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The Cleveland Public Library is pleased to announce a new podcast archive page on the Fine Arts and Special Collections Department portion of our site. This page features MP3 files for most of the "Music at Main" events that have been held. The next live event will take place this Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 2PM and will be held out in the Eastman Reading Garden. The library will host the Kent Shindig All-Stars (featuring some of the finest traditional musicians in northeast Ohio) performing old-time music. See the Fine Arts and Special Collections blog for more information.
This week the Cleveland Orchestra presents a fully staged production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." Conductor Franz Welser-Möst leads the orchestra in the first staged opera at Severance Hall for over 30 years. Images from this historic production can be seen here.
You may remember the hilarious gag at the end of the famous Warner Bros. cartoon "Rabbit of Seville" where Bugs Bunny drops Elmer Fudd into a huge wedding cake with the words "The Marriage of Figaro" on it. On April 1st, 2009 (April Fool's Day) at 4PM, the Cleveland Public Library Fine Arts Department will host Case Western Reserve University Associate Professor Daniel Goldmark as he presents "Tunes from the ‘Toons: Cartoon Music from Mickey Mouse to Wall-E" in the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium. This program is free and appropriate for kids of all ages and will include audio and visual examples of music in cartoons.
Two of our subscription databases, Grove Art Online and Grove Music Online, have recently been updated and given new names. Grove Art is now Oxford Art Online and is a combination of the former Grove Art Online and Oxford Art Reference. It is an extensive, authoritative online art resource available with search and browse capabilities. Users can choose to view biographies, subject entries, or images when searching or browsing. This functionality allows users greater access to the more than 23,000 subject entries, 21,000 biographies, 500,000 bibliographic citations, 40,000 image links and 5,000 images contained within Grove Art Online.
In May of 2002, President George W. Bush, by way of an official Presidential Proclamation, declared June as Black Music Month. During this month Americans are to celebrate the rich contributions made to our culture by "highlighting the enduring legacy of African-American musicians, singers, and composers." Here in Cleveland we can certainly take this idea one step further and celebrate the many fantastic contributors those of which have come from the citizens of our fair city. In previous posts (1,2,3) we highlighted several Cleveland-area African American Jazz musicians who's careers were quite successful. Listed below are those artists along with several others connected to the city of Cleveland:
Vanessa Rubin, born and raised in Cleveland, is among the finest of today's contemporary jazz singers. After working in Cleveland, she moved to New York City and released her first record for Novus in 1992. Influenced by Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, and Betty Carter, she continues to record for Telarc and perform in various venues including her Sing Dameron! The Tadd Dameron Vocal Legacy at the Kennedy Center in 2005.
Born and raised in the Greater Cleveland area, Joe Lovano has been one of the most recognizable tenor saxophone players in jazz for the last twenty years. His versatile playing style has placed him in many unique situations from the basic jazz quartet to duos, nonets, and big bands. His series of recordings for Blue Note Records have won awards from Downbeat magazine and his 52nd Street Themes was nominated for a Grammy in 2006. He has periodically returned to Cleveland to share his talent and play tribute to his roots.
Albert Ayler expanded the expressive possibilities of jazz saxophone and helped to develop the free jazz of the 1960s. Born in Cleveland, Ohio he carried his music first to Europe and then to New York City bringing the ecstasy of gospel music into jazz. He worked with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, and Sonny Rollins; his own groups included his brother Donald, Gary Peacock, Sunny Murray, Charles Tyler, and Ronald Shannon Jackson. He influenced his contemporaries like Rollins, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Pharoah Sanders, and is an influence today on younger players including David Murray, Peter Brotzmann, Ken Vandermark, and Mats Gustafsson.