opera Western Reserve announces local actor auditions for its November 12 production of Romeo and Juliet at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown, which will combine text from Shakespeare’s play with orchestral and vocal music from Gounod’s opera, sung in French. “We are auditioning specifically for the roles of: Paris and Abram (stage combat experience preferred), Capulet, Lady Capulet, Montague, Lady Montague, Nurse, and Friar, who will be performing Shakespeare monologue and dialogue in English.” Auditions will be held on Monday, August 9 from 7-9 pm, and Tuesday, August 10 from 4-6 pm, at Stambaugh Auditorium. Contracts are paid. Rehearsals begin in October. Advanced audition appointment not necessary. For more information, email Lynn Ohle.

FEATURED VIDEO:

Erie, Pennsylvania’s Warner Theater, home to the Erie Philharmonic, in which a number of Cleveland musicians play and whose music director, Daniel Meyer, also leads BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, is being renovated for a grand re-opening in December. The orchestra has released a fun video of its brass section playing Copland’s Fanfare on the construction site, suitably decked out for the occasion. Thanks to timpanist Andrew Pongracz for the link.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Let’s celebrate the natal days of three avant-garde composers who burst onto the scene on July 20: Nam June Paik (1932, in Seoul, South Korea), Gernot Wolfgang (1957 in Bad Gastein, Austria), and Michael Gordon (1958 in Miami).

Paik, also a mixed media and video artist, was a student of Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage, whose moment of notoriety came in 1967 when cellist Charlotte Moorman was arrested for performing his Opera Sextronique topless — although other works of his, like his hommage à john cage, which calls for the destruction of two pianos, stick in the collective memory. Click here to watch a collage of his film and music, selected by musicians who worked with him. [Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

2021-2022 SEASON ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Cleveland Chamber Music Society will present a full season of eight live, in-person concerts in 2021-2022. The Imani Winds (pictured) will open the Tuesday evening series on October 5, followed by cellist Edgar Moreau and pianist Jérémie Moreau on October 26, the Cavani Quartet on December 7 (an episode in its “Beyond Beethoven” cycle), the Danish String Quartet on January 25, Cuarteto Casals on February 22, the Rosamunde String Quartet on March 15, tenor Lawrence Brownlee on April 26, and the Takács Quartet with cellist David Requiro on May 3. Performances will take place at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights with the exception of October 5 (Kulas Hall at CIM), and October 26 and April 26 (Maltz Performing Arts Center at Case).

Summit Choral Society’s 32nd season, titled “Forward,” reflects its return to live performances, although the organization notes that it is “proud to have provided in-person singing throughout the COVID19 pandemic with no instances of transmission.” Summit’s programs include the Metropolitan Chorus, which will give three concerts during the year in Akron’s St. Bernard Church and Greystone Hall, community sing sessions with the Akron City Gospel Singers, its extensive Children’s Choir Program, “Drumming,” a hybrid experience for high schoolers and young adults, the early childhood program “Sing With Me” for children up to 5 years of age and their caregivers, and its one-week Summer Music Camps for children of school age. Read a press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On the 173rd anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention — the first women’s rights convention in the U.S. — we’ll begin by celebrating an underrecognized female American composer and conductor.

Peggy Stuart Coolidge, born on this date in 1913 in Swampscott, Massachusetts, is known for her distinctly American compositional voice influenced by popular and folk music.

Despite that, she’s better known abroad. Significant performances overseas during her lifetime included a 1967 concert of American music in Tokyo (she was also received by the Crown Prince of Japan) and, in 1970, a program presented in the Soviet Union that was devoted entirely to her music — a first for any American composer. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

EVENTS THIS WEEKEND:

Ohio Light Opera is busy this weekend, with afternoon performances of Trial by Jury and The Fantasticks as well as an evening edition of “The Musical Magic of OLO.” All planned for the great outdoors, but with rain plans at the ready.

Online piano events include the beginning of the second round of the Cleveland International Piano Competition and the continuation of the Oberlin-Como Piano Festival (with an interview featuring conductor Robert Spano).

Encore Chamber Music Institute hosts its Blooming Artist Marathon online all afternoon and into the evening on Saturday.

And on the Blossom stage Sunday evening, vocalist Capathia Jenkins (pictured) opens that mythical volume, “The Great American Songbook,” joining The Cleveland Orchestra for American standards by Gershwin, Ellington, and others.

Details in our Concert Listings

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

A year ago today, July 17, we highlighted the birth in 1935 in Ames, Iowa of American composer Peter Schickele (whose alter ego was the fictional P.D.Q. Bach), and the death of French composer, conductor, and organist Gabriel Pierné in Ploujean, Brittany in 1937.

This weekend, we’ll celebrate the birth of British pianist, scholar, and composer Sir Donald Francis Tovey in Eaton (July 17, 1875), and mark the demise of American harpsichordist and pianist Rosalyn Tureck in New York City (July 17, 2003).

Tovey, who held a professorship in music at the University of Edinburgh from 1914, is best known for his scholarly writings about music — his Essays in Musical Analysis were published by Oxford in six volumes from 1935 to 1939. But he contributed some impressive works to the British canon of orchestral and chamber works as well. Based on those pieces and on his scholarly editions of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and The Art of Fugue, Elgar is said to have recommended him for a knighthood in 1935.

Listen here to Tovey’s 1913 Symphony in D, Op. 32 performed by the Malmö Opera Orchestra under George Vass, and here to a scratchy archive recording by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony of his Cello Concerto, Op. 40, dedicated to Pablo Casals, who is the soloist.

As part of his editorial work on Bach’s great fugal textbook, Tovey wrote a completion to Contrapunctus XVI, which he plays here on the piano.

And for a sample of Tovey’s chamber music, listen here and follow along with the score to his Op. 1 Piano Trio, which he dedicated to his mentor, Sir Hubert Parry.

Rosalyn Tureck’s early and lifelong advocacy of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach survived her training at the Juilliard School which she entered at the age of 16. She found the faculty unencouraging about her favorite composer, a situation that she also encountered elsewhere. In his New York Times obituary, Alan Kozin wrote,

When she entered the Naumburg Competition, she made it to the finals and presented an all-Bach program as her closing recital. As she told the story years later, the members of the jury said they could not give her the award “because they were sure that nobody could make a career in Bach.”

Well, she did, as you can learn from the video Rosalyn Tureck: Remembering a Legend, produced for what would have been her 100th birthday in 2014, and featuring a number of interviews with those who knew her best, including former Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor Michael Charry. Watch here.

There’s also a video of her all-Bach recital in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1995 that includes the Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother, and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.

 

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 7:00 pm it’s the Cleveland International Piano Competition Round 1, Session 5. Contestants perform their solo recitals of 20 minutes from around the world. Suah Ye (20, South Korea), Philipp Lynov (22, Russia), Clayton Stephenson (22, United States) and Arsenii Mun (21, Russia). Click here at start time to watch the free videos.

Want to hear the event with others? Pack a picnic and bring lawn chairs to watch performances under the stars on the big screen at the Beachwood Community Center, 25225 Fairmount Blvd., Beachwood.

Also at 7:00 pm is Day 3 of the Oberlin-Como Piano Festival: Master Classes and Interviews. The Marvel of the Baroque on the Pianoforte will feature an interview with William Grant Naboré and performances by Xiaoyu Liu, Leonardo Pierdomenico, Anastasia Vaorotnaya, and Daniela Jiménez Ochoa. The free event is part of Oberlin’s Stage Left series. View here at start time.

IN THE NEWS:

Tuesday Musical is offering a 50% discount on tickets for groups of 6 or more for the concert by Chanticleer (pictured) on Tuesday, July 27, 7:30 pm at Akron’s EJ Thomas Hall. Stay after and celebrate during an audience reception. This offer is only available by calling 330-761-3460 by July 22 at 5 pm — it is not available online. Single tickets can be purchased here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

July 15 presents a number of noteworthy events beginning with the death of Carl Czerny in 1857 at age 66 in Vienna. For those who only know the celebrated teacher as the person who wrote the many technical studies we all had to endure as piano students, one must remember that he was also a prolific composer  with over one thousand works — sonatas, chamber music, symphonies, and choral pieces — to his credit. Click here to listen to his Variations on a Theme by Rode, Op. 33 (“La ricordanza”) played by pianist Alexis Weissenberg.

Another passing of note is that of violinist Leopold Auer in 1930 at Loschwitz, near Dresden. While he was the dedicatee of many works during his lifetime, perhaps the best known is Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Although he initially regarded the work as unplayable and refused to give the concerto’s premiere, he later — after some re-editing of the solo part — became a champion of the piece.

July 15, 1933 saw the birth of English guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream in London. With a career that spanned over a half-century, Bream is credited with transforming the classical guitar — in the eyes of the public —  into an instrument worthy of being performed in the world’s great concert halls. The list of composers who dedicated pieces to Bream include Malcolm Arnold, Richard Rodney Bennett, Leo Brouwer, Hans Werner Henze, Toru Takemitsu, Michael Tippett, William Walton, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Benjamin Britten. Bream plays Britten’s Nocturnal here.

One year later, English composer Harrison Birtwistle was born in Accrington, Lancashire. His 1986 Earth Dances have been compared to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Christoph von Dohnányi recorded the work in 1996 with The Cleveland Orchestra for Decca (listen here), but there’s also a video of a performance by Cologne’s Gürzenich Orchestra led by Marcus Stenz.

1946 saw the birth of American singer Linda Ronstadt in Tucson, Arizona. She began her prolific career as a member of The Stone Poneys — Click here to listen to their 1967 hit Different Drum. Never content to be boxed into a genre, Ronsdadt would later star in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, first with the New York Shakespeare Company, and later on Broadway and in the 1983 film version — listen to Poor Wandering One here. She also toured with The Nelson Riddle Orchestra. She sings Falling in Love Again here.

We conclude today’s list with two local connections. The first is that of Swiss American composer Ernst Bloch, who died on this date in 1959 in Portland, Oregon. Bloch served as founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1920-1925 before moving on to the San Francisco Conservatory. Among Bloch’s music based on Jewish themes is his tone poem about King Solomon, Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque. Listen here to a live Blossom Festival performance in 1980 by cellist Janós Starker with The Cleveland Orchestra, led by Eduardo Mata.

And July 15 1988 saw Robert Shannon give the premiere of John Harbison’s Piano Sonata No. 1 In Memoriam Roger Sessions at the Dorothy Taubman Piano Institute in Amherst, MA. The sonata was written for Shannon, a long-time faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory, and for Ursula Oppens and Alan Feinberg, on a consortium commission from the National Endowment for the Arts. Click here to listen to Shannon’s recording.