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

The Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts continue Credit: Roger Mastroianni/Cleveland Orchestra

This week’s classical music picks begin on Wednesday with the annual Messiah Sing-along (12 noon at Trinity Cathedral with the audience as chorus), and later that day, with Music in the Galleries featuring guitarist Craig Slagh, violinists Jenny Cluggish and McKenna Glorioso, and violist Christopher Jenkins playing works by Jules Massenet, Erik Satie, Antoine L’Hoyer, and Antonín Dvořák in front of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (6 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art).

From Thursday onward, Christmas Music reigns.

– Fans of Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol in Concert who have put off buying tickets will be disappointed to hear that both Cleveland Orchestra screenings on Wednesday and Thursday are sold out. But later in the week, the Orchestra’s Holiday Concerts resume with Sarah Hicks, conductor and emcee, Jimmie Herrod, vocals, and the Severance Music Center choruses and guests (Friday at 7:30, and Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 & 7:30), tickets available online.

– Cleveland Chamber Choir is offering two performances of David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion, a modern day retelling of the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen story, influenced by J.S. Bach’s Matthew Passion (Friday & Saturday at Cleveland School of the Arts). Register here for “pay what you wish” tickets.

– Cleveland Opera Institute, a new ensemble with some familiar names — Dorota Sobieska, soprano & violin, Amanda Fargo, mezzo-soprano & flute, Sam Gross, tenor, Jason Fuh, baritone, Wanda Sobieska, violin & viola, and Jacek Sobieski, piano — will present Mozart, Still and Christmas, a free, one-hour, costumed, semi-staged concert of Christmas selections by Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, William Grant Still and others (3 pm Saturday at Saint Philomena Church and 7 pm Sunday at St. Ann Church, with more performances to follow next week.

The rest of our featured performances add up to a Christmas brass festival.

– Burning River Brass will play on the Music at Bath concert series (Thursday at 7 at Bath Church), and as part of the Arts Renaissance Tremont Series (Friday at 7 at St. Wendelin Church).

– The 44th annual TubaChristmas will bring an enormous collection of festively decorated low brass instruments directed by Tucker Jolly and Chris Blaha to Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday at Noon and 2:30 pm.

Next up, The King’s Brass will perform on the Federated Church Performing Arts Series on Sunday at 4 in Chagrin Falls, and the December BrassFest will conclude at Severance Music Center on Monday at 7:30 with a performance by the venerable Canadian Brass (tickets here).

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

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