by Daniel Hathaway

CityMusic Cleveland’s free sets of orchestral concerts — each given in multiple locations around town — have proven to be so popular that Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights began filling up forty-five minutes before curtain time on Wednesday evening, December 12. Anybody who arrived shortly before the downbeat and expected to find a place in the pews was out of luck. Extra chairs in the church’s narthex permitted overflow listeners to hear the concert through opened windows.

The crowd on Wednesday evening came out to hear an overture and a concerto by Mozart and a symphony by Mendelssohn, with a holiday add-on of spirituals and “Holiday Songs” sung by the Mount Zion Choir. The excellent soloist was principal oboist Rebecca Schweigert Mayhew. Guest conductor for the evening was Stefan Willich, whose day job is Professor of Medicine in Berlin, but who moonlights as conductor of the World Doctors Orchestra, an ensemble of a hundred physicians from twenty countries who gather twice a year to play benefit concerts — the ensemble made its U.S. debut in Severance Hall in February, 2009. [Read more…]