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DIARY: Tuesday, July 11, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Ohio Light Opera with H.M.S. Pinafore, and Athena String Quartet (pictured) in music by Mendelssohn, Beach & Still

•Announcements: Ohio Arts Council talks all-hazards planning, Kaboom Collective looks for a podcast-making team, and Cleveland Repertory Orchestra seeks board members

•Almanac: Thorvaldsdottir, Blomstedt, Gershwin

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 2:00 pm at Freedlander Theatre in Wooster, Ohio Light Opera performs Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore (tickets here). And at 7:00 at Cain Park’s Alma Theater, Local 4 Music Fund presents the Athena String Quartet in a free program of music by Felix Mendelssohn, Amy Beach, and William Grant Still.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra:
Blomstedt & Ax (Feb. 16)

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by Peter Feher

There are few music directors who know Beethoven better than Herbert Blomstedt. Now 95 years old, the Swedish-American conductor has a lifetime of serious study and performing experience to draw on, but this isn’t to say his interpretations are set in stone.

The mix of curiosity and thoroughness that’s sustained Blomstedt throughout his career was just as apparent in his program with The Cleveland Orchestra on February 16. If he’s slowed down somewhat since his last appearance here — the biggest change is that he now conducts seated at the podium — there was nonetheless a sense of coming full circle as he led Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom: Blomstedt’s Beethoven 7 (Aug. 1)

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by Peter Feher 

From the podium, Herbert Blomstedt is always proving that there are new insights to be found in even the most well-trod pieces.

The 94-year-old Swedish American conductor, whose big American post was with the San Francisco Symphony several decades ago, returned to Blossom Music Center on Sunday, August 1, with the kind of austere program only he can pull off.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra guest conductors lead memorable Concerts (Feb. 23 & 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Michael Tilson Thomas succeeded Herbert Blomstedt as music director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995. In a nice coincidence, Blomstedt turned the tables last month, following Tilson Thomas on the Severance Hall podium during adjacent weeks in February. [Read more…]

Herbert Blomstedt leads two symphonies at Severance (Feb. 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

A favorite phrase musicians use to trim conductors down to size is to remind them that “the stick makes no sound.” Neither do the bare hands for that matter, but on Thursday, February 20 at Severance Hall, veteran conductor Herbert Blomstedt expertly shaped symphonies by Beethoven and Mendelssohn using minimal but meaningful gestures that provided Cleveland Orchestra musicians with clear architectural plans, but left them plenty of room to work their magic. [Read more…]

TCO: Blomstedt at Blossom (July 28)

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by David Kulma

Having recently turned 91, Herbert Blomstedt is practically an institution in himself, with a career spanning more than six decades. On Saturday, July 28, he returned to Northeast Ohio to lead The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center in two canonical symphonies by Mozart and Brahms. The “Jupiter” was so smooth and straightforward as to pass by unremarkably, while the stirringly passionate performance of Brahms 4 showed how a seasoned conductor with a top-flight orchestra can achieve magic.

[Read more…]

Summers at Severance No. 1 with Herbert Blomstedt (July 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

At 45 minutes in length, the first of 2018’s three Summers at Severance concerts may have been short, but guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt and The Cleveland Orchestra used their three quarters of an hour onstage to make a powerful experience out of a single work — Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. Conducting without a stick and never cracking open the small score on the podium, Blomstedt sculpted every detail of the piece, melding expressive, colorful lines into a pulsing musical organism. [Read more…]

Got summer plans, Cleveland Orchestra? Blossom + Summers@Severance + a few extra notables

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Clevelanders haven’t heard their orchestra live since mid-May. In the interim, The Cleveland Orchestra has been on the road, finishing off their centennial-capping Prometheus Project with performances at Vienna’s Musikverein and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Oh, how we miss them.

We’ll get reacquainted with TCO soon, thanks to their schedule at this year’s 50th anniversary season of Blossom Music Festival, plus their fourth Summers@Severance series.

The Cleveland Orchestra marks the unofficial beginning of summer when they open their Blossom season on Saturday, July 7 at 8:00 pm. At the helm will be music director Franz Welser-Möst, leading the Orchestra in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in its orchestration by Ravel, Reznicek’s Overture to Donna Diana, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, featuring TCO’s own soloists –– pianist Joela Jones, violinist Stephen Rose, and cellist Mark Kosower. At this concert and two others, check out the Image Magnification system, which displays live video of the performers on LED screens in the Blossom Pavilion. Fingers crossed for the weather — a firework show is planned for afterwards.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra announces 2018 Summers@Severance events

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by Daniel Hathaway

Summers@SeveranceThe Cleveland Orchestra will welcome three guest conductors to lead its early Friday evening Summers@Severance Concerts in July and August.

Herbert Blomstedt, who will turn 91 shortly before his July 27 appearance with the Orchestra, will lead the ensemble in Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

Vasily Petrenko, who leads the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Oslo Philharmonic, will conduct Elgar’s In the South and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra on August 10.

And two artists will make their Severance Hall debuts on August 24 when conductor Jonathan Cohen joins pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout in Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 11 in D. Also on the program are Handel’s Occasional Oratorio Overture and Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in g. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: Herbert Blomstedt conducts Berwald & Dvořák (Feb. 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Conducting is one of the few professions where you can make your debut at the age of 8 (as the late Lorin Maazel did) and still remain fully in the game at the age of 88 (as Herbert Blomstedt was last weekend at Severance Hall). Leading an eccentric symphony by his fellow Swede, Franz Berwald, and what many regard as Antonín Dvořák’s symphonic masterwork, Blomstedt was at the center of a love-fest generated by the players of The Cleveland Orchestra and enjoyed by an enthusiastic audience. [Read more…]

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