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Harpist Parker Ramsay brings the Goldberg Variations to Trinity Cathedral

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by Mike Telin

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Aria with Thirty Variations — nicknamed (not by the composer) after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, the harpsichordist who was retained to play them on command for an insomniac patron — have been adapted by performers for many other instruments, most notably for the piano and most famously by Glenn Gould.

Joining a long list of arrangers, Parker Ramsay has transcribed the Variations for the modern pedal harp, an instrument for which he holds a master’s degree from Juilliard, in addition to a degree in history from Cambridge University, plus a master’s in historical performance (organ and harpsichord) and an artist diploma (organ) from Oberlin.

Ramsay returned to his undergraduate haunts to record the Goldbergs in Henry VI’s wonderful chapel at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was the first American to serve as organ scholar. Bach: Goldberg Variations was released in September of 2020 on King’s own label.

On Monday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, Parker Ramsay will perform his arrangement of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations in a Bach Birthday Concert to benefit Music and Art at Trinity Cathedral. Click here for more information. [Read more…]

Trinity Cathedral resumes Wednesday Brownbag Concerts & Choral Evensongs

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by Daniel Hathaway

Trinity Cathedral will resume its Wednesday programming on October 6, including the Noontime Brownbag Concerts and 6:00 pm Choral Evensong services, with some modifications that reflect the current state of the pandemic.

“It’s a different chapter of unusualness,” music director Todd Wilson said in a telephone conversation. Rather than offering the popular lunchtime concerts every week, Trinity will host the performances twice a month.

“We settled into the every-other-week Brownbag Concert format last year, and I’m guessing that live audiences are going to be coming back rather slowly. It seemed to make sense to continue that pattern for the foreseeable future. My hope is that a year from now we’ll be in a much more normal and easy-to-predict place,” Wilson said.

Patrons who attend the Wednesday noon programs in person will find some new protocols in place. “We’ll be doing low-key check-ins with proof of vaccination, and no lunches will be permitted. Sad stuff, but we’re not even allowed to serve coffee after church right now.” The alternative is to attend online, and all of Trinity’s programs will be live streamed. [Read more…]

Sato & Sords send off Earth & Air with Bologne & Bach

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Earth and Air: String Orchestra is taking its final bow next week, but they won’t be going away quietly. The chamber ensemble has enlisted not one but two soloists for the occasion, more specifically two “Dueling Divas,” as violinists Andrew Sords and Mari Sato call their duo.

Another intriguing pairing is the program itself, which places J.S. Bach and his popular Concerto for two violins in d side by side with the Symphonie Concertante in G of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, an 18th-century Black composer who is only recently receiving his due recognition both in the history books and the concert hall.

The free concert airs on YouTube on the morning of Tuesday, April 20, the fruits of a recording session held earlier this month at Trinity Cathedral and engineered by Paul Eachus, with video direction by Mathias Reed and cinematography by Robert Reiland.

“It has been a wonderful run of six years,” director David Ellis (below) wrote on the ensemble’s website. “We are so grateful to our loyal audience and patrons. We couldn’t have done this without you!” He also left the door open just a crack: “We anticipate other individual and small ensemble projects in the future on a more limited basis.”

[Read more…]

Skinner organ transplants are well underway at Trinity

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by Daniel Hathaway

When three trucks from Croton, Ohio’s Muller Organ Company pulled up to Trinity Cathedral in downtown Cleveland on January 11, the Cathedral’s history of distinguished pipe organs opened a new chapter.

Those vehicles were delivering renovated parts of several E.M. Skinner organs, to be installed in chambers above the Cathedral chancel, where Trinity’s first instrument had been located when the building was consecrated in 1907.

“We’re very close to hearing some sounds,” Trinity music director Todd Wilson (left, among the pipes) said today in a Zoom conversation. “They’ll be doing rough tuning for several days, then start real voicing.”

That 1907 organ, Skinner’s Opus 140, served the Cathedral and its organist-choirmaster, Edwin Arthur Kraft (right), until the 1970s, when its outdated mechanism had deteriorated beyond the point of renovation.

After a long process, contracts were signed with Flentrop Orgelbouw in Zaandam, the Netherlands, for two mechanical action instruments in the Dutch 18th-century style — a moveable, two-manual Choir Organ (delivered in 1976 but later sold) and a three-manual Great Organ at the rear of the nave (pictured below, dedicated in December 1977).

The remains of the Skinner were finally removed in advance of the construction of Trinity Commons in 2002, and salvageable pipework was donated to other organ projects. [Read more…]

Mark Kosower at Trinity: Bach Suites Part Two (July 31)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Would it matter if the best-ever performance of Bach’s Suites for solo cello took place in a cinder block closet with no one listening? The question, which one could safely and simply answer “no,” may seem like a dull retread of the classic “if a tree falls…” formula. However, it raises a question of its own: how much can the venue and framing of a performance do to elevate a musical experience?

Can we attribute some of the special glow of a concert to the room, spoken introductions, and circumstances without giving excellent musicianship short shrift? In the case of a live-streamed concert by cellist Mark Kosower this past weekend, this writer’s answer is yes — or ja, in Bach’s German.

[Read more…]

Kosower to complete Bach cycle online at Trinity Cathedral July 31

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland Orchestra Principal Cello Mark Kosower, who already had an extensive following, added impressively to his fan club in the first of two online performances of J.S. Bach’s solo cello suites streamed from Trinity Cathedral on June 5. He returns for the second performance this Friday, July 31 at 7:00 pm.

“It certainly was a very powerful and meaningful experience for me, and we were able to reach a lot of people,” the cellist said in a recent telephone conversation. “By the time the video had gone around and lived on Facebook for a number of weeks, we got 13,300 views.”

That performance was presented free of charge, but allowed viewers to contribute online to a relief fund for musicians affected by the pandemic. “It was an important activity for the causes I was playing for,” Kosower said. “Looking forward, I feel that we’re still very much in the pandemic. My approach to the second concert won’t be so different, but what will be different, of course, is Bach’s other three suites. Each of them has its own individual story to tell, heading toward the pinnacle of the sixth suite.”

Kosower’s first performance included Nos. 1, 3, and 5. On Friday, he’ll play the even-numbered suites, but in a special order. [Read more…]

Mark Kosower begins Trinity livestream series with Bach cello suites (June 5)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Cellist Mark Kosower has long believed that the music of J.S. Bach can bring people together. His live-streamed performance from Trinity Cathedral on Friday, June 5, revealed how deeply he feels about that: perhaps what was most healing was his passion itself. This was the first in a pair of concerts that Kosower will give at Trinity this summer with no audience present, covering all six of the composer’s solo cello suites under the banner of his project “Bach for Humanity.” On Saturday, he brought the odd-numbered works, playing from memory and starting with No. 5. Full of agony and desperation, its Prelude was a fitting way to begin. The Allemande stood out for its poetic flexibility, while the second Gavotte ran smooth, Kosower’s technique flowing easily.

[Read more…]

A Trio of Messiah Sings
will take place this week

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by Daniel Hathaway

Although Handel wrote his most famous oratorio for performance in Dublin at Eastertime of 1742, Messiah has become irrevocably associated with Christmas in the United States. And what would that season be without the opportunity to participate in do-it-yourself Messiah Sings? Here are three occasions when you can lift up your voices in the next week without auditions or rehearsals.

On Sunday, December 15 at 3:00 pm, the Master Singers Chorale will hold their first annual Sing at First Congregational Church in Akron. Edward Arthur Shure conducts, and Kent State student vocalists  Heather Morrison, soprano, Natalie Butchko, mezzo-soprano, Benjamin Hayes, tenor, and Charles Austin Piper, baritone, will take the solos. James Mismas will be at the organ, supplemented by a brass quartet. [Read more…]

Trinity Cathedral: Howells & Rutter on Good Friday (Apr. 19)

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by Nicholas Stevens

How can a faith mourn its greatest loss while still gesturing toward the resurrection that follows — and set it all to music? Last year, Trinity Cathedral’s choristers and instrumentalists presented Arvo Pärt’s Passio on their annual Good Friday concert. A vast, austere retelling of Christ’s Passion, the work exerts an almost grueling gravity. This year, however, Trinity artistic director and organist Todd Wilson presented not a monument, but a colorful mosaic of grief, farewell, and hope in the form of two English Requiem settings. [Read more…]

Big Read Cleveland delves into race, Trinity’s BrownBag Series responds

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by Jarrett Hoffman

“We’ve heard this story before,” tenor Matt Jones said during a recent telephone conversation. We had been talking about the cartoon caricature of tennis star Serena Williams that was published in the Herald Sun of Australia last fall, and was widely seen as racist. “I’m glad that we’re still talking about these things and why they happen.”

Jones will join soprano Kristine Caswelch and pianist Nicole Keller at Trinity Cathedral next Wednesday, February 27 at 12:00 pm for a BrownBag Concert conceived in response to Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. That 2014 finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry has been described as “an anatomy of American racism in the new millennium” (Parul Sehgal, Bookforum). A second performance takes place on Sunday, March 24 at 2:00 pm at the Main Branch of Lakewood Public Library.

Some quick background on the program: it’s the result of a web of partnerships among two local organizations, Music and Art at Trinity and the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning (CAL), one regional, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). CAL was selected to host one of this year’s NEA Big Read programs, in which a series of events are planned around a book, with the purpose of broadening people’s understanding of the world, their community, and themselves.

[Read more…]

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