Burning River Baroque to Open Season With Benefit Concert for YWCA Greater Cleveland

Burning River Baroque, a group of local classical musicians that’s performed extensively throughout Northeast Ohio and has also played major markets such as Boston, New York and Berkeley, has just announced that it’ll open the 2018-2019 season next month with Destructive Desires, a program that “challenges audience members to engage with issues that have been brought to the forefront of cultural awareness by the #MeToo movement.”

The program pairs stories and themes from Biblical passages and Greek mythology with music by 17th and 18th-century composers.

“We intend to demonstrate various forms of power imbalance and lack of consent in stories old enough to be in our collective unconscious,” says co-director Paula Maust in a press release announcing the season opener.

“We see change as starting with the acknowledgement of the problematic nature of these timeless stories and aim to initiate meaningful conversations around these topics with our program Destructive Desires,” says co-director Malina Rauschenfels.

Performances will take place from Oct. 19 to 21 at venues in Cleveland Heights and Lakewood. All proceeds from the Oct. 21 concert will benefit YWCA Greater Cleveland.

“We were particularly drawn to the YWCA’s Norma Herr Women’s Center and the long-standing work they have done to support women who have experienced trauma and abuse,” says Rauschenfels.

A complete schedule for the performances can be found at burning-river-baroque.org.

This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2018.