The Cleveland Orchestra will tease two of its major centennial projects this week in Severance Hall concerts on Thursday, April 12 at 7:30 pm and Friday, April 13 at 8:00 pm led by music director Franz Welser-Möst. Thursday’s program features Beethoven’s Overture to Coriolan and Symphonies Nos. 8 and 5 in anticipation of The Prometheus Project. Friday’s menu includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 but also gives a taste of the Orchestra’s forthcoming performances of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde with the Prelude and Liebestod from that iconic opera. Tickets are available online.
One of England’s premier early music vocal ensembles, Peter Phillips’ Tallis Scholars, returns to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Friday, April 13 at 7:30 pm for “War and Peace,” a program commemorating those who lost their lives in The Great War (World War I). Phillips has situated works by Arvo Pärt, Mouton, Lobo, Tavener, and Palestrina in the framework of a Mass setting that alternates movements by Josquin, Guerrero, and Victoria. Tickets can be reserved online.
Jeannette Sorrell’s Baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire joins Apollo’s Singers for three semi-staged performances of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera (or “favola in musica”) L’Orfeo this week and next. The piece, based on the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice and first performed in the palace of the Duke of Mantua in February of 1607, is a landmark in the history of early opera.
Tenor Karim Sulayman sings Orfeo, and soprano Erica Schuller the role of Eurydice, joined by other soloists including Amanda Powell, Mischa Bouvier, and Jonathan Woody. The scene in the underworld alone will be worth the price of admission. Performances take place in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Friday and Saturday, April 13 and 14 at 8:00 pm, and Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 pm in St. Raphael Church in Bay Village. Tickets can be reserved online.
Pianist, composer, and arranger Billy Childs will be in residence at Oberlin Conservatory this week, and several concerts will feature his music. Weekend events in Finney Chapel include a Friday, April 13 concert when Childs will join a jazz ensemble for his 2001 work, Into the Light, and a Saturday, April 14 performance of his Voices of Angels by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, College Choir, and Musical Union with La Tanya Hall and Celine Opdycke as vocal soloists. Both events are free and begin at 8:00 pm.
Arts Renaissance Tremont’s next Sunday afternoon event will feature distinguished faculty members of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson will play music by Handel-Halvorsen, Danielpour, Schulhoff, Mozart, and Kodály on April 15 at 3:00 pm at Pilgrim Church, and the event is free — but donations will be gratefully accepted.
And peering around the corner into next week, two Northeast Ohio concert series go head to head on Tuesday, April 17, when the Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents cellist Edgar Moreau and pianist Jessica Osborne at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights at 7:30 pm, and the Oberlin Artist Recital Series hosts baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Michael McMahon in Finney Chapel at 8:00 pm. Can’t decide? Flip a coin and reserve Moreau tickets here, or Finley tickets here.
Check out details of these and many other classical music events on our Concert Listings page.
