Thu 1/15 @ 7:30PM
French composer Pierre Boulez was once one of the iconoclasts of 20th-century classical music. Inspired by the groundbreaking Olivier Messaien whose music he championed, he spend a significant portion of his early career writing controversial atonal music.
He’s also a world-famous conductor who among other things served as Musical Advisor to the Cleveland Orchestra for two years in the early ’70s and has conducted the Orchestra many times.
So it’s appropriate that the Cleveland Orchestra marks his 90th birthday (he’ll actually turn 90 in March) with a program that includes two of Boulez’s own works, Twelve Notations (for solo piano), featuring Joela Jones, who has been the Orchestra’s keyboard player for over four decades, and Notations I-VII-IV-III-II (for orchestra).
In addition, the Orchestra will play a pair of early 20th-century works that Boulez has conducted with the Orchestra: three excerpts from Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck, for which they’ll be joined by mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and members of the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, and Debussy’s Jeux, poème dansé.
To make the evening a special tribute, it will also feature videos about Boulez and his work with the Cleveland Orchestra prior to the performance of each piece.
Tickets are $29-$149.