Thu 3/16-Sat 3/18 @ 7:30PM
Sun 3/19 @ 4PM
CityMusic Cleveland’s next series of shows, dubbed The Visionary Clarinet, showcases an instrument that doesn’t get a lot of attention outside of klemer circles and Benny Goodman enthusiasts.
CityMusic’s Principal clarinetist Daniel Gilbert will be featured on contemporary Jewish/Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dream and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, which unsurprisingly incorporates traditional klezmer melodies into classical music.
“The prelude and the first movement simultaneously explore two prayers in different ways: the orchestra plays the first part of the central prayer of the High Holidays — ‘We will observe the mighty holiness of this day …’ — while the clarinet dreams the motifs from ‘Our Father, Our King’,” the composer has written. “The whole first movement is a heartbeat that accelerates wildly, becoming frantic…searching for a revelation that is always out of reach.”
The orchestra will also play Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata Op. 47 in an arrangement for string orchestra. Joel Smirnoff conducts the concert, with performances Thursday at The Temple-Tifereth Israel in Beachwood; on Friday at the Lakewood Congregational Church; on Saturday a the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Slavic Village; and on Sunday at St Noel Catholic Church in Willoughby Hills.
Admission to CityMusic Cleveland concerts is free, as always.
Find out more at citymusiccleveland/the-visionary-clarinet.