by Kevin McLaughlin
Northeast Ohio is home to an astounding number of community orchestras and choruses, many with proud histories that go back decades. To attend a concert by such a plucky band is to experience the excitement and joy of the performers, and to see their seriousness of purpose realized.
On Sunday, March 16 in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center, the Suburban Symphony celebrated its 70th anniversary. Under the direction of music director Domenico Boyagian, they did so in style with performances of Sibelius’ Karelia Suite and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (“Choral”).
The Orchestra was joined onstage by two other longstanding musical organizations: the Western Reserve Chorale, (David Gilson, artistic director) and the West Shore Chorale (Michael Lisi, artistic director). All told, there were around 240 smiling faces gathered onstage.
The West Shore Chorale and its longtime music director John Drotleff focused on psalms settings by Mozart and Bernstein together with a work by David Conte for its performance on the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series at The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on Friday, March 1.
At the midpoint of its 51st season, The West Shore Chorale will sing a program on the Helen D. Schubert concert series at St. John’s Cathedral on Friday, March 1 at 7:30 pm. John Drotleff, who has conducted the Rocky River-based chorus since 1984, will lead his singers and an instrumental ensemble in music by Mozart, David Conte, and Bernstein.
The 2017-18 performing arts season celebrated several auspicious anniversaries in Northeast Ohio, and last week in Rocky River, the West Shore Chorale marked its first half-century. Any ensemble with an extensive record of uniting communities through music deserves a commemoration of grand scale and ambition, and the Chorale offered just such a program for its own anniversary at Magnificat High School.
For the West Shore Chorale, composer 
