Venezualan and Appalachian Folk at the Transformer Station and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week in Cleveland

Larry and Joe come to the Transfomer Station on Wednesday Credit: Photo © Tommy Coyote

For this frigid, fourth week in January, we suggest half-a-dozen classical music events that are well worth bundling up and getting out of the house to enjoy.

– On Wednesday at 7 pm at Transformer Station, the Cleveland Museum of Art will present the multi-instrumental duo of Larry and Joe — Larry Bellorin and Joe Troop — in a program that fuses their Venezuelan and Appalachian folk traditions using harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, upright bass, guitar, and maracas. Tickets are available online.

– Question: “Ada, Countess of Lovelace and Lord Byron’s daughter, has been asked to help Charles Babbage with his work on the Difference Engine. Can she pursue her love of mathematics while upholding her reputation?” Find out when Oberlin’s Winter Term Opera, The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace, with score by Kamala Sankaram and libretto by Rob Handel, opens in Warner Concert Hall for two performances on Friday and Sunday at 7:30. Cara Consilvio stage directs, Daniel Michalak is music director, and Matthew Brown, conducts. Tickets here.

– On Saturday at 4, Greg Hillis leads Chardon’s aptly-named Snowbelt Symphony in Giacomo Rossini’s Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers, Ruth Gipps’ Seascape, selections from Georges Bizet’s Carmen, and Arthur Bird’s Serenade for Winds in Chardon Methodist Church. Tickets available online.

– Also on Saturday, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra & The Musical Theater Project continue their collaboration with a concert version of the Gershwin brothers’ hit show, Girl Crazy, featuring vocalists Erin Kufel Keckan, Michael Shirtz, and Evelyn Wright. The 7:30 show will take place at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Tickets available online.

A pair of Sunday afternoon performances wrap up the week.

– At 2 pm in its Metropolitan Campus Auditorium, Tri-C Classical Piano Series presents Roman Rabinovich in selections from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Suite in g, Maurice Ravel’s Sonatine, Nikolai Medtner’s Sonata reminiscenza, Alexander Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53, and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. It’s free, but tickets are required — register online.

– Then on Sunday at 3:30, Domenico Boyagian will lead the Suburban Symphony in the first movement of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto featuring McKenna Glorioso, Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings, and Mikhail Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, before handing off the baton to David Ellis for Gustav Holst’s Second Suite for Military Band. It’s free at Beachwood High School Auditorium.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.