The Cleveland Classical Guitar Festival and Three More Classical Music Events to Check Out This week

The 16th annual Cleveland Classical Guitar Festival gets under way at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Friday, June 3 with a concert by Cleveland's own Jason Vieaux, who will play works by Albéniz, J.S. Bach, Bellinati, Ellington, Ginastera, Giuliani, and Jobim at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall. Other international artists featured this season are Czech guitarist Petra Polácková (Saturday, June 4 at 3:00 pm), Soloduo (Italian guitarists Matteo Mela & Lorenzo Micheli on Saturday at 8:00 pm), Spanish guitarist Ricardo Gallén (on Sunday, June 5 at 2:30 pm), and Bay Village native Colin Davin, who has recently joined the CIM faculty (on Sunday at 7:30 pm). All the artist recitals are ticketed except Petra Polácková (reserve online here) but master classes and lectures covering a range of guitar-related topics are free. Check out the whole schedule of events on our concert listings page.

Akron Baroque — members of the Akron Symphony and friends who play baroque music on modern instruments — will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a concert on Sunday, June 5 at 3:00 pm in a new venue: Faith Lutheran Church in Fairlawn. Guest conductor Marie Bucoy-Calavan will lead the ensemble in George Frideric Handel's Royal Fireworks Music and in Akron Baroque founder Amy Barlowe's Magnificat, featuring the Akron Baroque Chorus. It's free.

David Gilson will lead the Western Reserve Chorale in a program of choruses from famous operas and operettas on Sunday, June 5 at 4:00 pm at Cedar Hill Baptist Church in Cleveland Heights. "Of Operas and Operettas” will feature selections from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, Bellini’s Norma, Gounod’s Faust, Verdi’s Nabucco, Puccini’s Manon Lescault, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, and lighter fare by Gilbert & Sullivan, Sigmund Romberg, and Victor Herbert. No charge, but you can make a freewill offering.

Violists, unite! They certainly will at Oberlin next week, as the American Viola Society launches its summer conference on Wednesday, June 8 at 7:30 pm with a concert by the Jasper String Quartet. J Freivogel and Sae Chonabayashi, violins, Sam Quintal, viola, and Rachel Henderson Freivogel, cello will join guest violist Liz Freivogel in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in B-flat, Op. 18, No. 6, Missy Mazzoli's Death Valley Junction, Donnacha Dennehy’s Pushpulling, and Johannes Brahms’s Quintet in G, Op. 111. The performance is free.

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