The Cleveland Orchestra April 4 & 6 Concerts

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2023/2024 SEASON

JACK, JOSEPH AND MORTON MANDEL CONCERT HALL AT SEVERANCE MUSIC CENTER

City Noir

Thursday, April 4, 2024, at 7:30 PM

Saturday, April 6, 2024, at 8 PM

John Adams, conductor

Gabriella Smith (b. 1991)

Breathing Forests

Concerto for Organ and Orchestra

I. Grow—

II. Breathe

III. Burn

James McVinnie, organ

30 minutes

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)

John Adams (b. 1947)

INTERMISSION 20 minutes

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune 10 minutes (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun)

City Noir

I. The City and its Double —

II. The Song is for You

III. Boulevard Night

Timothy McAllister, saxophone

35 minutes

Total approximate running time: 1 hour 35 minutes

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Continue your journey with John Adams and The Cleveland Orchestra on adella.live with two recent digital productions featuring Adams’s El Niño and America Through the Looking Glass, a program highlighting contemporary American composers.

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MORE THAN A CENTURY separates the earliest work on this weekend’s program, Claude Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which had its premiere in 1894, from the newest, Breathing Forests by Gabriella Smith, completed in 2021. (This work, written for organist James McVinnie, also provides a showcase for Severance’s newly restored Norton Memorial Organ.) What they have in common with each other and with the third work on the program, City Noir by John Adams, is a palpable sense of location, fashioned not with words or images but entirely in sound.

Debussy found inspiration for his piece in a poem published in 1876 by the French writer and critic Stéphane Mallarmé. A major figure in 19th-century Parisian culture, Mallarmé was a proponent of Symbolism, an arts movement that rejected realistic representation in favor of evocation and emotion. Yet in taking as his subject the sensual daydreams of a faun — a mythical half-man, half-goat — Debussy fashioned music that uncannily evokes a languid afternoon’s soft light and humidity.

Literature also moved Adams to compose City Noir: in his case, the eight-volume series Americans and the California Dream by historian Kevin Starr, which comprises a sprawling history of the state of California. Adams was specifically inspired by a portion of the sixth volume, Embattled Dreams, recounting the 1947 “Black Dahlia” murder case in Los Angeles. Adams taps into sensations plucked from lurid tabloid journalism, pulp fiction, and stark Hollywood film noir for his uniquely American symphony, deploying ominous shadows, neon-bright hues, and big-band jazz with the deft, vivid touch of a master cinematographer.

The Golden State provided inspiration for Smith as well, who had a specific place and time in mind when creating her 2021 organ concerto Breathing Forests: the California forests she’d grown up loving, massive portions of which had been devastated by recent wildfires heightened by climate change. In evoking majestic trees, wildlife, and nature’s fury, Smith expands upon a centuries-old tradition. But in addition to the warning it conveys, Breathing Forests is also meant as a joyous call to action.

— Steve Smith

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Breathing Forests Concerto for Organ and Orchestra

by Gabriella Smith

BORN : December 26, 1991, in Berkeley, California

▶ COMPOSED: 2021, revised 2023

▶ WORLD PREMIERE: February 11, 2022, with organist James McVinnie and the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen

▶ This weekend’s performances mark the first presentations of Gabriella Smith’s Breathing Forests by The Cleveland Orchestra.

▶ ORCHESTRATION: 2 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, and strings, plus solo organ

▶ DURATION: about 30 minutes

“I GREW UP WANTING TO BE AN ECOLOGIST , and sort of became a musician by accident,” composer Gabriella Smith said, in a recent interview via video call from her home in Seattle. It’s a funny understatement if you’re aware of Smith’s burgeoning career: she’s been championed by senior composers like Steve Reich and John Adams (who conducts this concert), and commissioned by institutions like the Kronos Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Carnegie Hall.

In a way, though, her statement foreshadows her organ concerto, Breathing Forests. Born in California’s Bay Area, Smith identifies herself as a composer “whose work invites listeners to find joy in climate action.” The word “joy” is crucial: Smith’s music acknowledges the reality of loss, but also exults in the

creative possibilities of taking responsibility and getting involved.

There’s ample precedent for concert-music composers working with instrumentalists to replicate aspects of the natural world. Think of Vivaldi’s vivid The Four Seasons, the passing storm in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, the tempestuous seas of Wagner and Debussy.

More recently, composers have used those same tools, with new expressive notions and techniques, to evoke a climate in crisis. Become Ocean, by John Luther Adams, imagines seas rising as a result of polar ice melting. With Songs of the Ice, Outi Tarkiainen evokes an Icelandic glacier’s demise. Breathing Forests is a like-minded gesture, but with a key difference: Smith’s music is less lamentation than motivation.

The seed for the piece was planted when Smith met organist James McVinnie at a Los Angeles Philharmonic concert conducted by Adams, which featured her 2014 work Tumblebird Contrails. On the same program, McVinnie played in Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 12, “Lodger.”

As they became acquainted, McVinnie offered Smith a guided tour of the Walt Disney Concert Hall organ. Subsequently commissioned to write a new work for the LA Philharmonic, Smith set out to write a concerto for her friend. She also determined her work would respond to

the forest fires that had devastated the state in which she’d grown up, exacerbated by the increased drought and heat associated with climate change.

“The massive sound and architecture of the organ feels something like the grandeur of a forest to me,” Smith wrote in her poetic composer’s note for Breathing Forests, “and its breath reminiscent of the glorious exchange of carbon dioxide to oxygen that forests perform on a massive scale.”

Composer Gabriella Smith writes imaginative, sonically vibrant music, often basing her works on thought provoking ecological themes.

Smith and McVinnie intended to collaborate closely in person during the work’s gestation, but the global COVID-19 pandemic intervened. Instead, via the internet, Smith sent photos and screenshots of her handwritten notes and computer-notated files. McVinnie responded with feedback that helped Smith understand what was practical and feasible for the instrument and its player.

That connection was critical — not least because Smith has a well-established penchant for employing unorthodox instrumental techniques, whereas the organ is, by dint of its fundamental architecture, an instrument that resists tinkering and tampering.

“That was one of the biggest challenges of writing this, and also one of the reasons I wanted to do it,” Smith explained. “I like everything I do to have an element of risk, because that’s what excites me and keeps me growing.”

In the end, she essentially left the organ to its own devices, using its monumentality to conjure the grandeur her conception required. She surrounded the organ with elemental strangeness and charm, devising an instrumental vocabulary enhanced with ghostly hisses, scrapes, bounces, and microtonal frissons.

“I saw the orchestra as the organ’s effects pedal, in a way,” she said. Smith described the effects she sought with words and symbols in her score. For the string players, she also recorded brief instructional videos accessible by scanning QR codes.

Breathing Forests adheres formally to

a Classical-era standard: a fast opening movement, slow centerpiece, and brisk finale, here played without pause. The first movement, “Grow,” opens with rustles, shimmers, and echoes of birdsong, the organ’s glowing sound and sheer presence giving the music an uncanny spirit.

“Breathe,” the middle movement, evokes a forest’s majestic stillness and buzzing hidden connections, punctuated with the cries and whispers of its animal inhabitants. “Burn,” the finale, rises from an eerie dry crackle and smolder to a fiery, chaotic climax. A brief, buoyant organ cadenza resolves into an enveloping sensation of radiance.

Paradoxically, along with nature’s fury, the music conveys joy — just as Smith intended. She presumes audiences are aware of what the climate crisis portends. What she wants to say is that action “is not only urgently needed, but incredibly fun and inspiring to be a part of as a community.”

“For a while I felt like, how do I write music about the climate crisis when I want to write music that’s uplifting?” Smith said. “And I realized, that’s the kind of music we need. It needs to feel real and profound. We need to feel our grief, and we need to feel the loss. But we also need to feel the joy in getting to work.”

— Steve Smith

Steve Smith (no relation to the composer) is a journalist, critic, and editor based in New York City. He has written about music for The New York Times and The New Yorker, and served as an editor for the Boston Globe, Time Out New York, and NPR.

Composer’s Note

Breathing Forests is a reflection on the complex relationship between humans, forests, climate change, and fire. The massive sound and architecture of the organ feels something like the grandeur of a forest to me, and its breath reminiscent of the glorious exchange of carbon dioxide to oxygen that forests perform on a massive scale. Because of their role as one of our planet’s biggest carbon sinks, forests are more essential now than ever before. But I can’t think of them without feeling an immense sadness that we are losing more and more of these forests each year. Growing up in California, I’ve experienced wildfire throughout my life, but never the massive and devastating wildfires that have now become the norm, exacerbated by climate change and increasing levels of drought and heat. At the same time, fire is a vital part of many ecosystems, and decades of fire suppression and policy against prescribed burns is also, in part, responsible for much of the devastation and loss of control of wildfires in recent years.

Breathing Forests is in three contiguous movements (I. Grow, II. Breathe, III.Burn) that roughly follow the traditional fast-slow-fast concerto form. The piece is a sonic forest, growing, breathing, burning, and regenerating, containing both sadness for the losses we can never get back, and joy —  a celebration of forest ecosystems and their vital role in the fight against climate change, a celebration of all those participating in the fight for our future, and an invitation to get to work.

— Gabriella Smith

PHOTO BY ERIK PETERSEN

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun)

by Claude Debussy

BORN : August 22, 1862, in St. Germain-en-Laye, France

DIED: March 25, 1918, in Paris

▶ COMPOSED: 1892–94

▶ WORLD PREMIERE: December 22, 1894, by the Société Nationale de Musique in Paris, conducted by Gustave Doret

▶ CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE: October 23, 1919, led by Nikolai Sokoloff

▶ ORCHESTRATION: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 harps, antique cymbals, and strings

▶ DURATION: about 10 minutes

THIS WAS DEBUSSY ’s first masterpiece and in many ways can be seen as the first masterpiece of 20th-century music —  even though it predates the new century by six years.

It is at times difficult to comprehend how a mere 10 minutes of music for small orchestra can serve as a foundation stone for so much that came after. But whenever we hear this music, its magic is immediately apparent, as it was indeed to its first audience in 1894.

It is even harder to realize that these few pages, with their mysteriously improvisatory air, took Debussy two years of patient toil to put together. He was still relatively unknown in Paris and had not written anything close to the visionary step into the unknown that the Prelude represents.

In a sense, Debussy was simply

writing a symphonic poem on a literary text, as Richard Strauss, for example, had treated Lenau’s Don Juan a few years before. But Stéphane Mallarmé’s L’après-midi d’un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun) was no conventional narrative poem, and it left no scope for the direct matching of music and words.

Debussy’s intention was not to parallel the poem’s text, but to decorate it. In the note given out at the first performance, he explained: “The music of the Prelude is a very free illustration of Mallarmé’s fine poem. It is not meant to be a synthesis of it but rather a series of settings across which pass the desires and dreams of the faun in the heat of the afternoon.”

Many symphonic poems had merely evoked a tableau or a mood, but Debussy not only avoided any precision of

character and action, he allowed his music to develop in an altogether free way. From the very first bar, the music starts and evolves without clear-cut notions of thematic balance or tonal precision. The famous flute solo with which the music begins sounds like an improvisation, not a theme, and its musical key is far from clear. Each time this melody comes back, its shape and its harmonic background are different, like a continuous variation.

Once the flute solo has run its course, the clarinet, over a sharp horn chord, moves into a different atmosphere, laden with the whole-tone scales that Debussy had already marked as his own. When the oboe takes melodic charge, the warmth of the music grows from within.

The middle section, over throbbing string chords, betrays the faun’s unmistakable passion, and the flute

returns transfigured for the faun’s languid intoxication in the forest heat, interrupted by impulsive little movements and sudden charges of feeling. The closing pages have an epic dimension, as if a curtain is being closed on a whole world of poetic mystery.

The orchestration throughout is of extraordinary delicacy, with the multiple division of the strings (Debussy’s preferred string sound) with solo violin and solo cello for added sweetness, and two harps. No heavy brass is needed, no timpani. The only percussion is the pair of miniature cymbals whose spare notes are like sparkles of light in the forest.

— Hugh Macdonald

Hugh Macdonald is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, and Scriabin, as well as Music in 1853: The Biography of a Year

Debussy’s Prelude jumpstarted the musical revolutions that would come with the dawn of the 20th century. PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

City Noir

by John Adams

BORN : February 15, 1947, in Worcester, Massachusetts

▶ COMPOSED: 2009

▶ WORLD PREMIERE: October 8, 2009, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic

▶ This weekend’s performances mark the first presentations of John Adams’s City Noir by The Cleveland Orchestra.

▶ ORCHESTRATION: 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), piccolo, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (temple block, bongos, castanets, chimes, clave, conga, cowbell, crotales, suspended cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, glockenspiel, tuned gongs, marimba, vibraphone, tambourine, tam-tams, timbales, tom-toms, triangle, xylophone), jazz drum set, piano, celesta, 2 harps, and strings

▶ DURATION: about 35 minutes

CITY NOIR WAS FIRST suggested by my reading the so-called “Dream” books by Kevin Starr, a brilliantly imagined, multi-volume cultural and social history of California. In the “Black Dahlia” chapter of his Embattled Dreams volume, Starr chronicles the tenor and milieu of the late ’40s and early ’50s as it was expressed in the sensational journalism of the era and in the dark, eerie chiaroscuro of the Hollywood films that have come to define the period sensibility for us:

“... the underside of home-front and post-war Los Angeles stood revealed. Still, for all its shoddiness, the City of Angels possessed a certain sassy, savvy energy. It was, among other things, a Front Page

kind of town where life was lived by many on the edge, and that made for good copy and good film noir.”

Those images and their surrounding aura whetted my appetite for an orchestral work that, while not necessarily referring to the soundtracks of those films, might nevertheless evoke a similar mood and feeling tone of the era. I was also stimulated by the notion that there indeed exists a bona fide genre of jazzinflected symphonic music, a fundamentally American orchestral style and tradition that goes back as far as the early 1920s (although, truth to tell, it was a Frenchman, Darius Milhaud, who was the first to realize its potential with his 1923 ballet La création du monde, a year

before Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue premiered in New York).

The music of City Noir is in the form of a 30-minute symphony. The formal and expressive weight of its three movements is distributed in pockets of high energy that are nested among areas of a more leisurely — one could even say “cinematic” — lyricism. The first movement, “The City and its Double,” opens with brief, powerful “wide-screen” panorama that gives way to a murmuring dialogue between the double bass

pizzicato and the scurrying figures in the woodwinds and keyboards. The steady tick of a jazz drummer impels this tense and nervous activity forward —  a late-hour empty street scene, if you like. After a broad and lyrical melodic passage in the strings, the original scorrevole movement returns, charged with increasingly insistent impulse and building up steam until it peaks with

Los Angeles history and Hollywood “noir” films (such as the 1950 drama Dark City) inspired the moody symphonic landscape of John Adams’s City Noir.

THE MUSIC

a full-throttle orchestral tutti. A surging melody in the horns and cellos punctuated by jabbing brass “bullets” brings the movement to a nearly chaotic climax before it suddenly collapses into shards and fragments, a sudden stasis that ushers in the second movement.

The title, “The City and its Double” is a backward glance to the French playwright Antonin Artaud, who in his writings is said to have “opposed the vitality of the viewer’s sensual experience against [a conventional concept of] theater as a contrived literary form.” Hence my “city” can be imagined not just as geographic place or even as a social nexus, but rather as a source of inex-

note. But eventually the song finds full bloom in the voice of the solo trombone, a “talking” solo, in the manner of the great Ellington soloists Lawrence Brown and Britt Woodman (both, fittingly enough, Angelenos). The trombone music picks up motion and launches a brief passage of violent, centripetal energy, all focused on a short obsessive idea first stated by the sax. Once spent of its fuel, the movement returns to the quiet opening music, ending with pensive solos by the principal horn and viola.

“Boulevard Night” is a study in cinematic colors, sometimes, as in the moody “Chinatown” trumpet solo near the beginning, it is languorous and

The music should have the slightly disorienting effect of a very crowded boulevard peopled with strange characters ... the kind who only come out very late on a very hot night.

— John Adams

haustible sensual experience. As a child watching the early days of television, I remember well the program that always ended with the familiar tag line, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one.”

As a relief to the frenzy of the first movement’s ending, “The Song is for You,” takes its time assembling itself. Gradually a melodic profile in the solo alto sax emerges from the surrounding pools of chromatically tinted sonorities. The melody yearns toward but keeps retreating from the archetypal “blue”

nocturnal; sometimes, as in the jerky stop-start coughing engine music in the staccato strings, it is animal and pulsing; and other times, as in the slinky, sinuous saxophone theme that keeps coming back, each time with an extra layer of stage makeup, it is in-your-face brash and uncouth. The music should have the slightly disorienting effect of a very crowded boulevard peopled with strange characters, like those of a David Lynch film — the kind who only come out very late on a very hot night.

— John Adams © 2009

THE CONDUCTOR

John Adams

Composer, conductor, and creative thinker — John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of music. His works stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. His operas and oratorios such as Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic, and El Niño have transformed the genre of contemporary music theater. Spanning more than three decades, works such as Harmonielehre, Shaker Loops, The Dharma at Big Sur, and his Violin Concerto are among the most performed of all contemporary classical music.

As a conductor Adams has led the world’s major orchestras, programming his own works with a wide variety of repertoire ranging from Beethoven, Mozart, and Debussy to Sibelius, Ives, Carter, Philip Glass, and Ellington. Conducting engagements in 2023–24 include return visits to The Cleveland Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, performances with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and the European premiere of his new opera Antony and Cleopatra at the Teatre del Liceu. Other recent engagements include performances of Girls of the Golden West with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Death of Klinghoffer with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and appearances with the St. Louis Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and TonhalleOrchester Zürich.

A provocative writer, he is author of the highly acclaimed autobiography Hallelujah Junction and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review. Since 2009 Adams has been creative chair of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Among his honorary doctorates are those from Yale, Harvard, Northwestern, and Cambridge universities and from The Juilliard School. In 2021 he was appointed Honorary Academician by the prestigious General Assembly of the Academicians of Santa Cecilia, and also received the Ditson Conductor’s Award from Columbia University.

In honor of Adams’s 75th birthday in 2022, Nonesuch Records released the 40-disc John Adams Collected Works, a box set of recordings spanning more than four decades of the composer’s career with the label. Also available is the Berlin Philharmonic’s John Adams Edition, a CD and DVD collection comprising seven of his works, conducted by Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Kirill Petrenko, Alan Gilbert, and Adams himself.

PHOTO BY VERN EVANS

THE ARTISTS

James McVinnie organ

Through his boundless approach to music-making, his collaborations with a vast array of artists, and his innovative programming and captivating musicianship, James McVinnie has carved out a unique career as an organist and keyboard player.

Steeped in the traditions of Anglican church music (having held organ positions at St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey), McVinnie has since had major works written for him by Nico Muhly, Gabriella Smith, David Lang, Bryce Dessner, and Hildur Guðnadóttir, amongst many others.

He directs the James McVinnie Ensemble, a collective of virtuoso keyboardists dedicated to exploring works with political themes by contemporary and emerging composers. The ensemble’s roots go back to 2017 with a performance at London’s Barbican Centre of Philip Glass’s Music in Twelve Parts — the first time the piece was presented in concert by anyone other than the Philip Glass Ensemble. Their 2022 season featured performances of Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerrilla and Claude McKay’s 1922 poetry collection Harlem Shadows in a collaboration with the London Review of Books at Bold Tendencies. New works by Gabriella Smith and inti figgis-vizueta are planned for the Ensemble in 2024 and beyond.

McVinnie’s 2023–24 season includes the premiere of Samuel Adams’s Eden

Interstates with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a hybrid piano and organ program at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Tristan Perich’s Infinity Gradient for organ and 100 speakers in 1-bit audio at the Southbank Centre, and Nico Muhly’s Register with the Helsinki Philharmonic. Shadow Volumes, a new work for solo organ by Edmund Finnis, is planned for the 2025–26 season.

McVinnie is a member of the Icelandic collective and record label Bedroom Community, on which he has released three albums: Cycles (featuring works by Nico Muhly), Cycles_1 (a remix album), and Counterpoint (pairing music of J.S. Bach and Philip Glass). The Grid, released by Orange Mountain Music in 2018, is a studio album of music by Glass using organ samples. All Night Chroma, featuring music by Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher), was released on Warp Records in 2019.

McVinnie started a year-long residency at London’s Southbank Centre in March 2024 with two performances in the Royal Festival Hall’s “Organ at 70” celebrations.

PHOTO BY GRAHAM LACADAO

Timothy McAllister saxophone

Today’s most celebrated classical saxophonist, Timothy McAllister is an acclaimed soloist, soprano chair of the Grammy-winning PRISM Quartet, and champion of contemporary music credited with over 50 recordings and 200 premieres of new compositions by eminent and emerging composers worldwide.

McAllister has appeared with more than 40 of the world’s most prominent orchestras in over 20 countries, from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms. Following his premiere of John Adams’s Saxophone Concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the composer, he performed the concerto and Adams’s City Noir on the 2015 Grammy Award–winning recording with the St. Louis Symphony and David Robertson. His recent recordings of Kenneth Fuchs’s saxophone concerto, Rush, with JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra and his reprise of City Noir with the Berlin Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel both appeared on 2019 Grammy-nominated albums, with the Fuchs winning Best Classical Compendium.

Recent performances include the China premiere of Adams’s Saxophone Concerto with Edo de Waart and the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the

Belgium premiere of Guillaume Connesson’s saxophone concerto, A Kind of Trane, under Stéphane Denève and the Brussels Philharmonic (which has been recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon label).

As guest soloist, other recent engagements include the symphonies of Albany, Buffalo, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Seattle, and St. Louis, among many others. In 2022, he premiered John Corigliano’s Triathlon with Giancarlo Guerrero and the San Francisco Symphony to widespread acclaim. 2023 featured the US premiere of Tyshawn Sorey’s Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith) with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

A widely respected teacher of his instrument, McAllister is professor of saxophone at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and he appears at summer festivals and courses worldwide. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan, having studied with legendary saxophonist Donald Sinta

PHOTO COURTESY OF TIMOTHY MCALLISTER

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ABOUT THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA

NOW IN ITS SECOND CENTURY , The Cleveland Orchestra, under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst since 2002, is one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. Year after year, the ensemble exemplifies extraordinary artistic excellence, creative programming, and community engagement. The New York Times has called Cleveland “the best in America” for its virtuosity, elegance of sound, variety of color, and chamber-like musical cohesion.

Founded by Adella Prentiss Hughes, the Orchestra performed its inaugural concert in December 1918. By the middle of the century, decades of growth and sustained support had turned it into one of the most admired globally.

The past decade has seen an increasing number of young people attending concerts, bringing fresh attention to The Cleveland Orchestra’s legendary sound and committed programming. More recently, the Orchestra launched several bold digital projects, including the streaming platform Adella, the podcast On a Personal Note, and its own recording label, a new chapter in the Orchestra’s long and distinguished recording and broadcast history. Together, they have captured the Orchestra’s unique artistry and the musical achievements of the Welser-Möst and Cleveland Orchestra partnership.

The 2023 – 24 season marks Franz Welser-Möst’s 22nd year as music director, a period in which The Cleveland Orchestra earned unprecedented acclaim around the world, including a series of residencies at the Musikverein in Vienna, the first of its kind by an American orchestra, and a number of acclaimed opera presentations.

Since 1918, seven music directors — Nikolai Sokoloff, Artur Rodziński, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Franz Welser-Möst — have guided and shaped the ensemble’s growth and sound. Through concerts at home and on tour, broadcasts, and a catalog of acclaimed recordings, The Cleveland Orchestra is heard today by a growing group of fans around the world.

PHOTO

YEVHEN GULENKO/HUMAN ARTIST

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA

Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director

KELVIN SMITH FAMILY CHAIR

FIRST VIOLINS

Jung-Min Amy Lee

ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Gretchen D. and Ward Smith Chair

Jessica Lee

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Clara G. and George P. Bickford Chair

Stephen Tavani

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Dr. Ronald H. Krasney Chair

Wei-Fang Gu

Drs. Paul M. and Renate H. Duchesneau Chair

Kim Gomez

Elizabeth and Leslie Kondorossy Chair

Chul-In Park

Harriet T. and David L. Simon Chair

Miho Hashizume

Theodore Rautenberg Chair

Jeanne Preucil Rose

Larry J.B. and Barbara S. Robinson Chair

Alicia Koelz

Oswald and Phyllis Lerner Gilroy Chair

Yu Yuan

Patty and John Collinson Chair

Isabel Trautwein

Trevor and Jennie Jones Chair

Katherine Bormann

Analisé Denise Kukelhan

Gladys B. Goetz Chair

Zhan Shu

Youngji Kim

Genevieve Smelser

SECOND VIOLINS

Stephen Rose*

Alfred M. and Clara T. Rankin Chair

Jason Yu2

James and Donna Reid Chair

Eli Matthews1

Patricia M. Kozerefski and Richard J. Bogomolny Chair

Sonja Braaten Molloy

Carolyn Gadiel Warner

Elayna Duitman

Ioana Missits

Jeffrey Zehngut

Sae Shiragami

Kathleen Collins

Beth Woodside

Emma Shook

Dr. Jeanette Grasselli Brown and Dr. Glenn R. Brown Chair

Yun-Ting Lee

Jiah Chung Chapdelaine

Liyuan Xie

VIOLAS

Wesley Collins*

Chaillé H. and Richard B. Tullis Chair

Stanley Konopka2

Mark Jackobs

Jean Wall Bennett Chair

Lisa Boyko

Richard and Nancy Sneed Chair

Richard Waugh

Lembi Veskimets

The Morgan Sisters Chair

Eliesha Nelson

Anthony and Diane Wynshaw-Boris Chair

Joanna Patterson Zakany

William Bender

Gareth Zehngut

CELLOS

Mark Kosower*

Louis D. Beaumont Chair

Richard Weiss1

The GAR Foundation Chair

Charles Bernard2

Helen Weil Ross Chair

Bryan Dumm

Muriel and Noah Butkin Chair

Tanya Ell

Thomas J. and Judith Fay

Gruber Chair

Ralph Curry

Brian Thornton

William P. Blair III Chair

David Alan Harrell

Martha Baldwin

Dane Johansen

Paul Kushious

BASSES

Maximilian Dimoff*

Clarence T. Reinberger Chair

Derek Zadinsky2

Charles Paul1

Mary E. and F. Joseph Callahan Chair

Mark Atherton

Thomas Sperl

Henry Peyrebrune

Charles Barr Memorial Chair

Charles Carleton

Scott Dixon

HARP

Trina Struble*

Alice Chalifoux Chair

FLUTES

Joshua Smith*

Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Chair

Saeran St. Christopher

Jessica Sindell2

Austin B. and Ellen W. Chinn Chair

Mary Kay Fink

PICCOLO

Mary Kay Fink

Anne M. and M. Roger Clapp Chair

OBOES

Frank Rosenwein*

Edith S. Taplin Chair

Corbin Stair

Sharon and Yoash Wiener Chair

Jeffrey Rathbun2

Everett D. and Eugenia S.

McCurdy Chair

Robert Walters

ENGLISH HORN

Robert Walters

Samuel C. and Bernette K. Jaffe Chair

CLARINETS

Afendi Yusuf*

Robert Marcellus Chair

Robert Woolfrey

Victoire G. and Alfred M.

Rankin, Jr. Chair

Daniel McKelway2

Robert R. and Vilma L. Kohn Chair

Amy Zoloto

E-FLAT CLARINET

Daniel McKelway

Stanley L. and Eloise M.

Morgan Chair

BASS CLARINET

Amy Zoloto

Myrna and James Spira Chair

BASSOONS

John Clouser*

Louise Harkness Ingalls Chair

Gareth Thomas

Barrick Stees2

Sandra L. Haslinger Chair

Jonathan Sherwin

CONTRABASSOON

Jonathan Sherwin

HORNS

Nathaniel Silberschlag*

George Szell Memorial Chair

Michael Mayhew§

Knight Foundation Chair

Jesse McCormick

Robert B. Benyo Chair

Hans Clebsch

Richard King

Meghan Guegold Hege

TRUMPETS

Michael Sachs*

Robert and Eunice Podis Weiskopf Chair

Jack Sutte

Lyle Steelman2

James P. and Dolores D. Storer Chair

Michael Miller

CORNETS

Michael Sachs*

Mary Elizabeth and G. Robert Klein Chair

Michael Miller

TROMBONES

Brian Wendel*

Gilbert W. and Louise I.

Humphrey Chair

Richard Stout

Alexander and Marianna C. McAfee Chair

Shachar Israel2

BASS TROMBONE

Luke Sieve

EUPHONIUM & BASS TRUMPET

Richard Stout

TUBA

Yasuhito Sugiyama*

Nathalie C. Spence and Nathalie S. Boswell Chair

TIMPANI

vacant PERCUSSION

Marc Damoulakis*

Margaret Allen Ireland Chair

Thomas Sherwood

Tanner Tanyeri

KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS

Carolyn Gadiel Warner

Marjory and Marc L. Swartzbaugh Chair

LIBRARIANS

Michael Ferraguto

Joe and Marlene Toot Chair

Donald Miller

Gabrielle Petek

ENDOWED CHAIRS CURRENTLY UNOCCUPIED

Elizabeth Ring and William

Gwinn Mather Chair

Blossom-Lee Chair

Virginia M. Linsdseth, PhD, Chair

Paul and Lucille Jones Chair

Charles M. and Janet G.

Kimball Chair

Sunshine Chair

Otto G. and Corinne T. Voss Chair

Mr. and Mrs. Richard K.

Smucker Chair

Rudolf Serkin Chair

CONDUCTORS

Christoph von Dohnányi

MUSIC DIRECTOR LAUREATE

Daniel Reith

ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

Sidney and Doris Dworkin Chair

Lisa Wong

DIRECTOR OF CHORUSES

Frances P. and Chester C.

Bolton Chair

* Principal

§ Associate Principal

1 First Assistant Principal

2

Assistant Principal

This roster lists full-time members of The Cleveland Orchestra. The number and seating of musicians onstage varies depending on the piece being performed. Seating within the string sections rotates on a periodic basis.

PHOTO

YEVHEN GULENKO/HUMAN ARTIST

IMusic Lovers:

You are the magic behind every powerful performance. With this season approaching its finale, the Orchestra needs donations from friends like you to finish the year strong! Your help makes all the difference.

Be a champion for music with your donation today!

clevelandorchestra.com/give 216-456-8400

THE 2023/2024 SEASON

CALENDAR

Pre-concert lectures are held in Reinberger Chamber Hall one hour prior to the performance.

SPRING

APR 4 & 6

CITY NOIR

John Adams, conductor

James McVinnie, organ

Timothy McAllister, saxophone

GABRIELLA SMITH Breathing Forests

DEBUSSY Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

JOHN ADAMS City Noir

Pre-concert lecture by Eric Charnofsky

APR 11 – 13

ELGAR’S CELLO

CONCERTO

Klaus Mäkelä, conductor

Sol Gabetta, cello

Thomas Hampson, baritone *

The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus *

JIMMY LÓPEZ BELLIDO Perú negro

ELGAR Cello Concerto

WALTON Belshazzar’s Feast *

Pre-concert lecture by James Wilding

APR 14

RECITAL

Schumann & Brahms

Evgeny Kissin, piano

Matthias Goerne, baritone

R. SCHUMANN Dichterliebe

BRAHMS Four Ballades, Op. 10

BRAHMS Selected Songs

APR 18 – 20

YUJA WANG PLAYS

RAVEL & STRAVINSKY

Klaus Mäkelä, conductor

Yuja Wang, piano

RAVEL Concerto for the Left Hand

STRAVINSKY Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments

STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring

Pre-concert lecture by Caroline Oltmanns

APR 26 – 28

RACHMANINOFF’S SECOND PIANO CONCERTO

Lahav Shani, conductor

Beatrice Rana, piano

UNSUK CHIN subito con forza

RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2

BARTÓK Concerto for Orchestra

Pre-concert lecture by James O’Leary

MAY 2 – 4

LANG LANG PLAYS

SAINT-SAËNS

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Lang Lang, piano *

SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 2 *

BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique

Pre-concert lecture by Caroline Oltmanns

MAY 15–26

* Not performed on the Friday matinee concert

2024 MANDEL OPERA & HUMANITIES FESTIVAL

For more information on festival events visit: clevelandorchestra.com/ festival

MAY 16, 18, 24 & 26

MOZART’S MAGIC FLUTE

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Nikolaus Habjan, director

Julian Prégardien, tenor

Ludwig Mittelhammer, baritone

Christina Landshamer, soprano

The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus

MOZART The Magic Flute

Staged production sung in German with projected supertitles

MAY 23 & 25

MOZART’S GRAN

PARTITA

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Leila Josefowicz, violin

Trina Struble, harp

WAGNER Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde

JÜRI REINVERE Concerto for Violin and Harp

MOZART Serenade No. 10, “Gran

Partita”

Pre-concert lecture by Michael Strasser

For tickets & more information visit:

clevelandorchestra.com

YOUR VISIT

HEALTH & SAFETY

The Cleveland Orchestra is committed to creating a comfortable, enjoyable, and safe environment for all guests at Severance Music Center. While mask and COVID-19 vaccination are recommended they are not required. Protocols are reviewed regularly with the assistance of our Cleveland Clinic partners; for up-to-date information, visit: clevelandorchestra. com/attend/health-safety

LATE SEATING

As a courtesy to the audience members and musicians in the hall, late-arriving patrons are asked to wait quietly until the first convenient break in the program. These seating breaks are at the discretion of the House Manager in consultation with the performing artists.

PAGERS, CELL PHONES & WRISTWATCH ALARMS

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices prior to the start of the concert.

PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEOGRAPHY & RECORDING

Audio recording, photography, and videography are prohibited during performances at Severance. Photographs can only be taken when the performance is not in progress.

HEARING AIDS & OTHER HEALTH-ASSISTIVE DEVICES

For the comfort of those around you, please reduce the volume on hearing aids and other devices that may produce a noise that would detract from the program. For Infrared Assistive-Listening Devices, please see the House Manager or Head Usher for more details.

IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY

Contact an usher or a member of house staff if you require medical assistance. Emergency exits are clearly marked throughout the building. Ushers and house staff will provide instructions in the event of an emergency.

AGE RESTRICTIONS

Regardless of age, each person must have a ticket and be able to sit quietly in a seat throughout the performance. Classical Season subscription concerts are not recommended for children under the age of 8. However, there are several age-appropriate series designed specifically for children and youth, including Music Explorers (for 3 to 6 years old) and Family Concerts (for ages 7 and older).

The Cleveland Orchestra is grateful to the following organizations for their ongoing generous support of The Cleveland Orchestra: the State of Ohio and Ohio Arts Council and to the residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Cleveland Orchestra performances are broadcast as part of regular programming on ideastream/WCLV Classical 90.3 FM, Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 4 PM.

The Cleveland Orchestra is proud of its long-term partnership with Kent State University, made possible in part through generous funding from the State of Ohio. The Cleveland Orchestra is proud to have its home, Severance Music Center, located on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, with whom it has a long history of collaboration and partnership.

© 2024 The Cleveland Orchestra and the Musical Arts Association Program books for Cleveland Orchestra concerts are produced by The Cleveland Orchestra and are distributed free to attending audience members.

EDITORIAL

Kevin McBrien, Publications Manager

“We are paving a path for our next chapter by establishing connections now. We can keep enjoying our wonderful skyline views and musical activities, knowing our plan is in place.”

As a Judson at Home member, you’ll have access to an engaging community, cultural programs, wellness activities and an array of dining venues. Most of all, you have all the services and amenities of a retirement community at your fingertips while living in your own home.

Max Bunker and Tony Bianchi / Bratenahl

SETTING THE STAGE

for Success

We believe that all Cleveland youth should have access to high-quality arts education. Through the generosity of our donors, we have invested more than $12.6 million since 2016 to scale up neighborhood-based programs that serve thousands of youth year-round in music, dance, theater, photography, literary arts and curatorial mastery. That’s setting the stage for success. Find your passion, and partner with the Cleveland Foundation to make your greatest charitable impact.

(877) 554-5054

www.ClevelandFoundation.org/Success