Thu 7/2-Sat 8/22
Maybe you’re not thinking yet about sitting on the lawn at Blossom Music Center with your picnic basket and bottle of wine and the Cleveland Orchestra down in the pavilion playing something familiar by Beethoven or Mozart or Bach.
It’s time to start thinking. The Orchestra has just announced its 2015 summer season and Blossom lawn ticket books are already on sale.
The schedule includes some things summer Orchestra patrons have come to expect including a couple of pops concerts (tributes to the ’60s British Invasion and another to Broadway Divas), Beethoven, Mozart, Bach — and even some Tchaikovsky. Well, summer’s not the time to introduce the new and adventurous.
The Orchestra could not have picked a more familiar piece to open the Blossom Festival season on Sat 7/11: music director Franz Welser-Möst will be conducting Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
One change from the routine is that the concert won’t be the Orchestra’s first appearance out there in 2015. Instead of the Blossom Festival Band handling all of the July 4th weekend pops concerts, the Cleveland Orchestra will perform a program called “America the Beautiful” on Thu 7/2 and Fri 7/3 with conductor Thomas Wilkins making his Blossom Music Festival debut. You will not be knocked for a loop to hear that the program includes some Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein, and yes — oh come on, you didn’t think they were going to leave without playing the 1812 Overture, did you? Plus fireworks, weather permitting.
The Blossom Festival Band hasn’t been entirely sidelined from its Fourth of July duties. It will be taking the stage on the holiday itself, Sat 7/4, under the baton of its regular director Loras John Schissel, to play its usual mix of patriotic songs, Sousa marches, Broadway tunes and — Oh my, what a surprise! — the 1812 Overture. And fireworks, of course, weather permitting.
The Orchestra will take the weekend of Sat 7/18 off, when Michael Feinstein brings his big band tribute to Frank Sinatra to Blossom. But they’ll be back every weekend after that with concerts through Sat 8/22, most weekends on both Saturday and Sunday.
Despite the July 4 holiday concerts, the Orchestra will be playing fewer concerts than previous years, only 11 compared to 15 last year and 16 the previous year. So you’ll want to be sure to make your plans so the summer isn’t gone before you know it and you never had a chance to catch an Orchestra concert at Blossom.
Go here for a full schedule.
clevelandorchestra.com/blossom-music-center/
Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223