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Musicians, patrons unite for Cleveland Orchestra concert (Sept. 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio —  A strange vibe hung in the air at Severance Music Center on Thursday evening, September 24, as The Cleveland Orchestra and its audience gathered for the second program of the new season. Contract talks had broken down shortly before the performance and a midnight strike was looming.

Aside from a string trio playing welcoming music inside the entrance, orchestra members greeting arriving patrons, and someone shouting “Give our musicians what they want” when concertmaster Joel Link came onstage to tune, there was little hint of a labor dispute to sully the evening.

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Franz Welser-Möst returns to Severance to begin 25th and final season in Cleveland (Sept. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Richard Strauss somehow got lost on his way to the 20th century, but his detour was a beautiful one. Still composing — though at a slower pace — into his eighties, he crafted some of the most expressive and memorable Romantic music in the repertory shortly before his death in 1949.

Among those works are the cycle that has come to be called “The Four Last Songs,” inspired by three Hermann Hesse poems in an anthology gifted to the composer, plus an earlier setting of words by Joseph von Eichendorff. All of the poetry is infused with the “autumnal” qualities also to be found in Johannes Brahms.

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Franz Welser-Möst returns to Blossom with “Summer in Vienna” (Aug. 29)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Franz Welser-Möst began saying farewell to Cleveland audiences on Saturday with music from his other home.

“Summer in Vienna” marked his final Blossom Music Center appearance as music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, in the 25th and final season of a tenure that began in 2002. Richard Strauss and Mozart brought Vienna’s drama and grace to the party. After intermission came the champagne.

Welser-Möst flipped our wigs with the emphatic opening to Mozart’s Symphony No. 34, letting the four horns and four trumpets play with Handelian abandon while strings and winds kept the music transparent and nimble. Mozart’s abrupt shifts and odd phrase lengths came off as witty, not fussy. The finale was like a fleet horse ride, all carefree bliss at summer’s end.

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Franz Welser-Möst returns to The Cleveland Orchestra for passionate Summers at Severance finale (Aug. 27)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The summer is almost over, which means that Franz Welser-Möst is back on the podium. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director has historically preferred to make his appearances at the tail end of the Orchestra’s summer season, and he has scheduled himself for two performances during the last week of August. On Thursday evening, August 27 he led the final concert of the 2026 Summers at Severance series, bringing a good-sized crowd to hear a program of emotionally charged music at Severance Music Center.

Although the timing of Welser-Möst’s return to Cleveland is typical, it now comes with more gravitas than usual, as he is gearing up for his 25th and final year as music director. Understandably, his programming for this upcoming season has become more retrospective to match. Thursday’s concert featured works by historic composers he loves — Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner — and a living composer he has championed — Bernd Richard Deutsch.

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Jon Batiste brings his musical magic to Blossom (Aug. 20)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Jon Batiste is an eager traveler across musical borders. At Blossom Music Center on Thursday, August 20, the pianist, singer, and composer demonstrated his broad musical fluency, moving among jazz, gospel, blues, pop, and classical music in a Cleveland Orchestra program that was both exhilaratingly loose and more coherent than its variety suggested.

Drawing on Batiste’s albums Hollywood Africans, WE ARE, World Music Radio, Beethoven Blues, and BIG MONEY, the program ranged from Batiste originals to classical staples, and jazz standards, with detours into gospel and dance breaks.

Batiste arrived onstage to a standing ovation, dressed in a white suit and carrying a white coffee mug. He was joined by a trio — guitar, drums, and voice — whose precision and easy rapport anchored the performance.

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Tony DeSare leads vibrant Cole Porter celebration at Blossom (Aug. 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, OHIO — Composer and lyricist Cole Porter left New Haven in 1913, taking with him his newly-earned Yale diploma and a portfolio of some 300 songs that already cemented his reputation for witty lyrics and memorable tunes.

Many of those — and many more — would end up between the covers of the Great American Songbook. And also in such endearing revues as Tony DeSare’s “Cole Porter: Let’s Misbehave,’ that played to a large and enthusiastic audience at Blossom on Sunday evening, August 23.

Far from creating a nostalgic excursion down memory lane, the evening’s program presented Porter’s music as a living, breathing organism that might have been written that very morning.

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Rain refuses to dampen spirits for Cleveland Orchestra’s all-French program (Aug. 22)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel often drew inspiration from water. Pieces like Debussy’s La Mer (“The Sea”) and Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (“Fountains” or “Water Games”) are prime examples of how to capture rippling shapes and shimmering colors in sound.

Neither of those pieces were played on The Cleveland Orchestra’s half-Debussy, half-Ravel program on Aug. 22, but they may well have been, as Mother Nature had her rainy way at Blossom Music Center.

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Tony DeSare brings ‘Cole Porter: Let’s Misbehave’ to Blossom

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by Mike Telin

When you think of contributors to the Great American Songbook, one of the first composers that comes to mind is Cole Porter. With some 800 to 1,000 songs to his name, Porter’s music found success on Broadway as well as in Hollywood films.

On Sunday, August 23 at 7:00 pm at Blossom Music Center, vocalist and pianist Tony DeSare will join The Cleveland Orchestra with his show “Cole Porter: Let’s Misbehave.” Under the direction of conductor Steven Reineke, the cast includes jazz vocalist and trombonist Aubrey Logan, and dancer, singer, and choreographer John Manzari. Tickets are available online. 

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Cleveland Orchestra ignites Blossom with Tabita Berglund and Simone Lamsma (Aug. 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, OHIO — The Cleveland Orchestra, Norwegian guest conductor Tabita Berglund, and Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma — pyromaniacs all — set what looked like a routine orchestral program ablaze on Saturday evening, August 15 at the Blossom Music Center.

Lamsma is a well-known guest with the Orchestra, and judging only by the ardent reception she received from the Blossom crowd the moment she stepped on stage for Jean Sibelius’s concerto, a very popular visitor.

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Cleveland Orchestra spends a night at the opera (Aug. 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the August 13 Summers at Severance concert — A Night at the Opera —  The Cleveland Orchestra, under the direction of John Fiore, treated the audience to a well-crafted mix of favorites and rarities.

Soprano Latonia Moore, whose winning stage presence could change the minds of more than a few listeners who swear they don’t like opera, drew the audience in with elegant and remarkably communicative singing coupled with direct smiles and knowing glances. Increasingly a Cleveland favorite, she sang the title role in Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa here in May of 2025 and returned this past January for the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert.

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