CityMusic Cleveland's new season includes two Heights concerts
CityMusic Cleveland, a Cleveland Heights-based chamber orchestra, launches its 2014–15 season this month. It will feature performances of both classic orchestral and contemporary works, with soloists including saxophonist Timothy McAllister, whom the composer John Adams called “the best in the world,” and violinist Adele Anthony, winner of the Nielsen Competition.
CityMusic will perform two concerts, on Oct. 19 and Dec. 4, in the Heights. For a full list of performance dates, times and venues throughout Greater Cleveland, visit www.citymusiccleveland.org. All concerts are free, and free-will offerings are appreciated.
The season begins Oct. 15 through 19, when CityMusic performs the Cleveland premiere of Dorman’s “Saxophone Concerto,” along with works by Mozart, Haydn and Dvořák. The latter composer’s “Wind Serenade” will feature members of the orchestra’s woodwind and brass sections as soloists. On Sunday, Oct. 19, at 4 p.m., the concert will be performed in University Heights at Church of the Gesu, 2470 Miramar Blvd.
CityMusic’s winter concert, to be performed Dec. 3–7, will mark the Cleveland premiere of “Misa Criolla,” a popular work by Argentinean composer Ariel Ramírez that will feature South American instruments and the choir of Cleveland’s La Sagrada Familia Chuch. Principal bassoonist Laura Koepke will perform Mozart’s “Bassoon Concerto.” Peter Bennett, a Cleveland harpsichordist and conductor, will conduct this concert series, which will take place in Cleveland Heights on Dec. 4, at 7:30 p.m., at Communion of Saints Church, 2175 Coventry Road.
March 12–15, CityMusic will present the Cleveland premiere of composer Arvo Pärt’s “Symphony no. 4,” an important new work for orchestra that has had few American performances to date. Other works on the program are Nielsen’s “Violin Concerto” and Grieg’s “Pier Gynt Suite.”
CityMusic Cleveland continues its commitment to education and outreach with an inovative project May 28–30. In collaboration with Project ACT (a program of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District that deals with homeless students and their families), Bellefaire JCB (a University Heights-based organization whose services include a homeless and missing youth program) and the City Club of Cleveland, the orchestra will perform a concert titled “Wishes and Dreams,” featuring a children’s chorus and chamber orchestra. This new work is based on the stories of homeless children living in Greater Cleveland.
For a more information, visit www.citymusiccleveland.org.
Eugenia Strauss
Eugenia Strauss is executive director of CityMusic Cleveland.