Oberlin's “Oclipse” Concert Series and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week in Cleveland

Plus, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project does Binary Canary and more

click to enlarge Oberlin's “Oclipse” Concert Series and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week in Cleveland
Courtesy the Cleveland Orchestra

All eyes (well-protected, of course) are focused on Monday’s solar eclipse. Cloud cover permitting, Clevelanders will have a front row seat in the totality band, but Lorain County residents are supposed to have an even better view of the 3-½ minute phenomenon that begins shortly after. 3 pm. As for music around town...

- Oberlin Conservatory is anticipating that brief spell of afternoon darkness with its “Oclipse” Concert Series, which includes a Sinfonietta Concert (Thursday at 7:30 in Warner Concert Hall), a performance by student ensembles led by Dana Jessen that includes the world premiere of new work by composer IONE, commissioned by Oberlin Conservatory in commemoration of the 2024 eclipse (Sunday at 7:30 in Warner), a performance of Gérard Grisey’s Le Noir de l’Étoile by the Oberlin Percussion Group (Monday at 1 in Hales Gym), and a TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts) theater piece co-directed by Raphael Sacks and Geneva Cockrell of the Loom Ensemble (2 pm on Tappan Square, where composer, sound artist, and instrument builder Daniel Fishkin will also be presenting his Solar Sounders, light-reactive synthesizers).

- Elsewhere, on Thursday at 7:30 at Severance., John Adams will conduct The Cleveland Orchestra with organist James McVinnie and saxophonist Timothy McAllister in Gabriella Smith’s Breathing Forests, Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and his own City Noir (repeated on Saturday at 8), and on Friday at 8, the Orchestra will hop on the weekend’s theme with Out of this World, “a fun-filled concert of intergalactic proportions with music from Star Wars and Holst’s The Planets, paired with stunning images from the Hubble Telescope, International Space Station, and NASA photo archives.”

- More down-to-earth, on Friday at 7:30 in Mixon Hall, the Cleveland Institute of Music will present “Pocket Full of Operas,” four 15-minute chamber operas composed by composition students and performed by the CIM Opera Theater and New Music Ensemble (repeated on Sunday at 3).

- You can end the week experimentally on Friday at 8, when Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) presents Binary Canary (Convivium 33 Gallery), or more traditionally with the Capitol Saxophone Quartet (Rocky River Chamber Music Society, Monday at 7:30), with The Case Baroque Orchestra and Early Music Singers performing Handel’s Messiah (Monday at 7:30 at the Maltz), or with tenor Matthew Polenzani and pianist Julius Drake, piano (Cleveland Chamber Music Society at Disciples, Tuesday at 7:30).

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