The Cleveland Orchestra's Holiday Concerts and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week

Credit: Courtesy the Cleveland Orchestra

Except for a handful of events, this week’s classical picks are all about Christmas music. We’ll start with those.

– Apollo’s Fire is reviving Jeanette Sorrell’s dramatic take on George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah — originally written to be presented at Eastertime. Three of the four period instrument performances are sold out, but there may be some seats remaining for the performance on Thursday the 12th at St. Raphael in Bay Village. Check here.

– The Cleveland Orchestra’s dozen “Holiday Concerts” led by Sara Hicks and featuring vocalist Jimmie Herrod with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, began on Wednesday the 11th and continue through Sunday the 22nd. Some concerts are matinees, and some include the Orchestra’s Youth Chorus Chamber Ensemble, and the Chorus of The College of Wooster. Check here for availability.

– Christopher Wilkins leads the Akron Symphony’s Holiday Pops concert on Friday at 7:30 in E.J. Thomas Hall on the Akron University campus.

– And Victor Liva will lead a pair of concerts by the Cleveland Philharmonic that include Christmassy and wintry works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Archangelo Corelli, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Leopold Mozart, Sergi Prokofiev, and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov on Saturday at 7:30 in CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium, and on Sunday at 3:00 at Westlake Performing Arts Center.

There are three seasonal events on the docket for Sunday the 15th.

– At 3 pm, some 60 singers, handbell players, instrumentalists, children’s voices, and the 100-rank Schanzt organ will perform Candlelight Carols at Fairmount Presbyterian

– At 4 pm at St Noel in Willoughby Hills, a bell choir and instrumentalists will feature Gustav Holst Fantasy on Christmas Carols.

– And at 7 pm, NOVA — Northwest Ohio Vocal Arts — will present “Songs of Wonder: The Nativity Through the Ages” with music by Josquin, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and Max Reger at Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights.

– Then on Monday at 8 pm, The Rock Orchestra by Candlelight has rented Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center for “an epic, new 90-minute concert, breathing beautifully dark energy into legendary Rock & Metal. In ethereal candlelit settings, this band of 14 classical musicians unleash effortlessly enchanting melodies alongside powerful walls of distortion.” Are you game? Tickets are available online.

Now for the not-so-seasonal programs:

– CityMusic Cleveland launches its December Orchestra Series on Thursday the 12th at 7:30 at Fairmount Presbyterian. John McLaughlin Williams conducts and Sibbi Bernhardsson solos in Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3. The main event is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The concert repeats on December 13 at 7:30 at St. Noel in Willoughby Hills, on December 14 at 7:30 at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, and December 15 at 4:30 at Our Lady of the Angels in Rocky River.

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

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