by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: two SalonEra episodes from Les Délices
•Announcements: last call for participants in a workshop led by Elliott Sharp (pictured) as part of Re:Sound festival
•Almanac: Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan
PREMIERING TODAY:
Les Délices releases not one, but two episodes of SalonEra today.
“Sancho’s Songbook” — exploring scholar, merchant, abolitionist, theater lover, and musician Charles Ignatius Sancho, who made history as the first British man of African descent to vote in a general election — will be available both as a video (premiering on YouTube at 7:30 pm) and as a podcast. Guests include countertenor Reginald Mobley and scholars Rebecca Cypess and Nicole Aljoe, with performances by bass-baritone Jonathan Woody and soprano Sonya Headlam. More details here.
Also premiering in podcast form is an episode featuring live audio from Les Délices’ recent “Seasons Transformed” program — centered around new rearrangements of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons — and insights from artistic director Debra Nagy, bassoonist Clay Zeller-Townson, and violinist Shelby Yamin. (Read Peter Feher’s review of the program here.)
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) announces a last call for participants in this Saturday’s workshop with Elliott Sharp as part of the Re:Sound festival.
The workshop, to be held on May 18 at 2:30 pm at Convivium 33, includes an overview, discussion, and lab devoted to “new conceptual approaches to time-based sound art including graphic notation, algorithmic instruction sets, non-musical models, and free improvisation.”
Participants should have some experience improvising and playing in group settings and will need to provide their own amplification, if needed. Enrollment is limited to ten people, but the session is open for all to observe. Following the workshop, participants will present a performance with Sharp during the Re:Sound concert Saturday evening at 7:30 pm, also at Convivium 33.
Interested in participating? Click here to email CUSP.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Daniel Hathaway
On May 13, 1842, British composer Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan entered the world in London. Sullivan exhibited his musical prowess early on — at the age of eight he composed his first anthem and soon after became a soloist in the boys’ choir of the Chapel Royal. At age 14 the Royal Academy of Music awarded Sullivan the first Mendelssohn Scholarship, allowing him to pursue his musical studies at the Academy as well as the Leipzig Conservatory. His early works include a ballet, a symphony, and a cello concerto, as well as some 80 popular songs, parlor ballads and hymns.
Today Sullivan is best known for his fourteen light opera collaborations with librettist William Schwenck Gilbert. This summer, recalling its roots as a summer Savoy company, Ohio Light Opera will give seven performances of The Gondoliers at The College of Wooster beginning on June 26.
In addition to providing musical undergirding for Gilbert’s penetrating satire, Sullivan wrote his own musical parodies of hallowed musical forms, like his sendup of the Renaissance madrigal in “Strange Adventure” from Yeomen of the Guard, and in some of his serious compositions reflected the spiritual crises of the Victorian era. Commentators have found his a cappella song, The Long Day Closes, to be as much of a valedictory to the 19th century as many of Mahler’s songs and symphony movements.
Photo of Elliott Sharp by Andreas Sterzing
