Everybody’s eager to schedule performances before Thanksgiving week. These are only five of many interesting possibilities that we recommend for your listening pleasure.
Like the idea of a multicultural society? So does Apollo’s Fire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell, who has chosen Venice, that “Most Serene Republic” on the Adriatic Sea, as an example of a crossroads where radically different cultures come together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. “Love in Venice: A Multicultural Fiesta” opens on Thursday, November 17. It stars sopranos Erica Schuller and Amanda Powell, tenor Owen McIntosh, violinist Olivier Brault, and flutist Kathie Stewart in Sephardic romances, dances by Salamone Rossi, Arab improvisations, love duets by Claudio Monteverdi, and two pieces by Antonio Vivaldi — “La Notte” flute concerto and “Autumn” from The Four Seasons. The first of four performances begins at 7:30 pm at Faith Lutheran Church in Fairlawn. Later shows are on Friday and Saturday, November 18 and 19 at 8:00 pm at St. Paul’s in Cleveland Heights, and Sunday, November 20 at 4:00 pm at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. Tickets here.
Choral music will be high on the docket at Severance Hall this weekend, when Matthew Halls conducts the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Cleveland Orchestra in Joseph Haydn’s Te Deum (dedicated to the Austrian Empress Maria Therese) and Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem (based on Gregorian chant themes you might find yourself humming on your way to the car). Sasha Cooke is the mezzo-soprano soloist. Franz Schubert’s Fourth Symphony completes the program. Performances are on Thursday, November 17 at 7:30 pm, Saturday, November 19 at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, November 20 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.
Trinity Cathedral Choir presents its fall concert on Friday, November 18 at 7:30 pm at the cathedral in downtown Cleveland. The evening includes Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms — written for England’s Chichester Cathedral — in a reduction for organ, harp, and percussion; a new Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for Trinity Cathedral composed by Lakewood native David Conte; and a motet by Charles H. H. Parry. Todd Wilson conducts, and Baldwin Wallace faculty member Nicole Keller will be at the Flentrop organ. A freewill offering will be taken up.
The Cleveland Orchestra is off on Friday evening, but the lights will be on at Severance Hall for a concert by the orchestral musicians of the future. Brett Mitchell will lead the impressive Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in the world premiere of Roger Briggs’ Fountain of Youth and in Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4. Tickets are available online.
Akron’s Tuesday Musical Association has long been in the business of granting scholarships to young musicians to give them a leg up on their careers. The results of some of that early encouragement can be heard on Tuesday, November 22 at 7:30 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, when TMA presents two very successful musicians in “Return of the Scholarship Winners.” Soprano Dina Kuznetsova and violinist Jinjoo Cho will join pianist Hyun Soo Kim in music by Mozart, Schubert, Dvořák, Britten, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff. Come early for a 6:30 pm pre-concert talk by Kuznetsova’s husband, University of Akron music professor Brooks Toliver. Tickets can be reserved online.
For details of these and many other events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page.
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