by Daniel Hathaway
Pianist Michelle Cann freely admits she was as unaware as everyone else about the music of Florence Price until a trove of Price’s compositions turned up in the composer’s former summer home in Chicago in 2009.
Since then, Cann has become one of Price’s most enthusiastic advocates, as she made clear to the audience in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on August 11. Her program, part of Piano Cleveland’s PianoDays @CLE, wrapped works by Chopin, Brahms, Clara Schumann, and Margaret Bonds around Price’s Sonata in e and Fantasie Nègre No. 1, also in e minor. I heard the performance through the livestream. [Read more…]
Winner of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and Professor at the Curtis Institute of Music, pianist Michelle Cann returns to Cleveland on Thursday, August 11 for a 7:30 pm performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall. Presented as part of PianoDays @CLE, her program features works by Chopin, Brahms, Clara Schumann, Florence Price, and Margaret Bonds. Purchase tickets 
Piano Cleveland has a lot in store for Northeast Ohio this summer. But before 
It was March 20, 2020, when The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst gave their last concert as a complete ensemble before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live performances for more than a year. The Orchestra, with guest conductor Brett Mitchell, returned triumphantly to Blossom Music Center on July 3 and 4 to celebrate Independence Day. I attended on July 4.
After a year’s absence, The Cleveland Orchestra will return to the stage of Blossom Music on Saturday, July 3 and Sunday, July 4 at 8:00 pm. Under the direction of Brett Mitchell, the concerts will also mark the first time the full orchestra has performed in front of an in-person audience since March of 2020.
The name Florence Price had barely come up in school. So in 2016, when pianist Michelle Cann was asked to play that composer’s