Spotlight Magazine - 2.2 Winter-Spring 2022 - The Cleveland Orchestra

WINTER | SPRING 2022

BEHIND-THE-SCENES WITH STARS OF IN FOCUS SEASON 2

FRANZ WELSER-MÖST IGOR LEVIT BERND RICHARD DEUTSCH JOHN ADAMS HERBERT BLOMSTEDT

TRACING THE LEGACY OF VERDI’S OTELLO YU YUAN’S SPECIAL RECIPE FOR THE YEAR OF THE TIGER PETER OTTO ON WALTON’S VIOLIN CONCERTO MUSIC’S MANY VOICES

FRANZ WELSER-MÖST MUSIC DIRECTOR

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LETTER FROM OUR PRESIDENT & CEO

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT Photos from a fall filled with concerts, masterclasses, community programs, and more music making.

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COMING UP IN 2022 A short list of not-to-be-missing concerts this winter and spring.

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MASTERS OF THE KEYBOARD A slate of world-class pianists visit Severance over the next several months.

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RECIPE: LUNAR NEW YEAR WONTONS First violinist Yu Yuan shares her family’s recipe for this seasonal treat.

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CURTAIN UP ON IN FOCUS SEASON 2 Go behind-the-scenes of the second season of The Cleveland Orchestra’s flagship digital broadcast series, launching on February 4.

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AFTERSILENCE Music director Franz Welser-Möst and featured pianist Igor Levit discuss their fruitful partnership, which is on display in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto.

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BEGIN AGAIN Composer Bernd Richard Deutsch delves into his process behind his new work, Intensity, commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra. By Amanda Angel

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JOHN ADAMS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS The conductor-composer traces the legacy of a half-century of American composition with an eye toward the future.

André Gremillet, Cleveland Orchestra President & CEO, lays out a digital vision for our digital world.

By Michael Cirigliano II

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AN ENDURING SAGE Howard Blomstedt on his relationship with Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, Beethoven’s Fifth, and the similarities between them.

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OTELLO. . .

JEALOUSY, REVENGE, BETRAYAL, AND MURDER Verdi’s operatic masterpiece and its many connections.

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MUSIC’S MANY VOICES This season’s education concerts explore and celebrate the diversity that exists within the classical music canon

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ORCHESTRA NEWS

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Q&A WITH PETER OTTO Cleveland Orchestra first associate concertmaster explains his love for Walton’s Violin Concerto, which he performs this March.

NEW FACES IN THE ORCHESTRA AND IN MEMORIAM

Spotlight Magazine is a publication for subscribers and donors of The Cleveland Orchestra. Copyright ©2022. All rights reserved.

Amanda Angel, Managing Editor Justin Holden, Vice President of Communications Ross Binnie, Chief Brand Officer Left: Franz Welser-Möst leads a rehearsal on stage at Mandel Concert Hall as the camera crew prepares to record the formal performance for In Focus.

The Cleveland Orchestra is grateful to these government agencies for ongoing and special project support:

Photo, left and cover: Roger Mastroianni

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THE CONTENT OF OUR DIGITAL WORLD REQUIRES A DIGITAL VISION

Dear Friends, More than twenty-five years ago, Bill Gates declared, “Content is King.”

At that time, I don’t think many of us fully grasped the significance of his statement, but it’s hard to think of three words that have resonated so broadly through our world since then. More recently, we’ve come to consider The Cleveland Orchestra, among its many traits, as a content creator. The music we make, of course, and the ways in which we make it, but also the thoughts and conversations that infuse everything we do, are all content.

But music has always provided a platform for transmitting ideas, from the roving troubadours of the Middle Ages, to the court musicians of the Enlightenment, to the explosion of music publishing in the 19th century, to the recording business of the last 100 years.

A digital world requires a digital vision: to utilize the power of technology to deepen the audience’s experience and create an online community of symphonic music and Cleveland Orchestra lovers. We envision a space where a community of curious individuals can connect around great music and storytelling; where they can discover new works and artists or revisit favorite performances.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s President & CEO André Gremillet and Music Director Franz Welser-Most.

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst took the first step toward that vision in fall 2020 with the launch of the online platform Adella and its flagship series of broadcasts, In Focus. We will never be able to fully replicate an evening at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Concert Hall – the warm welcome from our volunteer ushers, the suppleness

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of the plush velvet seats, that recognition of a friendly face, or the exhilaration of a standing ovation. But at a time when we could not open our physical doors, In Focus provided an entryway into Severance and the Orchestra, allowing us to share our unique story and exceptional music making in new ways with the help of a talented crew of directors, camera operators, and audio and video technicians.

This fall, we thankfully welcomed audiences back into our home while

After the longest hiatus in Orchestra history, musicians returned to Severance Music Center in November of 2020 to rehearse for Season 1 of In Focus.

simultaneously working hard toward launching a second season of In Focus.

(You can read about the process behind this season and go behind our first four episodes on pages 15 through 27 in this magazine). This ambitious

Every space imaginable was used to house technicians while recording Season 1 of In Focus.

undertaking would not have been possible without an extraordinary gift from the Mandel Foundation. At the announcement of the gift, Mandel Foundation Chairman Stephen H. Hoffman shared a touching anecdote with staff and musicians about how the In Focus series provided brightness and hope during the darkest days of the pandemic. As Mr. Hoffman explained, music has a unique ability to comfort, to move, to surprise, and to inspire us. That power drives us to meet audiences where they are, whether at Severance, Blossom, on tour, or online. We invite you to join us on this journey.

Warmly,

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(This page, clockwise from top) FRANZ WELSER-MÖST

and the entire Cleveland Orchestra come together for the first rehearsal of the 2021-22 season on September 28 at Severance Music Center, reuniting for the first time since March 13, 2020.

IN THE

FRANZ WELSER- MÖST

receives a special citation at the Cleveland Arts Prize ceremony at the Cleveland Museum of Art (October 16).

Guitarist DAMIAN GOGGINS performs during the MusiCLE Yours Porchestra Concert at the Cozad Bates House in University Circle (October 10). Principal keyboard JOELA JONES receives The Cleveland Orchestra’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award celebrating her five-decade career, on opening night (October 14).

Credits: © Roger Mastroianni; © Rob Muller, Courtesy Cleveland Arts Prize; © Kevin Wendell; © Roger Mastroianni

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(Clockwise from below right)

Opening night bows with FRANZ WELSER-MÖST, composer JOAN TOWER , and soloist ALISA WEILERSTEIN (October 14 ).

Cleveland Orchestra Chair RICHARD K. SMUCKER , President & CEO ANDRÉ GREMILLET, and VP of Philanthropy & Advancement JANE HARGRAFT join President & CEO DR. JEHUDA REINHARZ and Chairman STEPHEN H. HOFFMAN of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation prior to the announcement of a $50 million grant (September 30). Soloist SHEKU KANNEH-MASON poses with masterclass participants JASON MA , ELEANOR POMPA , and DREW DANSBY (November 6).

WEILERSTEIN and first assistant cello RICHARD WEISS address COYO members (October 15).

Credits: © Roger Mastroianni; © Roger Mastroianni; © Roger Mastroianni; © The Cleveland Orchestra

(From far left) Composer

JOAN TOWER provides insight to COYO members on her Sixth Fanfare for the Common Woman (October 16). Cleveland Orchestra Chorus Director LISA WONG conducts a workshop at Riverside High School (October 13).

Credits: © The Cleveland Orchestra; © Dustin Franz Photography

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Coming Up in 2022 A short list of not-to-be-missed concerts coming up in 2022.

REVISITING SCHUBERT'S NINTH

On March 12, 2020, Cleveland Orchestra President & CEO André Gremillet made the decision to close Severance Music Center in anticipation of a government ban on gatherings of more than 100 people. That evening, the Orchestra performed Schubert’s Ninth Symphony as scheduled to an all-but-empty hall. With the uncertainty of the future, “the performances by this extraordinary group of musicians were perhaps as close to perfection as is possible to imagine,” Welser-Möst later wrote in an essay accompanying the recording of the closed performance.

On May 12, 14, and 20, the Orchestra and Welser-Möst revisit Schubert’s symphonic masterpiece, bringing renewed poignancy to this work two years and two months after that unforgettable performance.

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A FEAST FOR THE EARS

REFRESH FOR THE SOUL

Composer Thomas Adès wrote The Exterminating Angel Symphony based on the orchestra music from his 2016 opera, which was inspired by Luis Buñuel’s surrealist 1962 film of the same name. From March 10 to 12, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the U.S. Premiere performances of this new work, co-commissioned with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (which gave its world premiere in August 2021), Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Orquesta Nacionale de España, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Radio France; and Luzerner Sinfonie-orchester.

Religion has inspired musical invention just as music has stirred spirituality throughout human history. From March 5 to 7, Franz Welser-Möst delves into this divine relationship with a program pairing Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony with Zemlinsky’s Psalms 13 & 23. Mendelssohn wrote this symphony to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, while Zemlinksy’s Psalms for chorus and orchestra poignantly adapt the Old Testament texts to a world on the brink of war. Haydn’s Symphony No. 70, which the Orchestra will perform for the first time, is equally revelatory within this context.

THOMAS ADÈS

MASTERS OF THE MITSUKO UCHIDA

EVGENY KISSIN

Mitsuko Uchida’s long and fruitful collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra began in September 1990 with a performance of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto at the Lucerne Festival. She returns to Cleveland this February to play this piece, one of the 20th century’s great works for piano. In March, she and tenor Mark Padmore collaborate on a program of Beethoven and Schubert lieder..

Celebrated pianist Evgeny Kissin performs a solo recital in Mandel Concert Hall on Sunday, April 24.

The concert, his first at Severance in nearly 25 years, features music by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart. Earlier this year, The New York Times called Kissin “one of today’s most highly regarded pianists for the intensity and sensitivity of his interpretations.”

FEBRUARY 24 - 26 & MARCH 6

MITSUKO UCHIDA

IMOGEN COOPER MARCH 24 - 27

IMOGEN COOPER

Newly appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Imogen Cooper takes on Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22, a piece the composer wrote to showcase his own keyboard skills.

Fellow Dame and Mozart expert Jane Glover conducts the concerts, which also include Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony, Britten’s Suite on English Folk Tunes, and Vaughn Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme

by Thomas Tallis.

APRIL 24

SEVERAL OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST PIANISTS VISIT SEVERANCE MUSIC CENTER THIS WINTER AND SPRING For a full schedule of concerts and to purchase tickets, please visit clevelandorchestra.com.

EMANUEL AX APRIL 8 - 10

EMANUEL AX

A beloved figure among American pianists, Emanuel Ax spent part of the pandemic performing pop-up concerts with Yo-Yo Ma for essential workers. He joins conductor Alan Gilbert and The Cleveland Orchestra for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, the centerpiece of a fascinating program that also includes works by Lili Boulanger, Unsuk Chin, and Debussy.

Credits: (opposite) © Marco Borggreve; (this page from top) © Justin Pumfrey; © May Zircus; © Sussie Ahlburg; © Maurice jerry Beznos; TBD

EVGENY KISSIN

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Lunar I New Year Wontons

grew up in the city of Beijing at a time when bicycles were still the main form of transportation, and the “Beijing Hotel,” not even 20-stories high, was the tallest building in town. Everyone dressed in drab shades of blue, green, gray, or black. But as the New Year approached, life could get exciting. Commodities that were rare at other times of the year started filling store shelves, and kids would take turns standing in line so each family could get its share.

by Yu Yuan

First violinist Yu Yuan and her children make traditional wontons.

Yu Yuan holds the Patty and John Collinson Endowed Chair

When New Year’s Eve came, my parents invited their family-less friends over. Everyone would help make a big meal. The lady next door would make dumplings, a tradition in northern China, and my mom would make wontons. Mom is from Shanghai, in the south, where they celebrate with wontons. Whether making dumplings or wontons, both traditions fold them in the shape of a silver ingot, a type of coin used by the old dynasty, to signify abundance for the New Year.

By the time I was learning to make wontons, talking about the old tradition was strictly forbidden. But I learned how to make them from my mom just like she learned from her mom. Now I am teaching my American-born kids how to make them.

Passing down this tradition of making and eating wontons through time, history, and geography for me is a symbol of hope for a better and more peaceful future. Wishing everybody a delicious New Year!

February 1 marks the Year of the Tiger!

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LUNAR NEW YEAR WONTONS INGREDIENTS Chinese cabbage (1 large or two small heads) Approx. 1 lb. ground meat (I use pork, but any type of meat or meat substitute works here) 1 scallion 1 tsp. salt 1 Tbsp. ground ginger 1 tsp. Chinese five spice 2 Tbsp. soy sauce 3 Tbsp. rice cooking wine 1 egg, lightly beaten 1 package wonton wrappers

DIRECTIONS Shred and mince the cabbage, and slice the scallion thinly.

Mix the vegetables with the ground meat.

Add salt, spices, soy sauce, wine, and beaten egg to the filling mixture and incorporate thoroughly.

Once all the filling ingredients are well mixed, open your wonton wrapper package. Place about a rounded teaspoon of filling in the center of the wrapper. Dampen the outside edges of the wrapper with water and fold in half so that it makes the shape of a rectangle, smoothing out the dough. Crease the wonton so that the filling is toward the folded side of the crease. Take the bottom outside edges of the wrapper and join them together around the filling.

Press to seal the wonton.

To keep the wonton wrappers from drying out during assembly, place them under a dampened paper towel.

To Pan Fry: Coat the bottom of a pan with vegetable oil and put it over high heat. While it’s warming, place the wontons in the pan, making sure they don’t touch. Once the oil and wontons start sizzling, put in enough water so the wontons are about 1/3 submerged. Cover the pan immediately and let the wontons steam for about 10 minutes. Remove the lid — most, if not all of the water should have evaporated — and continue to fry until wontons are golden on the bottom. Serve with a dipping sauce of soy sauce and rice vinegar, along with optional ingredients such as chili oil, sesame oil, and garlic.

For Wonton Soup: Boil the wontons in water until fully cooked — about 3 to 5 minutes. They will float to the surface when done. Then place the cooked wontons in chicken broth seasoned with scallions or your favorite spices or herbs. I like to garnish the soup with dried seaweed.

Photos: Yu Yuan

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CURTAIN UP ON SEASON 2!

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n Focus was born out of necessity. Launched in fall 2020, it helped fulfill a need to connect, a need to make music, a need to share the hope that better days lie ahead. The results blew us all away: more than 163,000 people from over 40 countries around the world, and from all 50 states, tuned in to see The Cleveland Orchestra perform beloved favorites alongside lesser-known gems, as well as the poignant stories behind these works.

Filming was relatively easy in an empty concert hall, forced to close its doors amid ever-present dangers of a novel virus. Fortunately, health and safety protocols provided a route to reopening the hall in fall 2021. But to balance the magic of a broadcast series with the thrill of a live performance required some additions: an investment in state-of-the-art technology installed throughout the hall, a team of ingenious storytellers, and a dedicated foundation to help support these ambitious endeavors.

Over the last several months, these elements have fallen into place. Over that time cameras, production equipment, and a brand-new control room have been installed in Severance Music Center; producers Elena Park, who helped launch the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD Broadcasts, and her partner, Grammy-award winning Oded Lev-Ari, both of Lumahai Productions, have brought new eyes and fresh ideas for sharing Cleveland’s stories across platforms; and the visionary and historic support of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation has made these developments possible.

Season 2 of In Focus launches on February 4 with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leading the world premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s Vers le silence and a performance of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto by equally incisive and inspiring soloist Igor Levit. The

series continues through the ‘intense’ artistic process of Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow Bernd Richard Deutsch and Dvořák’s buoyant soundscape of the Czech countryside. American composer-conductor John Adams traces the legacy of the last half-century of American voices; and the eminence grisé of the podium, Herbert Blomstedt, shares his incomparable experience gleaned across his seven-decade career.

Too often we dismiss music as a frivolity, an unnecessary extravagance, or playful indulgence. But it has an uncanny ability to elicit our deepest emotions and touch the core of our humanity.

“Without music you start to feel sick,” Blomstedt said, reflecting on the several months when the decision of attending in-person performances took on life-or-death proportions. Conversely the act of making and sharing music invigorates us from the stimulating creation of a new work to the edifying discovery of a revisited masterpiece, along with the profound connections forged through these processes.

Opposite page: Production staff coordinate a taping from the new state-of-the-art control room at Severance Music Center.

Engineers monitor the color levels of the woodwind section.

To see how music animates and inspires us, turn to the conversation between Franz Welser-Möst and Igor Levit on page 18. Asked how music speaks to us, Welser-Möst replied, “I really believe art provides a chance break out of the routine daily life. It’s about creating a world where we can go to and have wonderful experiences.”

In Focus, Season 2, is dedicated to fostering these wonderful experiences. 

The Cleveland Orchestra is grateful for the extraordinary generosity of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation and its visionary support of Adella and In Focus Season 2.

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EPISODE

1

AFTERSILENCE The second season of In Focus launches with Music Director FRANZ WELSER-MÖST leading Brahms’s dauntingly difficult Piano Concerto No. 2 and the heralded return to Cleveland of featured pianist IGOR LEVIT. Before their reunion in Mandel Concert Hall, Welser-Möst and Levit sat down in between rehearsals at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in November to discuss their “musical crimes,” the importance of curiosity, and how music and art can move us.

Igor, this is your first time performing with The Cleveland Orchestra since your debut during the 2015 Summers@Severance series. How does it feel to be back?

IGOR LEVIT: Having worked with The Cleveland

Orchestra once before, it was a real treat. So now after such a long time and having to cancel because of COVID, it is again a real treat to be back in this magnificent hall, which the whole music world knows of. But above all, I really, really love being in the United States, and I haven’t been there for almost two years because of the pandemic. So to be there and to begin in Cleveland with you, Franz, really means a great deal. It’s a great cake with many layers and toppings.

You have collaborated many times. When did you first meet?

FWM: I think the first time we met was in Cleveland,

performing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto [during the summer of 2015]. But we have met since quite a few times and have committed musical crimes together.

It’s not very often that you find somebody who you feel is on the same wavelength. And since then, I’ve been to several of your concerts, and I always enjoyed them enormously.

IL: I can only give this admiration back. And there’s one

particular moment I will never forget. We were doing Henze’s great Tristan. It was the first time for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the first time for me.

I spent about a year loving this piece, working on this piece, swearing about this piece — I learned a whole

Igor Levit and Franz Welser-Möst discussed their upcoming Cleveland performances between rehearsals at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in November 2021.

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repertoire of new curse words just for it. We’re at the big hall at the Salzburg Festival, and I’m shaking, I’m so tense. And before you began to conduct, you gave a speech about that piece, and it was like a physiotherapist triggered the right point and suddenly, plop, it relaxed.

You’ll be performing and recording Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, can you describe your approach to this piece?

IL: The second concerto in my opinion, it’s not grim like

Brahms’s First Concerto, which is very existential, it’s really enjoyable. It’s very chamber music-like, but it also sounds like a folk dance at times. It’s sort of picturesque as if you are walking in the Austrian mountains, singing with a little yellow flower in your mouth. But it is so bloody difficult to play. So bizarrely complicated and yet refined. There is not a single moment where I can just lay back and enjoy myself.

FWM: I think it’s one of the most optimistic and

positive pieces Brahms wrote. The moment I’m really looking forward to is our first rehearsal when you hear our unbelievable principal horn [Nathanial Silberschlag]. The combination between him starting the piece followed by your entrance already puts a smile on my face. I think with this concerto, you need a chamber music quality and that’s what this Orchestra really has. They are listening. They are trying to fit with whatever you will come up with.

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This program the also features the world premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s Vers le silence.

What was the inspiration for this concert?

FWM: The entire program is really about beauty. When

you look at Abrahamsen’s score you think, ‘Oh my God, this is so difficult to figure out.’ But when you get over that hurdle, it’s actually impressionistic, beautiful music.

The great situation in Cleveland is that we have a very sophisticated audience, and they are open to the new music we put in front of them.

As ardent advocates for contemporary music, why is it important to program and commission new works?

IL: Well, if you stop being curious about anything in

FWM: I think it’s good advice not to live in the past.

And when you look at art, whatever it is, I see it today and not ten years ago or 100 years ago. For me, there’s only one difference: Is it good music or bad music.

We were fortunate in Cleveland to have had Pierre Boulez for so many years. He would never give up on putting something challenging in front of the audience.

But I think a Beethoven symphony should also be challenging. It’s not cheap entertainment.

What do you think is the key to attracting new audiences to the music you perform?

life, and especially art, then just quit your job. If living musicians and audiences stop making music and listening to music, Beethoven will sound exactly what

IL: We do need to pay more respect to the people we

it is: paper with black dots, and [it will] eventually disappear. I think it’s absolutely essential to support young musicians and composers.

language, and there are real people on the other end of the line from all different backgrounds. We can’t continue to believe that by copying and pasting concert information, you can make people buy your tickets. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s about making them feel seen, respected, and welcome. That’s the key.

There’s always this belief that people won’t follow or people are afraid of the unknown. But if you nourish the audience, build up trust month after month, year after year, you realize something very simple: Nobody is afraid of the music they’re going to hear. But people are afraid — and they are right to be — of whether they feel welcome in the hall? Do they feel seen? Do they

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feel treated with respect? That’s the hurdle we have to overcome.

are inviting to these concerts. How do we learn the language of social media? Each platform speaks its own

FWM: You know, I kept saying in Cleveland, our job is get off our high horse, get out of the ivory tower, reach out to people, and make them interested. And you know, it works.

How has the move to streaming and online broadcasts changed your approach to music making?

FWM: My philosophy in Cleveland has been: we have

a home. We have a community, and we care, first and foremost, for these people. We are The Cleveland Orchestra, named after this city where we are supported.

But for me, it was so interesting when we started streaming [video broadcasts] in Cleveland, and we saw there were people looking in from Vietnam, from countries all around the world. And it makes you think, ‘Wow, there’s somebody that far away who really is interested.’ That’s amazing. But never forget your home.

IL: And based on that, we need to learn how to use

FWM: We [musicians] are trained to read information,

which is limited to a piece of paper by a composer, and actually transform it into an experience. But I really believe that art — whether it’s beautiful paintings, poetry, music — provides a chance break out of the routine daily life. It’s about creating a world where we can go to and have wonderful experiences.

IL: Which has nothing to do with escapism. On the

contrary, it’s enriching you. It gives you strength, energy, and beauty. The other day I saw this very touching interview with the late Arthur Rubinstein who said, ‘I found that if you love life, life will love you back.’

FWM: I think he was right. 

every new thing the tech world gives us and use it purposefully, whether we like it or not. There are real people on the other end.

Both of you often make connections between our current work and the music that you play.

How do these works continue to speak to us?

IL: Never will I tell anyone before she or he experiences

the piece what they are about to hear. It is just about this very moment. I’ll never tell them what story they’re about to hear. The great [Ferruccio] Busoni called music ‘sonorous air,’ which I find so beautiful. Music speaks to us because if you open your heart, it just does.

EPISODE 1:

Aftersilence WORK S :

Hans Abrahamsen Vers le silence Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 A D E LL A B ROA DC A S T PR E M I E R E :

February 4, 2022

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EPISODE

2

BEGIN AGAIN Intensity, a powerful statement from the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow BERND RICHARD DEUTSCH receives its world premiere in a changed era.

By Amanda Angel

I

n March 2019, Bernd Richard Deutsch made his first visit to Severance Hall to attend the United States remiere of his concerto for organ and orchestra, Okeanos. The young Austrian composer had just embarked on his first season as The Cleveland Orchestra’s tenth Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow, following in the footsteps of now-internationally recognized composers, including Susan Botti, Anthony Cheung, Matthias Pintscher, and Jörg Widmann, to name a few.

This performance was the first part of the fellowship, during which the Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser- Möst, joined by eminent soloist Paul Jacobs, familiarized themselves with Deutsch’s music, often described as virtuosic, playful, and sometimes ironic. (The performance can be heard on A New Century, the Orchestra’s inaugural release on its own recording label.)

Deutsch remembers the experience: “I listened to the music with my eyes closed and experienced the sound very intensely and highly emotionalized.

Strong color impressions set in, gold, purple, bright, radiant colors, various forms of light. I memorized these impressions well and they surely influenced and inspired my music.”

This season marks the culmination of Deutsch’s fellowship, delayed one season due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the world premiere of his new work Intensity (2021), written especially for the Orchestra.

The premiere, set for Thursday, January 13, 2022, will be featured on the second episode of In Focus Season 2, Begin Again.

Deutsch defines “intensity” as “a quality or state of experience that I expect from life as well as from art in general.” This quality resonates from his music and can also be found from the way the Orchestra and Franz Welser-Most’s approach music making to how the pandemic has heightened our feelings of separation as 20 | SPOTLIGHT

well as togetherness to the artistic process. “For Franz Welser-Möst (as for me), music is a very serious matter and not just entertainment, it has a deeper meaning and is an important experience,” Deutsch said.

Born in 1977 outside of Vienna, Deutsch studied composition, piano, and bassoon, attending Vienna University of Music and Performance Arts. Since graduating in 2001, he has received a number of prizes and accolades, including Vienna’s Ernst Krenek Prize, and an Austrian state scholarship twice, second prize in the 2011 Tōru Takemitsu Composition Competition, Paul Hindemith Prize, and Australia’s Paul Louwin Prize for composition.

“We believe Mr. Deutsch will be a major figure,” said Franz Welser-Möst. “He’s in the tradition of the third Viennese school which has a lighter touch to it, but he also has a real original, personal voice in his music.”

The initial sparks of Intensity came shortly after the premiere of Okeanos, when Deutsch attended The Cleveland Orchestra’s performances at Vienna's Musikverein in May 2019. The all-Beethoven program, part of that season’s Prometheus Project, made an impression on the composer.

“The first idea [for Intensity] came to me during a performance of Beethoven’s Great Fugue in Vienna,” Deutsch recalled. “I thought immediately I should include a short moment in my piece, in which only the string section plays. A few months later I then composed such a passage in the third part of my piece.”

Intensity unfolds in three main sections, which Deutsch describes as “departure — introspection (absence) — return.” The first section opens with a trumpet signal that embarks on a “fresh start” with a buoyant mood. The second section contains the “emotional core” of the piece, manifesting an introspective intensity, which swells to an extroverted, emotional climax in the final part. Having written most of the piece in a period of self-imposed isolation just

prior to the government mandated lockdowns early in the pandemic, Deutsch finds even more emotional weight within the last section: “It seems almost prophetic in light of the past two years, and after an enforced ‘absence’ of such long dimensions, the ‘return’ becomes even more emphatic.”

Though the performance was delayed, Deutsch wasn’t tempted to revisit Intensity over the past year. “I never make alterations to my pieces when they are finished. My working process is long — and very ‘intense’,” he said. “It’s a process of constantly asking myself questions and finding the answers. When all the questions are answered, I know the piece is finished; and it remains finished, it would be almost impossible to enter that specific world again.” 

EPISODE 2:

Begin Again WORK S :

Bernd Richard Deutsch Intensity Dvořák Symphony No. 8 A D E LL A B ROA DC A S T PR E M I E R E :

March 4, 2022

BERND RICHARD DEUTSCH

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 21

EPISODE

3

JOHN ADAMS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS JOHN ADAMS curates a program exploring the ‘expressive, energetic, and expansive’ music of contemporary American composers.

By Michael Cirigliano II

A

s The Cleveland Orchestra musicians take their seats to perform John Adams’s Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, they'll encounter a curious sight. Among the many you’re accustomed to seeing, from the spry piccolos and violins down to the thunderous timpani and trombones, they'll find an upright honky-tonk piano.

A fixture of dance halls of the American South in the early 20th century, the honky-tonk piano and its tinny, out-of-tune timbre might seem a better fit for an evening of ragtime and fiddling, rather than a concert of orchestral music. But this is the work of John Adams, who for nearly half a century has been seamlessly integrating the forms and colors of

JOHN ADAMS

22 | SPOTLIGHT

19th-century European classical music with the colloquial sounds and musical stylings emblematic of the United States.

So when he refers to this concerto as “rollicking barrelhouse piano funk,” we should not be surprised to find a honky-tonk piano on the stage.

“Establishing a strong, confident repertory of American orchestral music is still a work in progress,” explained Adams, who will lead the Cleveland premiere of his concerto as part of a weekend series of concerts he conducts at Mandel Concert Hall (February 3 - 6). The program is also featured on In Focus Episode 3, Adams Through the Looking Glass. “I’ve chosen five pieces by Americans of more recent generations that I think are not only representative of the many currents afoot in our own time, but also are full of that same sense of extrovert energy and joy embodied by previous generations of American composers — like Copland, Bernstein, and Barber — who usually dominate today’s programming.”

Few composers have been fueled by more relentless energy than Steve Reich and Philip Glass, chief scribes of the musical style known as Minimalism, which they began honing in 1970s New York City. With no interest in the dissonant, microtonal music that dominated the European avant-garde since the end of World War II, Reich and Glass remained committed to tonal harmony.

Their musical rebellion lies in how they experimented with rhythm and pulse.

With this varied mix of sound worlds and compositional architectures at work, the music of Reich, inspired by African drumming, and Glass, influenced by sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, quickly became the sound of downtown New York lofts, galleries, and clubs in the 1970s and ‘80s. For Adams, that period was a watershed moment for American music.

“Masterpieces like Reich’s Drumming Music and Glass’s Einstein on the Beach brought many listeners back from the brink of giving up altogether on contemporary music,” Adams said. “Ultimately composers, performers, and listeners crave the broad emotional and sensory bandwidth that the great music of the past — and the great pop music of the present — provide.”

Growing up in rural New England with musician parents, Adams made no distinctions between high- and low-brow culture. The symphonic music of Beethoven was heard as often as big band and swing music, Americana songs, and Broadway musicals in the Adams

house. But when Adams arrived as a freshman Harvard University, having such a wide array of musical tastes — including budding interests in the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix — proved at odds with Harvard’s faculty, who preached a strict musical austerity that left no room for displays of emotion.

For a composer like Adams, who believes “music is above and beyond everything the art of communicating feeling,” that overly intellectual, anti-expressive approach to music just wouldn’t cut it.

Seeking to create works that are not only melodic and tonal but emotionally stimulating, Adams added to Minimalism’s rhythmic drive the vast forms and orchestrations developed in the late 19th century by Wagner, Mahler, and Sibelius.

And he sprinkled in a healthy dose of American wit starting with the titles of his works. One of Adams’s breakthrough orchestral works, Harmonielehre — a reference to Arnold Schoenberg’s ponderous 1911 music theory textbook — cheekily marries the Romanticism that Schoenberg renounced with fresh, innovative principles of Minimalism.

Adam’s sense of humor and combining of musical influences is also on display in his most recent piano concerto, Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (a statement attributed to Martin Luther). It calls for orchestra as large as one demanded by a Mahler symphony and follows the standard fast-slow-fast form of a Mozart piano concerto. Yet the swagger of the piece is quintessentially American. Marked “gritty, funky” at its opening, the concerto moves seamlessly among elements of gospel, jazz, blues, and swing over the course of its 25 minutes.

STEVEN REICH

The presence of such distinctly American idioms is a signature of Adams’s approach to composition is surprisingly inspired by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.

“I think often of Bartók, who used the folk music of his native Hungary and Romania as the basis for works 

PHILIP GLASS

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 23

of astonishing originality and vivid musical imagery.

I’ve tried to do a similar thing with my music. Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? uses tropes that come from my experience of listening to all kinds of American piano music, but it is not imitative of those styles. Rather, it integrates them into my own language, in much the same way (and hopefully as successfully) as Bartók did.”

Reshaping established musical styles to fit a composer’s personal voice is by no means a new concept, but certainly one Adams has championed in his music — and one that today’s younger composers seem to relish. “I’ve spent more than fifty years performing, premiering, and commissioning music from young composers,” Adams said. “Over that time I’ve witnessed a refreshing change away from concerns with style — writing twelve-tone or ‘neo-Romantic’ music, or following John Cage or Elliott Carter — to the current scene, in which composers are more concerned with the communicative power of music.

“When I was a student in 1970, the model was not to care about your audience — but the younger generation, as we hear in the music by Gabriella Smith and Carlos Simon, seems completely liberated from those counterproductive obsessions. Their music is expressive, energetic, and expansive.”

GABRIELLA SMITH

CARLOS SIMON

24 | SPOTLIGHT

Smith and Simon forge connections with their audiences through works that bring diverse new perspectives and experiences to the legacy of classical composition in the United States and speak to social issues outside of the concert hall. In other words, they’re writing the music of right now.

For Smith, an environmentalist with a deep interest in biodiversity and the health of our ecosystem, shining a light on the climate crisis is critical to her work. Her Requiem for string quartet and vocal octet, for example, doesn’t follow the text of the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead; instead, the singers intone the scientific (Latin) names of

every species that has become extinct in thelast 100 years. And Tumblebird Contrails, featured in episode 3 of In Focus, was inspired by the hallucinatory sounds of the Pacific Ocean she experienced while backpacking in Point Reyes in northern California. Embedded in the beauty and exuberant energy of her music is an appeal to the audience for awareness — and action.

Simon’s music similarly speaks to matters both individual and universal, inspired by the forms and harmonic vocabularies of European classical music.

Works like This Land and Warmth from Other Sons explore ideas of immigration, migration, and what it means to call a place “home.” His Elegy for string ensemble speaks to the systemic violence against Black bodies in the U.S., honoring the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner with musical language reminiscent of Richard Strauss’s mournful Metamorphosen. And the work featured in this episode, Fate Now Conquers, uses the harmonic structure of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as the foundation for a meditation on fate and the human capacity to prevail.

With a kaleidoscopic range of sounds, perspectives, and experiences represented, Adams is not only presenting a concert, but a proposal of the state of classical composition in the United States.

He presents American composers eager to look for inspiration both within and well beyond their country’s physical borders; new voices forging distinct paths of musical expression that balance respect for certain established forms while rebelling against others. And we realize that the development of American classical music mirrors the nearly 250-year development of the United States itself: an expansive, ever-evolving cultural experiment, and therefore always a work in progress.  EPISODE 3:

John Adams Through the Looking Glass WORK S :

Steve Reich Three Movements for Orchestra Gabriella Smith Tumblebird Contrails Carlos Simon Fate Now Conquers Philip Glass Façades from Glassworks John Adams Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?

A D E LL A B ROA DC A S T PR E M I E R E :

April 1, 2022

You’ll love this convenient way to keep the music playing year-round Stand Partners are a group of music-loving friends who donate monthly to the Orchestra. It’s an easy, convenient way to support the music: Just set your gift and forget it, and you’ll keep the music playing year-round.

We call the Orchestra’s monthly givers Stand Partners because you’re always there for the music.

Just like the musicians onstage who share a stand with a partner, monthly givers are a key part of the team that makes the music happen.

Plus, becoming a Stand Partner unlocks one-of-akind gifts just for you!

Make your New Year’s resolution for music, and become a Stand Partner!

• • • •

Visit clevelandorchestra.com/standpartner Call Donor Services at 216-456-8400 Scan the QR code with your smartphone camera Or return the envelope in your magazine!

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Special Gifts for Stand Partners At $10/month, you’ll get our exclusive “Stand for Music” tote bag to carry your Orchestra pride around town.

At $25/month, you’ll receive a subscription to the Orchestra’s streaming platform Adella (plus a tote!).

At $100/month, you’ll receive the Orchestra’s newest recording featuring the music of Schnittke and Prokofiev (plus Adella and a tote!).

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 25

EPISODE

4

AN ENDURING SAGE This February, HERBERT BLOMSTEDT returns to Severance for a program featuring two towering symphonies: Nielsen’s Fourth and Beethoven Fifth. At 94, Blomstedt is an authority on both of these composers. In fact, he made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in 2006, conducting a program of Nielsen’s Fifth and Beethoven’s Fourth.

Here, he considers these works anew, their similarities, and the special role the timpani plays in both.

By Herbert Blomstedt

E

very time we perform a classical work that we’ve played many times, it is new. It can never be the same. It’s like making bread, it will always be a little bit different, and music has, of course, an infinite number of possibilities or variations, and we musicians must decide among them. When you are young, you may follow your teacher’s advice, or admire a version by Arturo Toscanini or Wilhelm Furtwängler. But at some point in your career, you have to make the decision yourself.

But here is the dilemma of the conductor: should they do what their teacher, or Furtwängler, or another person they admire wants? Or should they do what Beethoven wants? As a conductor, I think I have the responsibility to do what the composer wants, to be his advocate.

There are many ways of handling the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, for example. To come to a decision you have to have studied a great deal, you have to have a sure musical instinct, but above all you have to respect the composer. That is your first duty.

If you find a composer impossible, don’t play him. If you find him strange, don’t change him, change yourself. We should be ready to change ourselves and not to change the composer because we like it better.

I often put Nielsen together with Beethoven because both composers present very strong arguments in their music with definite ideas of what they want to accomplish. Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony have many details in common, one being that they both end in triumph. But

26 | SPOTLIGHT

Beethoven’s symphony starts with a problem that has to be solved. Nielsen, instead, starts with a point that he arrives at, full-circle, at the end.

The title of Nielsen’s symphony is “The Inextinguishable,” but it’s not program music, it’s absolute music like a Beethoven symphony. It illustrates the unquenchable will to live, which we see in nature.

What seems to die down in winter comes back in spring with even more force. This quality can also be said of music. You may think that we don’t need music, but if you live without any music, for some time, you can start to feel ill – not just musicians. So this symphony is also illustration of how we need music, which I find very fitting in these special times.

Another interesting parallel is that timpani play important roles in both symphonies. In Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the timpani has the leading role for a whole minute. He plays only one note, but to have the right character and maintain that dramatic tension over that time can be extremely difficult. Nielsen goes several steps further in his Fourth Symphony, having two timpani players. They are like rivals; they inspire each other, but they are also fighting each other and draw the entire orchestra into this battle.

A footnote in Nielsen’s score says that the first timpani player should play all four movements from the back of orchestra in the center. The second timpanist should sit in front, near the first violins and close to the audience. The second sits there for about half an hour doing nothing until, suddenly, he starts a war with the first timpani in the final movement.

HERBERT BLOMSTEDT

There is certainly meaning behind these instructions because the second timpani has an important role to play as part of the public. He reacts to the orchestra behind him as the audience reacts to the music they are listing to in front of them. (Four acoustical reasons in our hall we put the two timpanists in opposite corners in the back of the stage, and on raised platforms so you can see them well.) At its core, all classical music is about involving the public as listeners in this musical argument, and with this participation, the music reaches its goal. 

In addition to the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, The Cleveland Orchestra’s Digital Concert Hall is made possible with generous support from:

EPISODE 2:

Herbert Blomstedt, An Enduring Sage WORK S :

Nielsen Symphony No. 4 (“The Inextinguishable”) Beethoven Symphony No. 5 A D E LL A B ROA DC A S T PR E M I E R E :

May 6, 2022

SEASON PRESENTING SPONSOR

The J.M Smucker Company PRESENTING SPONSOR

Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. DIGITAL & SEASON SPONSORS

Ohio CAT, Jones Day Foundation, and Medical Mutual DIGITAL SPONSORS

Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation and Mr. Yuval Brisker

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 27

IN PERFORMANCE | MAY 21, 26, 29

the complete opera

based on the play by…

William Shakespeare

composed by

Giuseppe Verdi

INSPIRED

1564–1616

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PERFORMED THE U.S. PREMIERE IN 1935

1813–1901

Lady Macbeth of Mtensk

by Nikolai Leskov BECAME OPERA BY

1906–1975

1819–1892

1770–1850

MENTOR OF

INSPIRED

Sofia Gubaidulina

ulina’s The Light of the End – 2003

Jüri Reinvere

o ba i d

b. 1931 Light and Darkness, (1976) written one year after Shostakovich’s death

1910–1981

Charles Ives

INSPIRED

When Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloomed

William Wordsworth

Dmitri Shostakovich

Walt Whitman

1874–1954 “a -Walt Whitman of sound”

TAUGHT BY FAURÉ

— biographer Jan Swafford

Philip Glass b. 1937

George Walker 1922–2018

STUDENTS OF

Nadia Boulanger

B o s to n S y

o

STUDIED WITH

28 | SPOTLIGHT

c

ed G

ion

iss

O

om

h mp

ny

m

rc

commissioned and premiered Walker’s Lilacs (1996) based on Wordsworth’s poem

he

st

ra

1887–1979

b. 1971 Set Wordsworth's poetry to music for Norilsk, the Daffodils (2012)

PARTNER OF MENOTTI

Samuel Barber Toccata Festiva (1960) commissioned

by Mary Curtis Zimbalist of the Curtis Institute

Rosario Scalero 1870–1954 A T Curtis Insitute

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Michael König, tenor (Otello) Tamara Wilson, soprano (Desdemona) Christopher Maltman, baritone (Iago) Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano (Emilia) Pene Pati, tenor (Cassio) Cleveland Orchestra Chorus

JEALOUSLY, REVENGE, BETRAYAL, AND MURDER. Verdi’s opera Otello,

based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, grabs the audience by its throat from the opening tempest to chilling conclusion. This May, Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads an illuminating journey into Verdi’s heart of darkness, joined by an international cast of singers and The Cleveland Orchestra.

libretto by

Arrigo Boito 1842–1918 1894 PARIS PREMIERE CONDUCTED

BY PAUL TAFFANEL

An astounding integration of literary inspiration, musical genius, and devastating theatricality, Verdi’s Otello was proclaimed an instant masterpiece following its 1887 premiere in Milan. The New York Times reported: “After the curtain dropped on the final scene Verdi received an ovation. The demonstrations were surprising in their excessive enthusiasm.

All the gentlemen and ladies were standing, swinging hats and handkerchiefs and crying loudly, ‘Viva Verdi!’” Other accounts described the composer’s twenty curtain calls that night.

(1844-1908)

Boito wrote La Gioconda with Ponchielli in 1876

Amilcare Ponchielli TEACHER OF

1834–1886

Giacomo Puccini

GABRIEL FAURÉ

(1845-1924)

TAFFANEL’S COLLEAGUE

INSPIRED

1858–1924

ANNOINTED “HEIR” TO VERDI

BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW IN 1894

Gian Carlo Menotti 1911–2007

Inspired by the opera’s themes, two related programs will be presented by the Orchestra on May 27 and 28. Each one highlights composers who have courageously charted their own artistic paths with little allegiance to convention. How do these themes filter through generations? We plotted out the connections between the opera Otello and the creative minds behind it, tracing its lineage to the seven maverick 20th- and 21st-century composers whose works are featured in this pair of concerts.

Also taking place this May are two more events with connections to The Cleveland Orchestra’s presentation of Otello: American Moor by Keith Hamilton Cobb presented by Karamu House | May 5 - 29

STUDIED AT MILAN’S VERDI CONSERVATORY

Cobb’s 2013 play centers around a Black actor auditioning for the title role in a production of the play Othello, overseen by a white director. A poetic exploration of Shakespeare, race, and America, the work distills the experience of Black men in the U.S. through the metaphor of the character, Othello. More information is at karamuhouse.org.

Art Song Festival at Cleveland Institute of Music | May 23 - 28 Tamara Wilson, who stars as Desdemona in Otello, is a highlight at this annual festival honoring the vocal repertoire outside the opera house. A series of recitals and master classes will take place at Cleveland Institute of Music. Find out more at artsongfest.com. 

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 29

MUSIC’S MANY VOICES

This March The Cleveland Orchestra celebrates the diversity and richness of symphonic music and those who write it through its Education Concert series.

C

leveland Orchestra Education Concerts have introduced more than

“The language of music is common to all generations and nations; it is understood by everybody, since it is understood with the heart.”

GIOACHINO ROSSINI Overture to William Tell 1792 - 1868 | Italy Wrote 39 operas, among other musical works.

The most successful Italian composer of his generation.

Retired after writing William Tell, at the age of 38.

4 million students to live orchestral music in the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Concert Hall in historic Severance. This year’s

concerts for students in grades 3 to 5 feature and amplify classical music’s many voices, and include repertoire by composers of many cultures, races, and genders.

“Our goal in this program is not to separate non-European composers and celebrate them on just one day. They are part of the canon, along with Rossini and John Williams,” says Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Vinay Parameswaran, who will lead the performances. “There is so much amazing music written for the symphonic orchestra, and we wanted to highlight the diversity that is in classical music.”

The eight composers on this program represent the broad reach of orchestral music and the cultures it embodies. In addition to their powerful musical statements, they also eloquently expressed their thoughts about the nature of music.

“THEIR VOICES CAN AND 30 | SPOTLIGHT

“I don’t think it is good for the world of music to have everything come out of the same mold. God didn’t place only roses on Earth, or only lilies or only violets. He put flowers of many sorts and many colors here, the beauty of each enhancing that of the others.”

WILLIAM GRANT STILL Movement 3 from Symphony No.1 (“Afro-American”) 1895 - 1978 | USA Studied at Wilberforce University and Oberlin College in Ohi.o First Black American composer to have a work performed by a major U.S. orchestra.

First Black conductor to lead a major U.S. Orchestra.

“So much the better if our tradition is richer and multiple, deriving from native as well as Western culture. We are just as much the owners of our ancestral Tlacuilos as we are of our Florentine Renaissance grandfathers. To circumscribe ourselves, to fix on one thing or the other, is to impoverish ourselves.”

CARLOS CHÁVEZ Symphony No.2 (“Sinfonia India”), excerpt 1899 - 1978 | Mexico Trained as a pianist, he was mostly self-taught as a composer.

A conductor as well, he was an ardent supporter of fellow North American composers.

“My job as a composer is to create environments where people...can be heard, where their personal experience can inform others directly, and where the warmth of a personal relationship can be built.... For me, the most fulfilling experience is writing music directly for and with [these] people....

They perform my work, and they are in the audience. I am just the facilitator: their voices can and should always speak louder than mine. Because when all the stakeholders are at the table, when they are engaged in artistic creation with one another, that is a place where the dialogue can begin.”

REENA ESMAIL Movement 3, “Testament,” from Vishwas b. 1983 | India/USA 2020 - 21 Composer in Residence at Seattle Symphony.

Received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India.

Currently artistic director of Shastra, an organization connecting music traditions of India with the West. 

Aaron Copland called him “one of the first authentic signs of a New World with its own new music.”

SHOULD ALWAYS SPEAK LOUDER THAN MINE” – Reena Esmail WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 31

MUSIC’S MANY VOICES “Afrocuban music has everything needed to definitely triumph in the symphonic genre which in turn would profit greatly by incorporating this rich and fluid vein. …

Afrocuban music is the largest, strongest and most balanced inspiration in the new music of Cuba.”

“Folk songs reflect the life, culture, and soul of a civilization. I grew up in China and have always had a fondness for Chinese folk songs. China has more than fifty ethnic groups, each with its own culture, traditions, and folk songs....I plan over the years to compile and set folk tunes from various parts of China into Western orchestral form.

The goal is not only to preserve and renew the original folk songs, but also to transform them into new pieces of art that also contain organic originality.”

HUANG RUO ALEJANDRO GARCÍA CATURLA Movement 1, “Danza del Tambor,” from Tres Danzas Cubanas 1906 - 1940 | Cuba Helped found the Afro-cubanismo movement in his native Cuba.

Studied composition under renowned French teacher Nadia Boulanger.

A lawyer who became a judge, García Caturla was shot and killed at 34 by a man he was about to sentence.

32 | SPOTLIGHT

Flower Drum Song from Feng Yang b. 1979 | China/USA Began learning piano and composition at the age of 6 from his father, who is also a composer Selected to be a Young Leader Fellow by the National Committee on United States China Relations in 2006.

Currently artistic director and conductor of Ensemble FIRE (Future In Reverse)

“There are no more folk melodic or rhythmic cells, nor is there any symbolism.

There are, however, constant Argentine elements, such as strong, obsessive rhythms and meditative adagios suggesting the quietness of the Pampas; magic, mysterious sounds reminding us of the cryptic nature of the country.”

ALBERTO GINASTERA Malambo from Four Dances from Estancia Danza 1916 - 1983 | Argentina Won Argentina’s National Prize in 1940 for his ballet Panambi.

Grouped his work into three periods: objective nationalism, subjective nationalism and Neo-expressionism.

Spent the latter part of his life in Geneva, having fallen out of grace with the Argentine government.

JOHN WILLIAMS “Harry’s Wondrous World” from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone b. 1932 | USA Has composed the scores of more than 100 films over a 40-year career, garnering 50 Oscar nominations (he won five).

Succeeded legendary conductor Arthur Fielder as music director of the Boston Pops.

Has written works for the concert stage, including a trumpet concerto for The Cleveland Orchestra and principal trumpet Michael Sachs, which premiered in 1996.

“MUSIC IS THERE FOR EVERYBODY. IT’S A RIVER WE CAN ALL PUT OUR CUPS INTO AND DRINK IT AND BE SUSTAINED BY IT.” The Cleveland Orchestra's Education Series Concerts, Music's Many Voices, take place March 16 to 18. For more information on live performances for school and families, as well as digital education programs, visit clevelandorchestra.com/education

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 33

Orchestra News ORCHESTRA RECEIVES TRANSFORMATIONAL GIFT

On September 30, two weeks before opening night of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2021–22 season, staff and musicians of gathered before a late-morning rehearsal. As the organization celebrated the start of indoor public performances after the longest hiatus in the Orchestra’s

(above left to right) Cleveland Orchestra President & CEO André Gremillet, Dr. Richard K. Smucker, President & CEO Dr. Jehuda Reinharz and Chairman Stephen H. Hoffman of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation

history, President & CEO André Gremillet announced even more encouraging news: the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation had awarded the Orchestra a transformational grant of $50 million that will help secure the organization’s future.

Gremillet was joined by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, Orchestra Board Chair Richard K. Smucker, along with the Mandel Foundation’s President & CEO Dr. Jehuda Reinharz and Chairman Stephen H. Hoffman to inaugurate the noteworthy partnership. The grant marks the largest gift in The Cleveland Orchestra’s history; it is among the most significant gifts to a symphony orchestra; and it’s the largest single grant in the Mandel Foundation’s 68-year history.

34 | SPOTLIGHT

Said Gremillet: “This unprecedented gift lays the groundwork for The Cleveland Orchestra’s second century, supporting our long-term capacity to offer extraordinary musical performances and inspiring programs while transforming our ability to reach audiences far beyond the physical limits of our building.”

In recognition of the grant’s long-term impact, the performance space at Severance Music Center was named the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Concert Hall.

“The Foundation has made this grant because of the Mandel brothers’ deep commitment to the vitality of Cleveland and a belief in the value of the humanities to shape an enriched spirit of life. The world-class level of music of The Cleveland Orchestra is the embodiment of both, and with this gift we hope to help ensure that it will be available for generations to come,” said Reinharz.

More than $30 million of the gift is dedicated to the Orchestra’s endowment, helping to ensure its future financial stability. Other funds will support the Orchestra’s investment in digital infrastructure, allowing it to share its programs more broadly on the Adella platform; provide greater access to communities in Cleveland and around the world; and benefit the creation of an annual Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival, which will launch in spring 2023.

“As the Orchestra prepares to embark on its 104th season, we are moved and inspired by this remarkable recognition of our work,” said Welser-Möst. “The musicians and audiences will feel the benefits of the Mandel Foundation’s gift almost immediately.”

MUSIC INSPIRES  INSTALLATION AT CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART

Nine music stands align in a perfect “V” formation in artist’s Peng Wei’s installation Migrations of Memory– Wild Geese Descend on Level Sands at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Each stand presents an ink-andcolor painting facing the Chinese translation of a letter by a famous composer. Peng Wei’s work is a tribute to the vital role that music and the arts have played throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. The installation commemorates both The Cleveland Orchestra’s return to the stage and the return of several instruments in the museum’s Ralph King collection to the galleries. The exhibition will be on view in the Museum’s Clara T. Rankin Galleries of Chinese Art through May 1.

HOGWARTS AND MIDDLE EARTH COME TO BLOSSOM THIS SUMMER

The Cleveland Orchestra returns to Cuyahoga Valley National Park this summer along with an assembly of hobbits, elves, wizards, and more for the 2022 Blossom Music Festival. At the heart of the festival are presentations of two magical movie events, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in Concert (July 22–24) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Concert (August 20 & 21).

These film favorites will be shown in high definition with The

achievements will be celebrated on June 4, 2022, at Severance Music Center as part of a rescheduled Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert.”

Cleveland Orchestra performing the iconic scores live-to-picture.

The Festival kicks off July 4th weekend, featuring an Independence Day celebration with the Blossom Festival Band. Other highlights include a salute to the music of Paul Simon, an evening of Broadway hits from Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Sondheim, and Leonard Bernstein, and a selection of songs from The Sound of Music.

Among the classical offerings are British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Jahja Ling conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with soloist Daniil Trifonov.

THREE LOCAL LEADERS HONORED WITH MLK COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARDS

A pioneering activist who shines light on Ohio’s buried history, a community organization that fosters creativity while fighting prejudice, and a composer who gives voice to the underrepresented are the recipients of the 2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards.

Joan Southgate, founder of Restore Cleveland Hope, the Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, and composer, pianist, and educator Dolores White were "honored on with the award in January. Their

All three recipients use education and the arts to further the legacy of Dr. King to foster a more equitable future. Through excavating the history of Ohio’s Underground Railroad, Southgate reminds each of us of the difference one person can make in building the world we want. The Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center uses the humanities as tools to explore contemporary issues of social justice while promoting greater understanding and acceptance. White has used her musical talents as well as her voice as a woman and an African American, to contribute significantly to Cleveland’s musical life for more than 50 years.

CLEVELAND ADDRESSES BEIJING CONFERENCE

Founded in 2019, the Beijing Forum for Symphonic Music has annually provided a platform for leading organizations and figures from the field of symphony music to exchange ideas and share trends within the industry. The 2021 edition, held on November 29 and 30, was titled “Vision and Innovation for a Shared Future.”

Both Franz Welser-Möst and André Gremillet participated in the conversation virtually, joining a field of presenters that included conductors Ivan Fischer, Valery Gergiev, and Antonio Pappano, as well as institutions such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Both Cleveland leaders spoke at the end of the first day of presentations.

Gremillet addressed the Orchestra’s digital vision and the development of the Adella streaming platform.

“We need to utilize the power of technology to deepen the audience’s experience,” he said. Welser-Möst closed out the day’s presentations with discussion of his process of recruiting and evaluating new musicians to the Orchestra. “We want real team players in our orchestra,” he said.

(left center) Migrations of Memory– The Poetry and Power of Music, an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art in collaboration with contemporary Chinese artist Peng Wei, is on view through May 1, 2022.

Photography David Brichford, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

WELSER-MÖST TO CONDUCT NEW YEAR'S IN VIENNA & IL TRITTICO IN SALZBURG

Franz Welser-Most will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2023 New Year's Concert, the orchestra announced on January 1, 2023. This is the third time that Welser-Most will lead this celebrated tradition — after appearances in 2011 and 2014 — and marks his 25-year relationship with the Philharmonic. is scheduled to conduct a starstudded production of Puccini’s Il Trittico at the 2022 Salzburg Festival, it was announced Friday, December 10. The opera – composed of a trio of one-act works: Gianni Schicchi, Il Tabarro, and Suor Angelica — also features soprano Asmik Grigorian in all three pieces. Grigorian won raves for her performance of Elektra – also under the baton of Welser-Most – during the 2021 Salzburg Festival.

In addition, Welser-Möst will conduct a performance of Schubert’s Mass in E-flat major with Camarata Salzbug and the Vienna Singverein on August 15, 2022.

RECORDING PRODUCER EARNS GRAMMY NOMINATION

Elaine Martone, producer of The Cleveland Orchestra’s recording Schubert’s “The Great” and Křenek, was nominated for a 2022 Grammy in the category of Producer of the Year, Classical. This is Martone’s ninth nomination, having won four times, including Producer of the Year in 2006.

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THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA WELCOMES TWO NEW VIOLISTS

WILLIAM BENDER

Violist William Bender joined The Cleveland Orchestra the week of November 8, 2021. He previously served as assistant principal viola for London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. During that time, he regularly performed chamber music concerts as part of the Philharmonia Chamber Players and worked on new compositions through the orchestra’s Music Of Today series.

“The Cleveland Orchestra has been a singular influence in my musical life — the sound of this orchestra is the envy of any serious musician,” said Bender. “To become a part of this extraordinary sound is a tremendous honor.”

GARETH ZEHNGUT

CHARLES PAUL

Gareth Zehngut joined the viola section the week of January 3.

“Having spent all four years of high school as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, joining The Cleveland Orchestra is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream,” he said.

Prior to his Cleveland Orchestra appointment, Zehngut served as a member of the Minnesota Orchestra and San Diego Symphony viola sections. He was principal violist of the Minnesota Bach Ensemble, with whom he also appeared as soloist.

He is also brother of current Cleveland Orchestra second violin Jeffrey Zehngut.

CHARLES PAUL JOINS BASS SECTION

DEREK ZADINSKY

36 | SPOTLIGHT

Double bassist Charles Paul also joined The Cleveland Orchestra the week of January 3. He previously served as a member of the double bass section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and received numerous accolades, including first prize at the 2016 TCU International

Double Bass Competition, and was a semifinalist at the 2017 International Society of Basses Solo Competition.

“The Cleveland Orchestra has touched the lives of countless musicians and audiences around the world. I have looked up to them as an orchestral force of nature ever since I began playing,” said Paul.

“It is incredible, humbling, and an honor to join this amazing organization.”

DEREK ZADINSKY PROMOTED TO ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL BASS

This past October, Derek Zadinsky, a member of the Orchestra’s bass section since February 2012, won the position of assistant principal bass. He previously served as a section substitute during the 2011–12 season. Zadinsky was principal bass with Symphony C (formerly the Haddonfield Symphony) and performed as a substitute musician with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the New World Symphony. He has also performed as a soloist with the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

“This audition occurred 10 years to the day from the very first time I ever played with The Cleveland Orchestra!” said Zadinsky. “It has been very exciting to have this opportunity to share a stand with the legendary Max Dimoff.”

In Memoriam Please join in extending sympathy and condolences to the loved ones of these former members of the Orchestra family.

Harry Barnoff, bass for 44 seasons of service (1953 1997), died on October 18, 2021 at the age of 93. Harry was awarded scholarships to both The Juilliard School and Cleveland Institute of music. He performed with the Army Ground Forces band, Erie Symphony Orchestra, Youngstown Symphony, and New York City Opera Orchestra before being appointed by George Szell in 1953. He also taught at many schools and conservatories throughout Northeast Ohio.

Vaclav Benkovic, second violin for 33 seasons of service (1976 - 2009), died on November 10, 2021 at the age of 80. Born in Slovakia, he received a degree in performance from University of Bratislava. Vaclav performed with the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic and was assistant concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony before being appointed by Lorin Maazel.

“Cleveland was my dream orchestra,” he said in a 1997 interview.

Dr. Ronald “Ronnie” H. Bell (trustee 2006 2019) died on December 23, 2021, at the age of 89.

A devoted husband, father, and grandfather, Dr. Bell had a decadeslong relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra, serving as Chair of the Annual Fund Committee and on the Planned Giving Advisory Council. He and his wife Diane “Dinny” Bell, who predeceased him, were regulars at Thursday evening concerts, sitting in Box 11. An oral surgeon, Dr. Bell was also passionate about art, music, travel, and opera.

Edward Bermetz Brandon (trustee 1987 - 2002) died on December 21, 2021 at the age of 90. Born in Davenport, Iowa, he served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. After graduating from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, he embarked on a four-decade banking career at Cleveland’s National City Bank in Cleveland where he would rise to become chairman and chief executive officer. He was predeceased by his wife Phyllis Probreck Brandon.

A cherished part of the Orchestra’s and Mandel Concert Hall’s heritage is the magnificent Norton Memorial Organ. Designed specifically for symphonic use and custom-made for Severance, the instrument was created by renowned organ builder Ernest M. Skinner in 1930 and was installed just before the hall’s opening in February 1931.

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ENDOWED CHAIRS OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA CONDUCTORS Kelvin Smith Family Music Director Elizabeth Ring and William Gwinn Mather Assistant Conductor Sidney and Doris Dworkin Assistant Conductor Frances P. and Chester C. Bolton Director of Choruses

Thank you, supporters.

FIRST VIOLINS Blossom-Lee Concertmaster Virginia M. Lindseth, PhD, First Associate Concertmaster Gretchen D. and Ward Smith Associate Concertmaster Clara G. and George P. Bickford Assistant Concertmaster Paul and Lucille Jones Drs. Paul M. and Renate H. Duchesneau Elizabeth and Leslie Kondorossy

For over a century, The Cleveland Orchestra has sought to inspire and unite people through the extraordinary power of music.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Endowment provides vital funds each season, and is a long-term investment in the institution’s future.

We share our deepest gratitude to the generous individuals who have endowed a chair in the Orchestra or established a named fund in our Endowment. Their leadership creates a legacy of music that will be shared for generations.

Harriet T. and David L. Simon Theodore Rautenberg Larry J.B. and Barbara S. Robinson Oswald and Phyllis Lerner Gilroy Patty and John Collinson Trevor and Jennie Jones Gladys B. Goetz

SECOND VIOLINS Alfred M. and Clara T. Rankin Principal James and Donna Reid Assistant Principal Patricia M. Kozerefski and Richard J. Bogomolny First Assistant Principal Dr. Jeanette Grasselli Brown and Dr. Glenn R. Brown

VIOLAS Chaillé H. and Richard B. Tullis Principal Charles M. and Janet G. Kimball First Assistant Principal Jean Wall Bennett Richard and Nancy Sneed The Morgan Sisters

CELLOS Louis D. Beaumont Principal The GAR Foundation First Assistant Principal Helen Weil Ross Assistant Principal Muriel and Noah Butkin Thomas J. and Judith Fay Gruber William P. Blair III

BASSES Clarence T. Reinberger Principal Mary E. and F. Joseph Callahan First Assistant Principal Charles Barr Memorial

HARPS Alice Chalifoux Principal Sunshine Assistant Principal

38 | SPOTLIGHT

The following supporters have generously endowed a chair in the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: Norma Battes Barbara P. and Alan S. Geismer

FLUTES Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Principal Austin B. and Ellen W. Chinn Assistant Principal Anne M. and M. Roger Clapp Piccolo

OBOES

Patience Cameron Hoskins Virginia S. Jones Memorial Anthony F. Knight Memorial Anthony T. and Patricia A. Lauria Victor C. Laughlin M.D. Memorial Daniel Majeske Memorial

Edith S. Taplin Principal Everett D. and Eugenia S. McCurdy Assistant Principal Samuel C. and Bernette K. Jaffe English Horn

CLARINETS Robert Marcellus Principal Victoire G. and Alfred M. Rankin, Jr. Second Robert R. and Vilma L. Kohn Assistant Principal Stanley L. and Eloise M. Morgan E-Flat Clarinet Myrna and James Spira Bass Clarinet

BASSOONS Louise Harkness Ingalls Principal Sandra L. Haslinger Assistant Principal

HORNS George Szell Memorial Principal Knight Foundation Associate Principal Robert B. Benyo

TRUMPETS Robert and Eunice Podis Weiskopf Principal James P. and Dolores D. Storer Assistant Principal

CORNET Mary Elizabeth and G. Robert Klein Principal

TROMBONES Gilbert W. and Louise I. Humphrey Principal Alexander and Marianna C. McAfee

TUBA Nathalie C. Spence and Nathalie S. Boswell Principal

TIMPANI Otto G. and Corinne T. Voss Principal Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Smucker

PERCUSSION Margaret Allen Ireland Principal

KEYBOARDS

VINAY PARAMESWARAN CONDUCTS THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA YOUTH ORCHESTRA

In addition, hundreds of generous donors have endowed seats at Blossom Music Center, and seats in the Mandel Concert Hall and Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance.

Rudolf Serkin Principal Marjory and Marc L. Swartzbaugh

LIBRARIAN Joe and Marlene Toot

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ENDOWED FUNDS Cleveland Orchestra Chorus Jerome and Shirley Grover Meacham Hitchcock and Family

GENERAL OPERATING endowed

ARTISTIC endowed funds support a

funds provide foundational support for all of The Cleveland Orchestra’s programs, from artistic initiatives to education and community programs, and beyond.

variety of programmatic initiatives ranging from guest artists and radio broadcasts to the all-volunteer Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and the commissioning of new works.

Art of Beauty Company, Inc. John P. Bergren and Sarah S. Evans

Artistic Excellence George Gund III Fund

Severance Hall Guest Conductors Roger and Anne Clapp James and Donna Reid

William P. Blair III Fund for Orchestral Excellence

Artistic Collaboration Joseph P. and Nancy F. Keithley

Concert Previews Dorothy Humel Hovorka

Cynthia R. Boardman and Jane R. Horvitz

Artist-in-Residence Malcolm E. Kenney

Margaret Fulton-Mueller

Young Composers Jan R. and Daniel R. Lewis

Guest Artists Kulas Foundation The Payne Fund James S. Reid Jr. Julia and Larry Pollock Family Timothy J. and Jennifer C. Smucker

Michael J. Horvitz Virginia M. and Jon A. Lindseth Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation Nancy McCann

Friday Morning Concerts Mary E. and F. Joseph Callahan Foundation Radio Broadcasts Robert and Jean Conrad Dr. Frederick S. and Priscilla Cross

American Conductors Fund Douglas Peace Handyside Holsey Gates Handyside

International Touring Frances Elizabeth Wilkinson

BLOSSOM MUSIC CENTER

EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA CHORUS

40 | SPOTLIGHT

CENTER FOR FUTURE AUDIENCES

supports programs to develop new generations of audiences for The Cleveland Orchestra.

Center for Future Audiences Maltz Family Foundation Student Audiences Alexander and Sarah Cutler

SEVERANCE MUSIC CENTER

endowed funds support maintenance of keyboard instruments and the facilities of the Orchestra’s concert home in Cleveland.

Keyboard Maintenance William R. Dew The Frederick W. and Janet P. Dorn Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Manuel Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Memorial Trust Organ D. Robert and Kathleen L. Barber Arlene and Arthur Holden Kulas Foundation Descendants of D.Z. Norton Oglebay Norton Foundation Severance Hall Preservation Severance family and friends

BLOSSOM MUSIC CENTER AND BLOSSOM FESTIVAL

endowed funds support the Orchestra’s summer performances and maintenance of Blossom Music Center.

Blossom Festival Guest Artist Dr. and Mrs. Murray M. Bett The Hershey Foundation The Payne Fund Mr. and Mrs. William C. Zekan Blossom Festival Family Concerts David E. and Jane J. Griffiths

EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY

endowed funds support programs that deepen connections to symphonic music at every age and stage of life, including music instruction, performances, and classroom resources for thousands of students and adults each year.

Education Programs Hope and Stanley I. Adelstein Kathleen L. Barber Isabelle and Ronald Brown Dr. Jeanette Grasselli Brown and Dr. Glenn R. Brown The Brown and Kunze Foundation Alice H. Cull Memorial Frank and Margaret Hyncik Junior Committee of The Cleveland Orchestra Mr. and Mrs. David T. Morgenthaler John and Sally Morley The Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund The William N. Skirball Endowment

Make Music a Part of Your Legacy Your support for the Endowment creates a long-lasting connection to The Cleveland Orchestra.

Whether you endow a chair or establish an endowed fund, your generosity is a powerful investment in classical music that will endure for years to come.

To learn more about ways to support The Cleveland Orchestra’s Endowment, contact: Justine Porter, Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving 216-231-7556 | jporter@clevelandorchestra.com

In-School Performances Alfred M. Lerner Fund Classroom Resources Charles and Marguerite C. Galanie Education Concerts Week Courtney and Marguerite Rankin Burton Jane B. Nord Education Concert Access Fund The Max Ratner Education Fund, given by the Ratner, Miller, and Shafran families and by Forest City Enterprises, Inc. Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra The George Gund Foundation Christine Gitlin Miles, in honor of Jahja Ling Jules and Ruth Vinney Touring Fund

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA YOUTH ORCHESTRA CAMP

Musical Rainbows Pysht Fund Community Programming Alex and Carol Machaskee

Landscaping and Maintenance The Bingham Foundation Emily Blossom family members and friends The GAR Foundation John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

MUSIC EXPLORERS

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 41

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

—Winston Churchill

When you create your legacy with The Cleveland Orchestra, you make world-class music a way of life in Northeast Ohio for generations to come.

Learn how you can use your assets to plan a thoughtful gift, and make a lasting connection to the music you love.

Katie Shames, JD 216-231-8006 legacy@clevelandorchestra.com

PHOTO BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

42 | SPOTLIGHT

THE HERITAGE SOCIETY The Heritage Society recognizes dedicated supporters who have entrusted their legacy with The Cleveland Orchestra by including the Orchestra in their estate plans. We extend our heartfelt gratitude for the generous support of these individuals.

Lois A. Aaron* Leonard Abrams Gay Cull Addicott Norman* and Marjorie Allison Sarah May Anderson George N. Aronoff Herbert Ascherman, Jr. Jack and Darby Ashelman Mr. and Mrs. William Winfield Baker Jack L. Barnhart The Estate of Henry and Margaret Barratt Rev. Thomas T. Baumgardner and Dr. Joan Baumgardner Fred G. and Mary W. Behm Fran and Jules Belkin Dr. Ronald and Diane Bell* Bob Bellamy Joseph P. Bennett Marie-Hélène Bernard Howard R. and Barbara Kaye Besser Dr.* and Mrs. Murray M. Bett Dr. Marie Bielefeld Raymond J. Billy (Biello) Mr. William P. Blair III Doug and Barb Bletcher Madeline & Dennis Block Trust Fund Mrs. Flora Blumenthal Mr. Richard J. Bogomolny and Ms. Patricia M. Kozerefski Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Bolton Kathryn Bondy* Ms. Katherine Bormann Loretta and Jerome Borstein* Drs. Christopher P. Brandt and Beth Brandt Sersig Mr. D. McGregor Brandt, Jr. David and Denise Brewster Robert W. Briggs Elizabeth A. Brinkman Dr. Jeanette Grasselli Brown and Dr. Glenn R. Brown* Thomas Brugger, MD Joan and Gene* Buehler Gretchen L. Burmeister Milan and Jeanne* Busta Ms. Lois L. Butler Mr.* and Mrs. William C. Butler Gregory and Karen Cada Roberta R. Calderwood* Harry and Marjorie* M. Carlson Janice L. Carlson Dr.* and Mrs. Roland D. Carlson Barbara A. Chambers, D. Ed. Dr. Gary Chottiner and Anne Poirson NancyBell Coe Kenneth S. and Deborah G. Cohen Victor J. and Ellen E. Cohn Robert and Jean* Conrad Mr.* and Mrs. Gerald A. Conway

Tom and Anita Cook The Honorable Colleen Conway Cooney and Mr. John Cooney John D. and Mary D. Corry* Dr. Dale and Susan Cowan Dr. and Mrs. Frederick S. Cross* Martha Wood Cubberley Tom and Susan Cucuzza In Memory of Walter C. and Marion J. Curtis William* and Anna Jean Cushwa Alexander M. and Sarah S. Cutler Mr.* and Mrs. Don C. Dangler Mr. and Mrs. Howard J. Danzinger Barbara Ann Davis Carol J. Davis* Charles and Mary Ann Davis William E. and Gloria P.* Dean, Jr. Mary Kay DeGrandis and Edward J. Donnelly Carolyn L. Dessin Mrs. Armand J. DiLellio James A. Dingus, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Richard C. Distad Maureen A. Doerner and Geoffrey T. White Henry and Mary* Doll Gerald and Ruth Dombcik Barbara Sterk Domski Mr.* and Mrs. Roland W. Donnem Nancy E. and Richard M. Dotson Mrs. John Drollinger Drs. Paul M.* and Renate H. Duchesneau George* and Becky Dunn Mr. and Mrs. Robert Duvin Dr. Robert E. Eckardt Paul and Peggy Edenburn Mr. and Mrs.* Alfred M. Eich, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Ramon Elias* Roger B. Ellsworth Oliver* and Mary Emerson Lois Marsh Epp Patricia Esposito C. Gordon and Kathleen A.* Ewers Patricia J. Factor Carl Falb Regis and Gayle Falinski Mrs. Mildred Fiening Gloria and Irving* Fine Joan Alice Ford Mr. and Mrs. Ralph E. Fountain* Gil* and Elle Frey Arthur* and Deanna Friedman Mr.* and Mrs. Edward H. Frost The Estate of Ms. Dawn M. Full Dr. Stephen and Nancy Gage Barbara and Peter* Galvin Mr. and Mrs. Steven B. Garfunkel Donald* and Lois Gaynor Albert I.* and Norma C. Geller Dr. Saul Genuth

John H. and Ellen P. Gerber* Frank and Louise Gerlak Dr. James E. Gibbs S. Bradley Gillaugh Mr.* and Mrs. Robert M. Ginn Fred and Holly Glock Ronald* and Carol Godes William H. Goff Mr.* and Mrs. Henry J. Goodman John and Ann Gosky In Memory of Margaret Goss Mr. Michael Gotwald Harry and Joyce Graham Elaine Harris Green Tom and Gretchen Green Anna Zak Greenfield Richard and Ann Gridley Nancy Hancock Griffith David E.* and Jane J. Griffiths Bev and Bob Grimm Candy and Brent Grover Thomas J.* and Judith Fay Gruber Henry and Komal Gulich Mr. and Mrs. David H. Gunning Mr. and Mrs. William E. Gunton Mrs. John A Hadden Jr. Richard* and Mary Louise Hahn Raymond G. Hamlin, Jr. Kathleen E. Hancock Norman C. and Donna L. Harbert Mrs. Henry Hatch (Robin Hitchcock) Nancy Hausmann Virginia and George Havens* Barbara L. Hawley and David S. Goodman Gary D. Helgesen Clyde J. Henry, Jr. Ms. M. Diane Henry Wayne and Prudence Heritage T. K.* and Faye A. Heston Fred Heupler, M.D. Mr. and Mrs.* Daniel R. High The Estate of Alvin Hinmam Bruce F. Hodgson Mary V. Hoffman Mrs. Barthold M. Holdstein* Leonard* and Lee Ann Holstein David and Nancy Hooker Thomas H. and Virginia J.* Horner Fund Patience Cameron Hoskins Elizabeth Hosmer Dr. Christine A. Hudak and Mr. Marc F. Cymes Dr. Randal N. Huff Mrs. Marguerite B. Humphrey Adria D. Humphreys* Ann E. Humphreys and Jayne E. Sisson David and Dianne Hunt Karen S. Hunt Mr. and Mrs. G. Richard Hunter



WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 43

THE HERITAGE SOCIETY continued Ruth F. Ihde Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan E. Ingersoll* Pamela and Scott Isquick Mr. and Mrs. Donald M. Jack, Jr. Carol S. Jacobs Pamela Jacobson Milton* and Jodith Janes Allan V. Johnson E. Anne Johnson Nancy Kurfess Johnson, M.D. David and Gloria Kahan Julian and Etole Kahan David George Kanzeg Bernie and Nancy Karr Milton and Donna* Katz Nancy F. Keithley and Joseph P. Keithley Bruce* and Eleanor Kendrick Malcolm E. Kenney Mr. and Mrs. Douglas A. Kern Charles M. and Janet G. Kimball* James and Gay* Kitson Mr. Clarence E. Klaus, Jr. Fred* and Judith Klotzman Paul and Cynthia Klug Martha D. Knight Mr. and Mrs. Robert Koch Mr. Clayton Koppes Susan Korosa Margery A. Kowalski Janet L. Kramer Mr. James Krohngold Mr. and Mrs. Gregory G. Kruszka Thomas* and Barbara Kuby Eleanor* and Stephen Kushnick Mr. and Mrs. Dennis W. LaBarre James I. Lader Mr. and Mrs. David A. Lambros Mrs. Carolyn Lampl Kenneth M. Lapine and Rose E. Mills Lee and Susan Larson Charles K. László and Maureen O’Neill-László Anthony T. and Patricia Lauria Jordan R. and Jane G. Lefko Teela C. Lelyveld Mr. and Mrs. Roger J. Lerch Judy D. Levendula Dr. and Mrs. Howard Levine Bracy E. Lewis Mr. and Mrs.* Thomas A. Liederbach Rollin* and Leda Linderman Virginia M. and Jon A. Lindseth Dr.* and Mrs. William K. Littman Dr. Jack and Mrs. Jeannine Love Jeff and Maggie Love Dr. Alan and Mrs. Min Cha Lubin Linda and Saul Ludwig Kate Lunsford Patricia MacDonald Alex and Carol Machaskee Jerry Maddox* Mrs. H. Stephen Madsen * deceased

44 | SPOTLIGHT

Mr. and Mrs. Donald Malpass, Jr. Clement P. Marion Dr. and Mrs. Sanford E. Marovitz Mr. and Mrs. Anthony M. Martincic Kathryn A. Mates Dr. Lee Maxwell and Michael M. Prunty Alexander and Marianna* McAfee Nancy B. McCormack Mr. William C. McCoy Dorothy R. McLean James and Virginia Meil Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Meyerson* Brenda Clark Mikota Christine Gitlin Miles* Antoinette S. Miller Chuck and Chris Miller Edith and Ted Miller* Leo Minter, Jr. Mr. and Mrs.* William A. Mitchell Robert L. Moncrief Ms. Beth E. Mooney Beryl and Irv Moore Ann Jones Morgan George and Carole Morris Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Morris Mr. and Mrs. Donald W. Morrison* Susan B. Murphy Dr. and Mrs. Clyde L. Nash, Jr Deborah L. Neale Mrs. Ruth Neides* David* and Judith Newell Steve Norris and Emily Gonzales Paul and Connie Omelsky Katherine T. O’Neill The Honorable John Doyle Ong Henry Ott-Hansen Mr. J. William and Dr. Suzanne Palmer R. Neil Fisher and Ronald J. Parks Nancy* and W. Stuver Parry Dr.* and Mrs. Donald Pensiero Mr. and Mrs. Peter Pfouts* Drs. Roland Philip and Linda Sandhaus Janet K. Phillips* Elisabeth C. Plax Florence KZ Pollack Julia and Larry Pollock Richard J. Price Leonard and Heddy Rabe M. Neal Rains Dr. James and Lynne Rambasek Mrs. Alfred M. Rankin, Sr. James* and Donna Reid Mrs. Charles Ritchie Larry J.B.* and Barbara S. Robinson Margaret B. Robinson Dwight W. Robinson Janice and Roger Robinson Amy and Ken Rogat Carol Rolf and Steven Adler Margaret B. Babyak* and Phillip J. Roscoe Audra* and George Rose Dr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ross

Robert and Margo Roth Howard and Laurel Rowen Professor Alan Miles Ruben and Judge Betty Willis Ruben Marc Ruckel Michael J. and Roberta W. Rusek Florence Brewster Rutter Dr. Joseph V. Ryckman Marjorie Bell Sachs Dr. Vernon E. Sackman and Ms. Marguerite Patton* Sue Sahli Mr. and Mrs.* James A. Saks John A Salkowski Larry J. Santon Stanford and Jean B. Sarlson Dorian Sarris and Scott Ingles James Dalton Saunders Patricia J. Sawvel Ray and Kit Sawyer Alice R. Sayre In Memory of Hyman and Becky Schandler Sandra J. Schlub Ms. Marian Schluembach Robert and Betty Schmiermund Mr.* and Mrs. Richard M. Schneider Jeanette L. Schroeder Frank Schultz Carol* and Albert Schupp Lawrence M. Sears and Sally Z. Sears Roslyn S. and Ralph M. Seed Nancy F. Seeley Mr. Edward Seely* Meredith M. Seikel Reverend Sandra Selby Eric Sellen Holly Selvaggi Thomas and Ann Sepúlveda The Seven Five Fund B. Kathleen Shamp* Jill Semko Shane David Shank Helen* and Fred D. Shapiro Norma Gudin Shaw* Dr. and Mrs. William C. Sheldon John F. Shelley and Patricia Ann Burgess* Frank* and Mary Ann Sheranko Kim Sherwin Mr. and Mrs. Michael Sherwin* Reverend and Mrs. Malcolm K. Shields Mr. and Mrs. David L. Simon* Dr.* and Mrs. John A. Sims Naomi G.* and Edwin Z. Singer Lauretta Sinkosky* H. Scott Sippel and Clark T. Kurtz Ellen J. Skinner Ralph* and Phyllis Skufca Janet Hickok Slade Bartholomew Slak Drs. Charles Kent Smith and Patricia Moore Smith Mr.* and Mrs. Ward Smith Ms. Mary C. Smith

Sandra and Richey Smith Roy Smith Myrna and James Spira Barbara J. Stanford and Vincent T. Lombardo George R. and Mary B. Stark Sue Starrett and Jerry Smith Lois* and Tom Stauffer Elliott K. Stava & Susan L. Kozak Fund Saundra K. Stemen Merle and Albert Stern* Dr. Myron Bud and Helene* Stern Mr. and Mrs. John M. Stickney Dr. and Mrs. William H. Stigelman, Jr. Mr.* and Mrs. James P. Storer The Strawbridge Family Foundation/ Holly Strawbridge In Memory of Marjory Swartzbaugh Dr. Elizabeth Swenson Lorraine S. Szabo Mrs. Jean H. Taber* Norman V. Tagliaferri Nancy and Lee Tenenbaum Carol Tevis Dr. and Mrs. Friedrich Thiel Gary and Beryl Tishkoff Mr. and Mrs. William M. Toneff Joe and Marlene Toot Alleyne C. Toppin Janice and Leonard Tower Dr. and Mrs. James E. Triner William & Judith Ann Tucholsky Dorothy Ann Turick* Mr. Jack G. Ulman Robert and Marti* Vagi Robert A. Valente J. Paxton Van Sweringen* Mary Louise and Don VanDyke* Steven Vivarronda Hon. and Mrs. William F.B. Vodrey Pat and Walt* Wahlen Mrs. Clare R. Walker John and Deborah Warner Mr. and Mrs. Russell Warren Joseph F. and Dorothy L.* Wasserbauer Reverend Thomas L. Weber Lucile Weingartner Max W. Wendel William Wendling and Lynne Woodman Robert C. Weppler Paul and Suzanne Westlake Marilyn J. White Yoash and Sharon Wiener Linda R. Wilcox The Estate of Mrs. Alan H. Wilde Helen Sue* and Meredith Williams Carter and Genevieve* Wilmot Mr. Milton Wolfson* and Mrs. Miriam Shuler-Wolfson Nancy L. Wolpe Mrs. Alfred C. Woodcock Katie and Donald Woodcock Dr.* and Mrs. Henry F. Woodruff

Marilyn L. Wozniak Nancy R. Wurzel Michael and Diane Wyatt Tony and Diane Wynshaw-Boris Mary Yee Carol Yellig Libby M. Yunger William Zempolich and Beth Meany Anonymous (62)

WHY I GIVE

by Bracy Lewis, Heritage Society member I remember my first Cleveland Orchestra concert like it was yesterday. I was in high school and a friend invited me to join him at Severance. From the moment I walked in the door, I was completely in awe of the hall’s beauty – little did I know that the music would be even better!

That was just the first of many visits to Severance. The experience truly gets more meaningful each time I hear the Orchestra play.

I’ve been fortunate to sit in the same seat for 40 years, and have built something of a community in my weekly ritual of attending concerts. The people who sit on either side of me have become good friends, and our preconcert dinners and intermissions over the years have been filled with rich conversations about music and life.

I truly can’t think of a better way to spend my Saturday evenings – and that’s why I joined the Heritage Society.

I’m also passionate about seeing more people who look like me experience this incredible orchestra. As the Orchestra receives more support, its reach grows, which means more Black communities across our region will have access to this Northeast Ohio jewel.

It’s important to me that when I’m gone, my community is taken care of. And supporting the Orchestra is how I do that. It’s my hope that because of my gift, future generations will be able to have the same experience I have: a life enriched by music and the company it brings.

The Heritage Society is a group of generous individuals who have included The Cleveland Orchestra in their estate plans.

To join the Heritage Society or to learn how you can leave a lasting legacy of music, contact: Katie Shames, JD Planned Giving and Major Gifts Officer 216-231-8006 legacygiving@clevelandorchestra.com

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 45

Peter Otto holds the Virginia M. Lindseth, PhD, Chair.

Peter Otto

This March 10 to 12, first associate concertmaster Peter Otto steps into the spotlight to perform the Walton Violin Concerto.

The Walton Violin Concerto, isn’t as well-known as some other 20th century works for solo violin and orchestra. How did you first encounter it?

Were there other works that you considered when you were offered the opportunity to perform a concerto?

Peter: My first experience with it

modern concertos, so I gave [Chief Artistic and Operations Officer Mark Williams] a bunch of those.

But I also suggested Walton out of the more traditional repertoire. It’s the one piece I’ve always been really interested to play. I also wanted to play a concerto by a British composer, which I’ve never done before.

was the Jascha Heifetz recording [with Walton conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra]. In my early teens, I was obsessed with Heifetz — and then Anne Sophie Mutter, I’ve always gone back and forth between those two — but Heifetz has always been a huge inspiration. So I’ve been listening to the concerto for a long time. I actually suggested performing this piece because I’d always wanted to play it, based on the Heifetz recording.

Peter: I love crazy contemporary,

The Cleveland Orchestra, under Artur Rodziński, presented the world premiere of this concerto with Jascha Heifetz. What does it mean to be part of that legacy?

Peter: In that context, I feel very

much like a supplicant. I can’t put myself in the same line with Jascha Heifetz, but I’m incredibly

46 | SPOTLIGHT

honored. The last person to perform it with the Orchestra [in 1988] was Nigel Kennedy, whose recording I listened to a lot. It’s probably the second-most iconic recording after Heifetz. I took a lot of inspiration from both of them.

What draws you to the Walton concerto, musically?

Peter: I’m not a sentimental

player and not a sentimental person, and I think that the Walton aligns very well with my personality. It’s a little bit erratic and has these unpredictable mood changes. The themes evolve quite dramatically — one can sound beautiful and dreamlike, and then it comes back half a page later sounding haunting and almost a little bit scary.

Sometimes I’ll be playing a line,

but the orchestra suggests a totally different mood. I love that because it’s both challenging and fulfilling to be an actor and inhabit all those different roles and make them come alive.

similar, in the way that it has to be beautiful and flowy and out of nowhere you have to stick a triple axel. There’s a precision to it that I like, you have to be precise to the millimeter.

What is something that audiences should know about this work?

What other instruments have you played?

One particular thing that I love about this concerto is how Walton pays homage to his great fellow countryman, composer Edward Elgar, who wrote one of the most beloved violin concertos in the repertoire. The Elgar concerto is best-known for its giant cadenza in the last movement.

And the interesting thing is that it’s accompanied by the orchestra, which makes it actually very difficult to put together. Walton also does this at the end of his concerto, and through these composers, this has become a British trademark.

I wanted to join band in fifth or sixth grade. The school needed kids to play certain instruments, so they put a trombone in my hand, and I blew into that thing and I almost passed out! I thought ‘I can’t do it.’ So I played percussion in band instead, and that was a lot of fun. I loved percussion, I had a drum set and everything.

Peter:

What is your favorite thing about the violin?

I love the high notes. The violin has that wonderful sopranotenor register — it’s my favorite register — but it also has an incredible range. It can sound pure, it can sound like a percussion instrument, it can sound rough, but you can also play Italian bel canto [which means “sung beautifully”] on the violin. It’s just aesthetically the most appealing instrument to me, along with the harp.

Peter:

What is the most challenging aspect of it?

The violin is a bit like a high wire act. I did ice skating when I was younger and it almost feels

Peter:

Peter:

What is the best advice you can give to someone starting on violin?

Don’t give up too soon.

Violin is not like the piano. There aren’t keys that you can press and it sounds okay. It takes a good year for anyone to create a sound that’s pleasing. I started out in the Suzuki method, and began by learning how to use the bow – without violin. But I got so impatient that, without telling my teacher, I grabbed the violin and was in tears for a week because it made no sound. Nobody told me you need to put rosin on the bow to create sound. But I would say stick with it.

Don’t give up too soon. And put rosin on your bow.

Peter:

What is the best advice you’ve received as a musician?

Béla Bartók once said “Competitions are for horses, not artists.” I do understand there’s an element of competitiveness in this

Peter:

field, but you can’t let that define you. You can’t let it suck the joy out of your playing because, in the end, music is about sharing. This makes me think of another great quote, from Winston Churchill, who said that “Success is going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm.”

Where do you find inspiration outside of classical music?

Peter: I listen to a lot of pop music.

I love Lady Gaga, Madonna, too.

People who unapologetically create something so special and push the boundaries of art are always inspiring to me. It actually angers me when people look down on pop music because there are amazing artists out there who pack such a punch with their songs. Sia, for instance, is one of my favorites. I mean, there’s never been a voice like hers, and she’s come through so much trauma and is now back to ruling the world.

Aside from the Walton Concerto, what else are you looking forward to this spring?

Peter: Herbert Blomstedt is

always a highlight for me. He has a way of lighting up everybody’s life.

When he comes, he’s such an inspiration. The Orchestra musicians always joke that at 94 years old, he has more energy than all of us combined.

I am also looking forward to Otello for sure. For no particular reason. I just love opera. I’ve always loved opera. 

“I DID ICE SKATING WHEN I WAS YOUNGER AND IT [THE VIOLIN] ALMOST FEELS SIMILAR IN THE WAY THAT IT HAS TO BE BEAUTIFUL AND FLOWY AND OUT OF NOWHERE YOU HAVE TO STICK A TRIPLE AXEL.”

WINTER | SPRING 2022 | 47

FRANZ WELSER-MÖST MUSIC DIRECTOR The Musical Arts Association operating THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA SEVERANCE MUSIC CENTER 11001 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44106-1796

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