Fri 10/14 @ 8PM
There’s a new orchestra in this classical music-loving town. It’s called Orchestra 19, and it’s specializing in music of the 19th century, using instruments appropriate to the time period.
Co-founded by its music director Matt Salvaggio and general director J.c. Sherman, who specialized in playing and repairing 19th-century brass instruments, it won’t limit itself to classical music but will also tackle other genres people enjoyed during that time including band and military music and “harmonie,” a form of small-ensemble wind music played in informal settings. And of course, it will draw on the large pool of professional level musicians living and working in the area.
As its press release explains, “The ensemble will explore the instruments and performance practices of the 19th century, focusing on the balance and timbres of the period, not for authenticity, but for a 21st century audience to enjoy anew. O19, with its own inventory of wind instruments from the period, provides performance opportunities to highly qualified Northeast Ohio musicians, those who’ve invested in their own period instruments and those wishing to explore this music from a fresh perspective.”
It launches its hopefully long-lived existence with a concert at First Baptist Church in Cleveland Heights featuring some familiar composers heard in a different way. The program includes the overture “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage” by Felix Mendelssohn, two movements from Johannes Brahms’ Serenade No. 2,” a flute concerto by Joseph Schubert (with soloist John Rautenberg, retired associate principal flutist of the Cleveland Orchestra and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
Tickets are $25.