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Summertime is here
Independence Day Weekend is teeming with Classical Music events. You can’t miss with any of these. Enjoy!
Ohio Light Opera
With the opening performance of H.M.S. Pinafore on Thursday at 2, four of OLO’s summer shows will be playing in rotation this week: No, No, Nanette (Wednesday & Saturday at 2), How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Friday & Sunday at 2), and Camelot (Saturday at 7:30).
ChamberFest Cleveland
On Thursday evening in Mixon Hall at CIM, Es muss sein (it must be) will feature Lera Auerbach’s Piano Trio No. 1, Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16 in F, and Sergey Taneyev’s Piano Quintet in g preceded by a 6:30 pm Prelude Talk by Rabbi Roger C. Klein.
The main attraction at Friday’s concert at Dunham Tavern, Words Misunderstood, promises to be György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique (for 100 metronomes), Caroline Shaw’s Limestone & Felt, Gabriella Smith’s Carrot Revolution, and Max Bruch’s String Octet in B-flat.
And Saturday’s Mixon Hall performance picks up the festival theme, Lightness of Being, with Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Sextet in D. Oberlin musicologist James O’Leary explains it all for you in a 6:30 talk. All ChamberFest concerts begin at 7:30.
Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists is still in its early, online stages with four contestants from its junior and senior divisions competing virtually each day at 7:30 from Thursday through Sunday. On Thursday at 5, join a watch party hosted by Vera Holczer at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Mentioning “PIANO23” will get you discounts on tickets to visit the animals.
Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute
Concluding its 50th(?) trip around the sun, BPI will feature its faculty in a performance of all six of J.S. Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concertos on Saturday at 8 in Warner Concert Hall (tickets at the door). And on Sunday, BPI students will take the stage of Kulas Recital Hall for a 1:00-5:00 marathon chamber music concert (free), and the BPI student orchestra and chorus, led by Joe Gascho & Lucas Harris will present Purcell’s Welcome To All the Pleasures in Warner Concert Hall.
Blossom Music Center opens for the summer on Saturday with an 8pm concert by The Cleveland Orchestra & Blossom Festival Chorus, Susanna Mälkki conducting, featuring Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony along with William Grant Still’s Mother and Child, and Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
The Blossom Festival Band continues the Independence Day celebrations Sunday July 2 through Tuesday 4 with performances of “Salute to America.” Loras John Schissel, conducts patriotic marches, Broadway favorites, an Armed Forces Salute, and more, followed by fireworks, of course.
Other Independence Day Weekend events include a Lunchtime Carillon Concert and Live Stream by Sheryl Modlin on the McGaffin bells in University Circle on Friday at 12:15, a 2pm concert by Cleveland Clinic Concert Band on Saturday at 2 in the Eastman Reading Garden at the Cleveland Main Library, downtown, and the first summer garden party thrown by Stars in the Classics, which will celebrate American and Immigrant Composers at a private residence in Orange Village on Sunday at 4.
Full details can be found on our Concert Listings page.
