Gaia Saetermoe-Howard Archives - Cleveland Classical

Apollo’s Fire: a celebration of music from the Palace of Versailles

March 4, 2026 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

This week, Apollo’s Fire takes audiences on an excursion to 17th and 18th century France with a program celebrating the music created for the Palace of Versailles under the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Led by Associate Artistic Director Alan Choo, the program features works by Charpentier, Leclair, Lully, Rameau, and Rebel.

Performances begin on Thursday, March 5 at 7:30 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron. The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights and Sunday at 4:00 pm at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. Tickets are available online.

We caught up with oboist Gaia Saetermoe-Howard by Zoom, who will be giving a pre-concert lecture one hour before each performance. I began by asking her what the earliest piece on the program will be.

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Apollo’s Fire opens Bach-focused season with Brandenburgs (Oct. 18)

October 31, 2024 by Peter Feher

by Peter Feher

If it weren’t for J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, there might not be period-instrument ensembles like Apollo’s Fire. Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra, now in its 33rd season, opened its concert year with a solid program built around these staple pieces.

A lively performance of four of the concertos at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights on Friday, October 18 was the first of half a dozen outings for Apollo’s Fire this month (with slight changes in repertoire and personnel along the way).

Bach’s music, in all its consolations and complexities, could easily fill an ensemble’s entire schedule. In fact, that’s sort of what Apollo’s Fire has planned for 2024–25, with artistic director Jeannette Sorrell conceiving of the composer as a “guide star” for the season. The yearlong focus on Bach is set to conclude this spring in a “Bachanalia,” a full month of concerts and workshops around Northeast Ohio. [Read more…]

Tuesday Musical hosts Marsalis-Mcallister-Ames Trio (Mar. 3)

By Kevin McLaughlin

The Marsalis–McAllister–Ames Trio arrived at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall on March 3, with a program for Tuesday Musical that strolled through several musical neighborhoods — French impressionism, a touch of Scotland, American concert music, and Kansas City jazz. Branford Marsalis and Timothy McAllister handled the saxophones, Liz Ames the piano.

Between them, the saxophonists covered much of the instrument’s extended family, from baritone sax upward, switching horns as the repertoire required. For the first half, Marsalis stayed with the soprano — Coltrane’s instrument — which, in Marsalis’ hands, had a sweet, veiled quality that especially suited the program’s opening music.

Marsalis is widely known as a jazz musician, but he has long been at ease in classical repertoire as well — an aspect of his playing documented early on, as in his 1986 album Romances for Saxophone.

[Read on…]

Jakub Hrůša returns to Cleveland Orchestra with music from Germany, Czech Republic (Mar. 5)

by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — During Jakub Hrůša’s first decade of Cleveland Orchestra appearances, the Czech conductor programmed a wide range of music, including works from his home country, cornerstones of the orchestral canon, and lesser-known gems. This weekend’s concerts feature all three.

On Thursday, March 5, after more than four years away from the Cleveland podium, Hrůša returned to Severance Music Center with music by Johannes Brahms, Bohuslav Martinů, and Vítězslava Kaprálová. Without a concerto, the program focused instead on the forms of the symphony and sinfonietta — as well as on the synergy between Hrůša and the Orchestra, which produced some very fine playing.

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