Interchanging Idioms

Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s upcoming appearances with the orchestras of Cleveland and Chicago were originally scheduled to be directed by Pierre Boulez. However, the conductor has been obliged to withdraw for medical reasons, and Aimard’s repertoire at the Cleveland Orchestra (Feb 16–18) has been changed accordingly. He will now lead the orchestra from the keyboard in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat (K. 456), as well as performing Schoenberg’s Op. 11 pieces for solo piano. At the Chicago Symphony, Aimard’s programs will remain as originally announced. He will perform the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with his frequent collaborator, Jonathan Nott (March 1–4), and Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire with Romanian conductor Cristian Macelaru (Feb 24–28).

Opera recorded during Cleveland Orchestra’s sold-out performances at the 2008 Salzburg Festival A live audio recording of Dvořák’s Rusalka performed by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera Chorus, and an international cast of soloists at the Salzburg Festival in August 2008 has been released by the Orfeo label. The CD will be available through retailers and available for download online in the United States on September 27, 2011 . It is now available in the Cleveland Orchestra Store at Severance Hall. These performances of Rusalka marked the first time that The Cleveland Orchestra presented an opera production and played from the orchestra pit at the Salzburg Festival. The five sold-out Rusalka performances were part of a Festival residency that also included Franz Welser-Möst conducting the Orchestra in three different concert programs. Prior to the staged Salzburg performances, Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra in...

Five Cleveland corporations have pledged a total of $6 million to fund the launch of audience development programs which are part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s new Center for Future Audiences. Baker Hostetler, Eaton Corporation, Forest City Enterprises, KeyBank, and NACCO Industries have each pledged gifts of $1 million or more. The five corporations all have a lengthy and committed history of supporting The Cleveland Orchestra. The Orchestra’s new Center for Future Audiences, announced last year, is endowed by the Maltz Family Foundation. The Center is a multi-faceted and long-term audience development initiative with a $20 million lead gift from the Foundation. The Center’s ambitious goals include developing the youngest audience anywhere for a symphony orchestra by the time of The Cleveland Orchestra’s centennial in 2018. One of the Center’s flagship programs toward that goal is “Under 18 Free,” designed to make Blossom Festival concerts accessible and inexpensive for famili...

On May 27, eighth blackbird presents the Cleveland premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s new concerto On a Wire with the Cleveland Orchestra and its music director Franz Welser-Möst. This high-profile engagement at Severance Hall crowns a season in which the concerto for sextet and orchestra has figured prominently. After giving the piece its world premiere in Atlanta last June, eighth blackbird went on to tour On a Wire with orchestras across North America, and earlier this spring an album headlined by the Grammy Award-winning group’s premiere performance of the concerto launched the Atlanta Symphony’s new CD label, ASO Media. Two days after the Cleveland performance of On a Wire – this time without the orchestra – eighth blackbird makes a second appearance in Cleveland, playing its whimsical “Still Life” program, which includes music by Missy Mazzoli, Stephen Hartke, Pierre Boulez, and Philip Glass. eighth blackbird recently recorded this repertoire for a ne...

Bruce Coppock will become the next Managing Director of The Cleveland Orchestra Miami Residency. The announcement was made today by the Orchestra’s Executive Director, Gary Hanson. Mr. Coppock will begin his role with The Cleveland Orchestra on June 27, 2011. He was formerly President and Managing Director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and previously Executive Director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. As Managing Director of the Miami Residency, Bruce Coppock will be the executive leader of The Cleveland Orchestra Miami Residency, responsible for all of the Orchestra’s activities in South Florida . The Residency’s Managing Director is a member of the Orchestra’s senior management team and works closely with the Board of the Musical Arts Association of Miami (MAAM), the not-for-profit institution that governs and funds the Miami Residency. In making the appointment, Gary Hanson said, “Bruce Coppock is the ideal person to lead the Residency. As an admired leader in...

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst’s live DVD recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 is being released in the United States on May 31. The Cleveland Orchestra in Performance: Bruckner Symphony No. 8 will be telecast in Northeast Ohio on WVIZ/PBS ideastream® on June 16 at 9 p.m., and in Europe on ORF TV on June 23. The DVD includes a bonus concert preview discussion by Franz Welser-Möst and video director William Cosel hosted by ideastream® producer Dee Perry. Recorded during concerts on August 11 and 12, 2010 by WVIZ/PBS ideastream® at the Orchestra’s home, Severance Hall in Cleveland, this performance of the 1887 revised version of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8, edited by Leopold Nowak, is the fourth DVD in a series featuring the Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst performing Bruckner’s music in historic venues. Previous releases feature Bruckner Symphony No. 5 recorded at St. Florian Cathedral in Linz , Austria and Bruckner Symphony No. 9 recorded at the Mu...

The Cleveland Orchestra will have three new commercial recordings available worldwide in May: a new DVD recordings of Franz Welser-Möst leading Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 recorded at Severance Hall; Pierre Boulez leading the Adagio from Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 and Des Knaben Wunderhorn with vocal soloists Magdalena Kožená, mezzo-soprano, and Christian Gerhaher, baritone; and a CD of Mitsuko Uchida leading and performing Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 27. With these new releases, The Cleveland Orchestra continues its distinguished history of nearly 600 recordings, broadcasting the Cleveland sound around the world.

A 90-minute high-definition DVD of Pierre Boulez conducting The Cleveland Orchestra in works of Mahler, produced by WVIZ/PBS ideastream® with international production partners CLASART Classic, ARTE, Accentus Music, and Deutsche Grammophon, has just been released. The world premiere telecast took place on Sunday, May 1, at 4:30 p.m. on WVIZ/PBS ideastream®, with a prime-time rebroadcast on Saturday, May 7, at 9:30 p.m. The program will be aired in Europe on ARTE TV on May 15. The program, produced and directed by William Cosel, was taped during live performances presented in February 2010 at Severance Hall. It includes Mahler’s Adagio from Symphony No. 10 in F-sharp major, and his Des Knaben Wunderhorn (“The Youth’s Magic Horn”), Songs for Voice and Orchestra, with vocal soloists Magdalena Kožená, mezzo-soprano, and Christian Gerhaher, baritone. An audio recording of this program was released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2010. It was cited as “Disc of the Month” by BBC Music Magazi...

Mitsuko Uchida, who recently won a Grammy® Award this year for her previous Mozart concerto recording with The Cleveland Orchestra, is soloist and conductor in Mozart Concertos Nos. 20 in D minor and 27 in B-flat major in Cleveland Orchestra performances that were recorded live in Severance Hall. The album was exclusively released through the Cleveland Orchestra Store on April 19 and receives full distribution in the United States on May 3, 2011. Of Mitsuko Uchida’s performances of Mozart, The Independent writes: “No pianist conveys the rapture of Mozart quite like Mitsuko Uchida does.” Though Ms. Uchida has previously recorded all the Mozart piano concertos, she has chosen to re-visit them with The Cleveland Orchestra in performances, recorded live, during which she acts as both soloist and conductor with a new and fresh conception of these masterpieces. Of the performances in April 2010 recorded for this release, the Plain Dealer wrote: “Back at Severance Hall this week revisit...

Franz Welser-Möst will begin his tenth season as Music Director The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2011-12 season with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst. Highlights of Franz Welser-Möst’s tenth season with the Orchestra include opera-in-concert performances of Strauss’s Salome at Severance Hall and Carnegie Hall and a three-week festival featuring Brahms masterworks: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 and the Violin Concerto. Returning conductors and artists who appear regularly with the Orchestra will include Pierre Boulez, Mitsuko Uchida, and Artist-in-Residence Ton Koopman. Sean Shepherd, the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow, begins his two-year tenure in the 2011-12 season. Since becoming Music Director in 2002, Franz Welser-Möst has expanded the programming of The Cleveland Orchestra to include staged opera, led performances of Bruckner symphonies in the United States , Europe, and Asia , welcomed new audiences with Fridays@7, and returned the Orchestra to perform at p...

It was with the Cleveland Orchestra that Pierre-Laurent Aimard launched the current season, releasing his landmark all-Ravel album with the ensemble this past October. The partnership proved, as it has in the past, to be a winning one: BBC Music magazine pronounced the disc “utterly sublime,” Cleveland’s Plain Dealer deemed it “glorious,” and the Los Angeles Times and Chicago’s WFMT were among those that included it in their “Best of 2010” lists and holiday gift guides. Now Aimard rejoins the orchestra under its music director, Franz Welser-Möst, for three weeks of concerts, crowned with a Carnegie Hall appearance on Saturday, February 5. In New York, as at the orchestra’s Miami residency (Jan 28 & 29) and on tour in Ann Arbor (Feb 1) and Newark (Feb 6), the pianist will perform Schumann’s sole Piano Concerto (1845). Additionally, for three concerts at the Cleveland Orchestra’s Severance Hall home (Jan 20-22), at its Indiana University residency (Jan 25), and on tour at Ch...

Groundbreaking residency will involve every principal musician of the Orchestra teaching and the IU Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra musicians sharing the stage in rehearsal Centerpiece of the residency is a concert by The Cleveland Orchestra led by Franz Welser-Möst on January 25 with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard as soloist at the IU Auditorium Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra’s first residency at Indiana University will take place January 24-26 in Bloomington, Ind , with the scope of activities providing students with unprecedented access and exposure to one of the country’s major Orchestras over three days. On Monday, January 24 all 17 of The Cleveland Orchestra’s principal musicians will lead orchestral repertoire master classes with students from the Indiana University (IU) Jacobs School of Music. Musicians in the IU Orchestra will also have the rare opportunity to sit side-by-side with Cleveland Orchestra players in a shared rehearsal led ...

Cleveland Orchestra Executive Director Gary Hanson announces the appointment of Cristina Rocca as director of artistic planning. Ms. Rocca will be responsible for managing all aspects of artistic planning and programming at The Cleveland Orchestra, including managing all artist relations, programming, and presentations at Severance Hall and the Blossom Festival. She will begin her duties with the Orchestra on January 3, 2011. Gary Hanson said, “I am pleased to announce the appointment of Cristina Rocca. Her extensive global experience in artistic administration and her long-term relationships with artists of international stature will make her a valuable member of our team.” Cristina Rocca comes to Cleveland from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg in France , where she has served as artistic manager since April 2006. In this role, she has been responsible, in collaboration with music director Marc Albrecht, for the programming and artistic administration of the conc...

The Cleveland Orchestra presents Composers Connect, a free evening of contemporary music concerts Saturday, June 5 at Severance Hall Concerts celebrate 10 years of the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellowship with works by Susan Botti, Marc-André Dalbavie, Matthias Pintscher and Johannes Maria Straud The Cleveland Orchestra will close the 2009-10 Severance Hall season with an evening of free performances celebrating works commissioned for the Orchestra over the past decade by four of the Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellows on Saturday, June 5. Two free, one-hour Cleveland Orchestra concerts will take place at 7:00 p.m. and at 9:00 p.m. During the interlude, there will be a party in the Grand Foyer and outside on the Terrace (weather permitting). Food and drinks will be available for purchase as the audience moves from the hall out through the Grand Foyer onto the terrace to hear an amplified performance of Andriessen’s Workers Union , a unique piece written in 1...

The world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s Woven Dreams , the fifth in a series of Roche Commissions, will take place at the Lucerne Festival Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra will embark on their ninth international tour together, including the Orchestra’s ninth appearance at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. The Orchestra will perform three programs at the Lucerne Festival, and five concerts in Scotland, Germany, and Italy. Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra begin the summer 2010 European tour in Edinburgh , Scotland , at the Edinburgh International Festival with two performances at Usher Hall. Founded in 1947, the three-week annual event takes place in six major concert halls and theaters, plus additional smaller venues. On Tuesday, August 17, the program includes three short works by Ives, including two organ solos, Variations on “ America ,” and Postlude in F, to be played by Joela Jones, the Principal Keyboardist of The Cleveland Orches...

The Orchestra returns to Tokyo in a four-concert Residency at Suntory Hall Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads four programs in Tokyo and Seoul Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra will embark on their tenth international tour together this fall, performing in Japan and South Korea . Pianist Mitsuko Uchida will join the Orchestra in Japan. The eight-concert, four-city tour begins with a performance in Sapporo, Japan, on November 10 and ends with a program at the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea on November 21. The centerpiece of the tour is a Cleveland Orchestra Residency at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, with four concerts at the acclaimed venue. Pianist Mitsuko Uchida will conduct from the keyboard in all-Mozart programs at Kitara Concert Hall in Sapporo (November 10), at Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Nishinomiya (November 12), and in concerts at Suntory Hall in Tokyo (November 14 and 16). Ms. Uchida will also be featured as soloist with Franz Welser-Mös...

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2010-11 season. Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra continues its local programming diversification with numerous initiatives to attract new audiences and support. Within a full schedule of traditional subscription concerts, the season will feature the new series that were introduced in 2009 including Fridays@7, Musically Speaking, and the Celebrity Series, alongside fully staged opera. Also in the coming season, the Orchestra will inaugurate a two week Baroque Festival in Severance Hall. Orchestra performances in public schools are an important part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s history. Franz Welser-Möst restored that tradition in the 2009-10 season when he conducted the Orchestra in two high schools in Cleveland and one in Miami . Hundreds of students who had never heard live orchestral music before were able to experience it for the first time. The Orchestra’s traditional Education Concerts at Seve...

The Orchestra will perform symphonic masterpieces by Beethoven, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, and more; Music Director Franz Welser-Möst to conduct Brahms and Schubert The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2010 Blossom Festival at the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls begins Friday, July 2, with an A merican Spectacular Cleveland Orchestra concert and continues through Sunday, September 5, with performances by The Cleveland Orchestra and The Joffrey Ballet on Labor Day weekend. This season’s programming offers symphonic masterpieces, ballet, world music, popular music, and film music, to attract new fans to Blossom. The Cleveland Orchestra will perform 12 concert programs at the Blossom Festival, including many of the symphonic literature’s most popular Baroque, Classical, and Romantic works. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will lead two programs, featuring Brahms’s Second Symphony, Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben , or A Hero’s Life , and Schubert’s Fourth Symphony. T...

Music Director Franz Welser-Möst to conduct Zurich Opera production of Mozart’s comic opera The Cleveland Orchestra brings Mozart’s comic opera Così fan tutte to Severance Hall for four performances of a fully staged production from the Zurich Opera March 2, 4, 6 and 8 at 7:00 p.m. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst conducts the production, which he previously led in Zurich . A collaboration with stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf, set designer Rolf Glittenberg, and costume designer Marianne Glittenberg, Così fan tutte features an international cast of soloists with members of the Cleveland Orchestra Opera Chorus, prepared by Robert Porco, appearing as soldiers, servants, and sailors. The singers for the Cleveland performances are Malin Hartelius, soprano (Fiordiligi); Anna Bonitatibus, soprano (Dorabella); Martina Janková, soprano (Despina); Javier Camarena, tenor (Ferrando); and Ruben Drole, baritone (Guglielmo), all of whom appeared in the Zurich production. They will be joined...

The Musicians’ Union and Management of The Cleveland Orchestra reached a tentative agreement early this morning for a new three-year contract through September 2, 2012. The agreement calls for a two-year wage freeze through August 2011, followed by semi-annual wage increases of 3% and 2% in the subsequent year. In addition, the Musicians will donate up to 10 services, which will provide cost relief and additional revenue for the Musical Arts Association. Musicians will increase their medical premium contribution beginning in July 2011. The agreement was announced by the Musicians’ Committee Chairman, Jeffrey Rathbun, and the Orchestra’s Executive Director, Gary Hanson. Mr. Rathbun said, “We are very happy that management has heard our message and agreed not to further erode our base compensation allowing us to stay as competitive as possible with the marketplace. We look forward to working together to build our base of support and continue our tradition of excellence....