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Cleveland Orchestra announces its 2017-2018 Centennial Season

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by Daniel Hathaway

March-17-FWM-ChildrenSome 1,200 patrons gathered at Severance Hall on Friday evening, March 17 to hear details of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 100th-anniversary season in 2017-2018. The evening began with a sumptuous reception in the lobbies accompanied by string music from members of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra playing alongside Cleveland Orchestra musicians.

Moving to the main auditorium, the crowd heard remarks from executive director André Gremillet and newly-elected Musical Arts Association president Richard K. Smucker, and reflections from Orchestra musicians Massimo La Rosa, Martha Baldwin, and Joshua Smith on their experiences. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: all-Stravinsky with Cleveland Orchestra Chorus & Seraphic Fire (Mar. 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Stravinsky-Wide-MastroianniThose who say they like or don’t like the music of Igor Stravinsky risk being detained for further questioning: which of the different styles the composer took on and discarded during his long 20th-century career are you referring to? There were several to be heard on The Cleveland Orchestra’s all-Stravinsky program on Thursday evening, all masterfully performed under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst with the help of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Miami’s Seraphic Fire. [Read more…]

Stravinsky’s Threni at Severance Hall: a conversation with Patrick Dupré Quigley

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by Daniel Hathaway

Patrick-Dupre-QuigleyThis week’s pair of Cleveland Orchestra concerts led by music director Franz Welser-Möst will be devoted to works in a variety of styles by Igor Stravinsky. One of the most challenging is Threni: Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah, a piece the composer premiered at the Venice Biennale in September 1958. Threni will be performed on Thursday, March 16 and Saturday, March 18 by The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus and the Miami-based chamber chorus Seraphic Fire, now in its fifteenth season.

We spoke by telephone last week with Seraphic Fire’s founder and artistic director Patrick Dupré Quigley, who was already in Cleveland on another assignment with the Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra & Chamber Chorus: Bach’s St. John Passion at Severance (Mar. 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO-Herr-unser-HerrscherUnder the direction of Franz Welser-Möst on Thursday evening, members of The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus and an excellent team of soloists made a strong case for a not-so-historically informed approach to Bach’s sacred vocal works. The quality of Welser-Möst’s interpretation and the excellence of its execution got right to the heart of the composer’s Passion According to St. John and left a powerful emotional impression. [Read more…]

Welser-Möst to conduct Bach’s
St. John Passion: an overview and report of a panel discussion

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by Daniel Hathaway

JohannespassionMSOf Johann Sebastian Bach’s two extant Passion settings, the St. John is the more dramatic, an excursion in a speedboat compared to the ocean liner-like progress of the St. Matthew.

This weekend, music director Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Chamber Chorus in three performances of Bach’s St. John Passion, with tenor Maximilian Schmitt as the Evangelist, bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams as Christus, and soprano Lauren Snouffer, countertenor Iestyn Davies, tenor Nicholas Phan, and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel as soloists.

As part of Bach’s plan to establish a “well-regulated church music” after his arrival in Leipzig in 1723, he initiated a five-year cycle of weekly cantatas, and planned an elaborate setting of the Passion according to the Gospel of John for performance on Good Friday afternoon of 1724. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra to present three Summers@Severance Concerts

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Summers@Severance-Barbara-MerrittPatrons can enjoy summer concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra in University Circle for the fourth season this July and August. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, and guest conductors Susanna Mälkki and Patrick Dupré Quigley will lead Friday evening concerts on July 14 and 28 and August 18 in Severance Hall.

The performances begin at 7:00 pm, but a Happy Hour with special drink prices will begin on the front terrace at 6:00 pm, and beverage service will be offered there following each performance. Tickets are now on sale for the three-concert package, with individual tickets available beginning May 1.

Here are the program details: [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: Widmann & Bruckner with Bronfman & Welser-Möst (January 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

FWMBronfmanWidmannSome composers’ brains generate so many ideas that their compositions bulge at the seams to contain them. That was the case at Severance Hall on Thursday evening, January 12, when music director Franz Welser-Möst, pianist Yefim Bronfman, and The Cleveland Orchestra presented a new work by Jörg Widmann and an old symphony by Anton Bruckner. Packed with musical content, each piece was enthralling in its own way. [Read more…]

Save the dates: January events to log in your classical music calendar

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by Daniel Hathaway

gaffigan-jamesFormer assistant conductor James Gaffigan will return to the podium at Severance Hall from Thursday, January 5 through Saturday, January 7 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein in Bernard Hermann’s Suite from Psycho, Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, the original, jazz band version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Performances include Thursday and Saturday evenings, a Friday matinee and a Fridays@7 event.

From January 6-8, the Philadelphia-based vocal ensemble, The Crossing, will give sixeen performances of David Lang’s Lifespan in Gallery 218 — the glass house that rises above the Cleveland Museum of Art’s East Boulevard façade. Surrounding a 4-billion-year-old rock suspended from the ceiling, three vocalists will whistle and breathe, moving the rock like a pendulum, “a poetic form of wind erosion” (read a preview here). Performances are scheduled for Friday at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 7:45 and 8:30 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday on the hour from noon to 4:00 pm. Weigh in on your experience by sharing your own comments on the ClevelandClassical.com Facebook page. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: a Roman triptych with Beethoven to open (Oct. 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Cleveland Orchestra There would be lots of musical benefits if time travel ever became a reality. You could go back and ask J.S. Bach some pertinent questions, find out what really happened at the premiere of The Rite of Spring, and experience the music of Ottorino Respighi with fresh ears before his spectacular orchestral extravaganzas got appropriated by Hollywood. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Opening Night with organist Paul Jacobs (Sept. 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

tco-fwm-jacobs-092916The Norton Memorial Organ in Severance Hall — one of E.M. Skinner’s finest concert hall instruments — enjoyed a rare moment in the spotlight at The Cleveland Orchestra’s opening concert on September 29, led by music director Franz Welser-Möst. In the hands (and under the feet) of Paul Jacobs, it played a starring role both in Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony, and in a thrilling encore that brought the large audience spontaneously to its own feet. [Read more…]

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