BW's Bach Festival and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week

Major cuts are expected as BW deals with a $20 million budget deficit Credit: Erik Drost/FlickrCC

Here’s a selection of not-to-be-missed classical events for the next week, and there are a bunch.

– On Wednesday at 7:30, Cleveland’s Alla Boara showcases its dedication to regional Italian folk music and celebrates the release of its debut album, Le Tre Sorelle, with a concert featuring drummer Anthony Taddeo, vocalist Amanda Powell & friends at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

– Another release party, this one sponsored by Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project on Friday at 8 pm at Convivium 33 Gallery, celebrates flutist Robert Dick’s and harpist Stephan Haluska’s new album Crop Circles, “created with Robert’s array of flutes, voice, jaw harps and game calls and Stephan’s harp, prepared with an assortment of materials and objects.”

– This week will feature a trio of concerts connected to the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival. On Friday at 7, Fire & Grace & Ash — Edwin Huizinga, violin, William Coulter, guitar, and Ashley Hoyer, mandolin — blend the music of J. S. Bach with American fiddle tunes.

On Friday at 7:00 pm in the same venue, the festival presents Bach 52, with Nicholas Phan, tenor, Debra Nagy, oboes & director, Gaia Saetermoe-Howard, oboes, Rebecca Reed, viola da gamba and cello & Mark Edwards, harpsichord and organ. In his ongoing Bach52 podcast and recording project, Phan asks “Is Bach’s music for everyone?”

Then on Sunday at 2pm. Steve Reich’s Proverb and Piano Phase will be presented side by side with Bach’s cantata, “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” BWV 4, featuring members of BWV: Cleveland’s Bach Choir and Rob Kovacs, piano. All three events will take place in Gamble Auditorium in Berea.

– On Saturday and Sunday at 3pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art, CIM Opera stages Tom Cipullo’s 2007 opera Glory Denied, guest directed by Kathryn Frady & conducted by Kamna Gupta,, based on the Vietnam era experiences of Colonel Floyd James “Jim” Thompson, America’s longest-detained prisoner of war.

– Also on Saturday, at 6:30pm Emanuela Friscioni & Julia Russ will make the third attempt to play their twice-postponed-by-weather, four-hand piano concert, “Celestial Harmonies” at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Gates Mills.

– Saturday will close with a 7:30 collaboration between Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and The Musical Theater Project. Bill Rudman and CJO’s Paul Ferguson will co-host an evening with Rodgers & Hart from the Great American Songbook at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

– On Monday at 7:30pm, Rocky River Chamber Music Society will host the Buch Piano Trio from Amsterdam (Omri Epstein, piano, Mathieu van Bellen, violin & Ori Epstein, cello), in Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Trio in B-Flat, K. 502, Maurice Ravel’s Trio & Pytor Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Trio in a, Op. 50.

– Finally, on Tuesday at 7:30, Thomas Fielding, the new music director of Cleveland’s St. John’s Cathedral, will introduce himself with a concert on the Holtkamp organ of works by Max Reger, J.S. Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude, Thomas Fielding, Charles-Marie Widor & Henri Mulet.

Click here to visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page for more information.

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