The Cleveland Orchestra's MLK Day Concert and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week

Tickets are sold out, but you can still stream the MLK Day concert Credit: Photo by Roger Mastrioianni/Cleveland Orchestra

Waking up after a holiday snooze, Northeast Ohio’s classical music scene has made plans for you this week.

– It starts on Wednesday, January 10 at 7:30 with a concert at the Art Museum by multiple Grammy Award nominee Joshua Redman and his group featuring vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa, then on Thursday the 11th at 7:30, Franz Welser-Möst returns to town to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3 (arranged for string orchestra) and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin (repeated on Friday and Saturday).

– Also on Friday, CityMusic Cleveland will take you (via the Praxis Fiber Workshop) on an excursion to sunny Italy, where Pytor Tchaikovsky escaped the Moscow winter to compose his Souvenir of Florence.

– On Saturday at 7:30 in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall, Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony will team up with the Theron Brown Quartet and EarthQuaker Devices for Jake Gunnar Walsh & Jon Sonnenberg’s Conflagration, plus Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite, while at 8:30at Oberlin’s Dionysus Club, Bobby Ferrazza will lead the Oberlin Sonny Rollins Jazz Ensemble in a preview of their January 17 program at SFJAZZ in California.

– Also on Saturday, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project presents the Joo Won Park Laptop Ensemble in original pieces for computer, melodica, drum machine, no-input mixer, and laptop ensemble at 8pm at Convivium 33 Gallery.

– Sunday brings a 3pm chamber music concert by Local 4 Music Fund musicians Emily Cornelius, violin, Robert Nicholson, cello & Eric Charnofsky, piano at Disciples Cultural Arts Center, and a 4pm performance by Trio Noir, Maude Cloutier, violin, Brendon Phelps, cello, & Alexandre Marr, piano, at the Church of the Western Reserve.

– On Sunday at 7 at Severance Music Center, The Cleveland Orchestra brings the weekend to a celebratory conclusion with its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert. You’re too late to claim free tickets, but you can catch the performance online at YouTube or the Orchestra’s streaming site.

– The celebration of MLK’s Birthday continues on Monday at noon with a Community Open House & Day of Music featuring a string of performances by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Youth Chorus, Linking Legacies Chamber Ensemble, Evelyn Wright with the Joe Hunter Trio, the Djapo Cultural Arts Institute, the Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers, 10K Movement, DJ IamYulissa, bassoon and trumpet youth ensembles, and host and resident poet Chris Webb. It’s free, and no tickets are required.

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

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