Quire Cleveland Enters Its Second Decade and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week

Oboist Devin Hinzo is launching his Fresh Perspectives series (described as “a new way to experience classical music”) on Friday, November 2 at 7:30 pm at Lab Studios by Glo on Lakeside Avenue in Cleveland. The main event features music for solo instrument + electronics by Brian Raphael Nabors, Elizabeth Hoffman, Carolina Heredia, Ivonne Paredes, and an elder statesman named J.S. Bach. Performers include Hinzo, hip-hop dancer Ron’Dale Simpson, flutist Brittany Trotter, cellist Kellen Degnan, percussionist Torrell Moss, and violinist Julian Maddox. An art gallery will open at 6:30 pm with music spun by DJ White Rims. Suggested donation: a mere $5. Check it out!

Conductor Jay White is leading Quire Cleveland into its second decade following the retirement of the professional choir’s founders, and his debut program at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland on Friday, November 2 at 7:30 pm is a complex web of music celebrating All Saints Day. White, who toured for eight seasons as a countertenor with Chanticleer, and now serves as professor of voice at Kent State, has put together a program that interleaves Gregorian chants of the Requiem Mass with mass movements by several different Renaissance composers, and memorial motets written in honor of Machaut, Ockeghem, Josquin, and Tallis. Add sumptuous double choir pieces by William H. Harris and there’s a rich choral tapestry in store for your ears. A freewill offering will be received, and the concert will be repeated at St. Sebastian’s Church in Akron on Saturday, November 3 at 7:30 pm (donations welcome).

The celebrated Los Angeles Guitar Quartet will make a return visit to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series on Saturday, November 3 at 7:30 pm at First Unitarian Church in Shaker Heights. Their eclectic program ranges from an arrangement of a Rossini overture to English Renaissance tunes and Pat Matheny’s Road to the Sun. Reserve your tickets online.

Cellist Joshua Roman is returning to Cleveland (he trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music) for two gigs this week. On Saturday, November 3, he’ll join pianist Gregg Kallor and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano in Kallor’s musical setting of the Edgar Allan Poe thriller The Tell-Tale Heart on the Tuesday Musical Fuze Series at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall. Then on Sunday, November 4, the Cleveland Cello Society will will present “An Afternoon with Joshua Roman” at the Music Settlement in University Circle. He’ll play a 3:00 pm recital of music by J.S. Bach, Ginastera, and Penderecki, as well as his own compositions and his arrangements of tunes by Jimi Hendrix and Radiohead. If you’re a cellist yourself, bring your instrument along at 1:00 pm for a David Popper Études Workshop. Interested? Register here.

The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) held its first festival last June. Now it’s scheduling some one-off concerts of new music. The first, on Sunday, November 4 at 7:30 pm at the Bop Stop, features Aaron Hynds, tuba and electronics, and Patchwork — Noa Even, saxophone, and Stephen Klunk, drum set. You can hear Transformer, a large-scale, evolving work for tuba and computer, as well as Jeremey Poparad’s Crisp Otter, Aaron Myers-Brooks’ Four Grids, Erin Rogers’ Fast Love, Osnat Netzer’s Zwang und Zweifel, and Hong-Da Chin’s …time was not passing…it was turning in a circle. It’s free!

Check out details of these and other events on our Concert Listings page.