The Blossom Music Festival and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week in Cleveland

Best Concert Venue: Blossom Music Center Northeast Ohio’s largest outdoor music venue, Blossom, brings in the largest country acts every year, holds an annual series with the Cleveland Orchestra and is still the only place you’re likely to see the most popular touring artists every summer. Credit: Scene Archives

Turning the calendar page over to July, we find ourselves on the cusp between the end of June festivals and the opening of the Blossom Music Center season. Here’s our list of sure-fire picks for the week of Independence Day.

– Kent/Blossom Festival faculty concerts continue this week with the celebrated Imani Winds (Wednesday at 7:30 in Ludwig Recital Hall on the Kent State Campus). K/B Young Artists performances begin in a number of locations on Friday (2 pm at Hudson’s Laurel Lake Retirement Community & 7:30 in Ludwig), Saturday (2 pm at Hudson Library) & Sunday (2 pm at CIM’s Mixon Hall & 7:30 in Ludwig).

– The Blossom Music Festival itself kicks off with Galen S. Karriker leading the Blossom Band on Wednesday at 8 in “a mix of patriotic marches, Broadway favorites, an Armed Forces Salute, and more — concluding with a spectacular fireworks display” at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls.

– Banjo sensation Béla Fleck joins conductor Brett Mitchell & The Cleveland Orchestra on Saturday at 7 at Blossom for Fleck’s own arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, plus American music by Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber & William Grant Still.

– Ohio Light Opera will give its traditional, one-hour Independence Day Pops Concert on Thursday at 7 near the pavilion in downtown Wooster, and continue the rotation of its first three productions in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster: The Sound of Music (Friday at 2 & Sunday at 2), Guys and Dolls (Saturday at 2 & Tuesday at 2) & Me and My Girl (Saturday at 7:30).

– Stand-alone events include an organ recital of American music by Florence Mustric (12:15 Noon Wednesday at Trinity Lutheran in Ohio City) & a Lunchtime Carillon Concert by Sheryl Modlin (12:15 Friday from the McGaffin tower in University Circle).

– The most unusual event is part of the Classically Lake View chamber music series. A concert at 3 pm Sunday at Lake View Cemetery Community Mausoleum celebrates Cleveland’s forgotten composer, guitar hero, and abolitionist, Justin Holland with 280 years of chamber music by Black composers performed by Damian Goggans (guitar) & Cleveland Orchestra members Liyuan Xie & Isabel Trautwein (violins), Eliesha Nelson (viola) & Tanya Ell (cello).

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

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This article appears in Jun 19 – Jul 2, 2024.