Don VerKuilen Archives - Cleveland Classical

Singers Club of Cleveland to take its spring program on tour to the Baltics

April 27, 2023 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

One of Northeast Ohio’s oldest continuing ensembles, The Singers Club of Cleveland, made its debut in the chapel of First Baptist Church on April 19, 1894.

The all-male chorus, which had tallied up 1,663 members by the time its entry in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History was written in 1995, will return to First Baptist Church for a spring concert on Friday, April 28 at 7 pm — not to the edifice where the chorus sang its first concert, but to its new Gothic building designed by Walker and Weeks and dedicated in 1929.

Friday’s concert will also set the distinguished ensemble off on a new course. Having stayed close to home for over a century, the Singers Club will embark on a week-long tour of Latvia, Estonia, and Finland in June.

“We’re going to be there during the Summer Solstice, which is a huge celebration in the Baltics,” music director Don Verkuilen said in a telephone conversation. [Read more…]

Singers’ Club appoints new artistic director

May 11, 2020 by ccadmin

The Singers’ Club of Cleveland has named local conductor and musician Don VerKuilen as its new artistic director, effective June 1.

VerKuilen is the Director of Music and Liturgy at Saint Rocco Parish on Cleveland’s West Side, where he serves as organist and directs all choirs, including a schola cantorum he has created for the return of the Latin Mass.

VerKuilen has directed choirs across the United States as guest conductor and has held choral directing positions in prominent churches, including Pulaski Heights Methodist in Little Rock, Arkansas, and The Old Stone Church, Cleveland. He has performed as concert organist across the United States and Europe. VerKuilen began his organ and conducting studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is continuing those studies at The Cleveland Institute of Music.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra provides the live soundtrack to ‘Amadeus,’ reveling in the splendor and genius of Mozart (Sept 21)

The Cleveland Orchestra is performing the score to “Amadeus” live Sept. 21-24, 2023, at Severance Music Center.

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Peter Feher

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The classical season at Severance Music Center got off to a shocking start on Thursday, Sept. 2, with the Cleveland Orchestra’s live performance of the score to Amadeus. In the first half of the evening alone, there was cursing, flatulence, some hanky-panky, an attempted suicide, and much talk of murder — and all because of one 18th-century composer.

The brilliant 1984 film directed by Miloš Forman was adapted from Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play of the same name — Shaffer also wrote the screenplay. Yet nothing about Mozart’s character as portrayed in Amadeus should really scandalize contemporary audiences. The myths and misconceptions around the life and work of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart — he preferred Amadé over Amadeus — would sooner upset a historian than outrage the average 21st-century concertgoer.

[Read on…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Stephanie Jones (Sept. 17)

by Kevin McLaughlin

The Australian guitarist Stephanie Jones brought passion and clarity to the opening concert of the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s 2023-24 International Series, in a program of mostly German and South American works at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on September 17. This was the first concert since CCGS moved from their cozier confines of Plymouth UCC. Whatever the acoustical challenges in the Maltz, the charisma of Jones’ playing made a clear and lasting impression.

Beginning with two movements from J.S. Bach’s Violin Partita No. 3, she employed precision and a rubato musical line, breathing life into the familiar Gavotte en Rondeau movement. [Read on…]

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