Cleveland Jazz Orchestra Celebrates Sinatra at the Coliseum and the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week

Depending on how you count them, the first full week of classical music events this month features either five, six, or seven concerts of orchestral music, one of them with a change of conductor. Enjoy the bounty!

- On Thursday at 7:30 and Sunday at 3 at Severance Music Center, guest conductor Osmo Vänskä steps in for Franz Welser-Möst on The Cleveland Orchestra’s season openers, which include a rare performance of Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto featuring Frank Peter Zimmerman, Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 (“Classical”), and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”).

- On Friday at 7:30, the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (surely a type of orchestra) makes its first appearance this season under conductor Timothy Weiss in Warner Concert Hall. On the agenda, with special contributions from Alexa Still, flute, Drew Pattison, bassoon, and the Oberlin percussion Group: George Crumb’s An Idyll of the Misbegotten, David Clay Mettens’ stain, bloom, moon, rain, and two works by composer-in-residence Augusta Read Thomas: her Bassoon Concertino & Abracadabra (Suncatchers) It’s free either in-person or live streamed.

- Same day and time, the temporarily venueless Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra visits John Hay High School Auditorium with guest conductor Anthony Parnther, for Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American”), and John Williams’ “Adventures on Earth” from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It’s free, but you’ll need to click here to reserve tickets.

- On Saturday at 7:30 in E.J. Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony will host pianist Gabriela Martinez in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and Christopher Wilkins will lead the ensemble in George Whitefield Chadwick’s Jubilee, and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3.

- Same day and hour, Oberlin alum James Feddeck guest conducts the Oberlin Orchestra in Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau” & “Šárka” from Má Vlast and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances in Finney Chapel (free and live streamed).

- Also on Saturday at half past 7, The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra inaugurates its “Pops” series with “Sinatra at the Coliseum: Celebrating 50 Years,” a musical tribute to the Richfield Coliseum’s 1974 grand opening — an event made possible by Sinatra and Cleveland’s own Nick J. Mileti. Lou Armagno is the featured vocalist at Music Box Supper Club.

- The Cleveland Chamber Music Society launches its 75th season on Tuesday at 7:30 with Chanticleer, the all-male vocal ensemble known as “an orchestra of voices.” Their program, “Music of a Silent World,” at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church celebrates the music of nature in works by Majel Connery, William Byrd, Heinrich Isaac, Robert Schumann, Tom Petty, Lawrence, and Ayanna Woods, and a gala reception follows.

- Two masters of the keyboard go head to head on Thursday at 7:30. The London-based, Siberian-born pianist Pavel Kolesnikov will present J.S. Bach’s complete “Goldberg Variations” in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Music Center, and British-born organist David Briggs, currently artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, will make the Holtkamp organ in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, sound orchestral in a program that includes Briggs’ Improvised Symphony in 4 Movements.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

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