"Mozart in Paris" and Seven More Classical Music Events to Catch This Week

Multiple cellos, new operas, Mozart on tour, a conductorless chamber orchestra, and a pioneering woodwind quintet are among this week’s classical music picks.

The Cleveland Cello Society’s annual cello ensemble extravaganza i Cellisti welcomes the Los Angeles-based cello quintet Sakura for a wide-ranging program of arrangements of works by Debussy, Fauré, Rachmaninoff, and Schubert, plus Cleveland composer Anne Wilson’s Lament in Memory of Matthew Shepard on Friday, January 20 at 7:30 pm at Forest Hills Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights. The suggested donation is $25, and you can reserve seats in advance online.

Cleveland Opera Theater will launch its {New Opera Works} Festival on Friday, January 20 at 8:00 pm at Baldwin Wallace with selections and scenes from operas by Cleveland Composers Guild members Nicholas Underhill, Jennifer Conner, Margi Griebling-Haigh, Jeffrey Quick, Dawn Sonntag, Margaret Brouwer, Ryan Ramer, and Robert Rollin. The concert will be repeated on Sunday, January 22 at 3:00 pm.

Four other events include a festival forum about the creation, development, and performance of new opera on Saturday, January 21 at 3:00 pm; two performances of Larry Delinger’s 30-minute work Amelia Lost on Saturday, January 21 at 8:00 pm and Monday, January 23 at 8:00 pm; and a reading of Federico García Lorca’s final play, The House of Bernarda Alba, which will be turned into the libretto for a future opera by Griffin Candey.

See our concert listings page below for ticket information (some events are free) and other details.

In 1778, when the 22-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart went to Paris with his mother looking for employment, things didn’t go well. Among other setbacks, his mother died during the trip. Joined by Montréal-based cellist Elinor Frey, Cleveland’s splendid Baroque ensemble Les Délices will explore the musical scene in the French capital in “Mozart in Paris” on Friday, January 21 at 8:00 pm at 2731 Prospect Gallery and Sunday, January 22 at 4:00 pm in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The program includes music by Giuseppe Maria Cambini, Jean-Pierre Duport, Luigi Boccherini, and Mozart himself (the Oboe Quartet, with Debra Nagy as soloist). Tickets can be bought online.

Baldwin Wallace University will host a residency with Boston’s young, conductorless chamber orchestra A Far Cry that will culminate in a concert by the 18-member ensemble on Tuesday, January 24 at 7:00 pm in Gamble Auditorium. The centerpiece of their fascinating program will be The Conference of the Birds, a new piece by Lembit Beecher based on a Sufi poem. Side dishes will include J.S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, and selections from the medieval Codex Calixtinus. Jae Cosmos Lee, Megumi Stohs Lewis, Alex Fortes, and Miki-Sophia Cloud will be featured as violin soloists. Order tickets online here.

The groundbreaking Imani Winds, a woodwind quintet committed to enriching the traditional wind quintet repertoire while meaningfully bridging European, American, African, and Latin American traditions, will visit the Tuesday Musical series at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron on Wednesday, January 25 at 7:30 pm. The program features music by Elliott Carter, Paquito D’Rivera, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Simon Shaheen, and Imani’s own Valerie Coleman and Jeff Scott. ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin will host a pre-concert interview at 6:30. Order tickets online here.

For details of these and many other events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings page.