“Italy had the Renaissance. Cleveland had the four years from 1915 to 1918,” writes Zachary Lewis in Sunday’s (1/8) Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH). “During that historic period, four of Cleveland’s greatest cultural treasures came into being … the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Metroparks, the Cleveland Orchestra, and what would become Karamu House,” a center for African American artists. “A major milestone lies just ahead for the Cleveland Orchestra. Founded in 1918 by Adella Prentiss Hughes, the ensemble is rapidly nearing its centennial…. The group with music director Franz Welser-Möst looks forward while continuing to benefit from a legacy of great conductors and guests and a treasury of recordings, world premieres, and other honors…. Nikolai Sokoloff got the group started, handing off to Artur Rodzinski in 1933.… The group moved in 1931 from Gray’s Armory and Masonic Auditorium … to Severance Hall, its current home, a lavish and acoustically ideal gift.… Welser-Möst has presided over dramatic change. In recent years, the orchestra has set up shop in Miami, forged ties in Europe, cultivated local residencies, and overhauled its audience at home. Along with its peers from the early 20th century, the Cleveland Orchestra remains a steady source of civic pride.”
Posted January 10, 2017
Pictured: The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst at home in Severance Hall
