Our concert halls may be closed because of the pandemic, but Music in Mid-Ohio goes on!
I wrote that sentence one year ago. Here we are again. Columbus’s performance venues are slowly struggling back to life. Many of our ensembles and performing arts are sharing performances on the web. Presenting live performance is going to be a challenge for some time yet, but Music in Mid-Ohio goes on.
Sunday afternoons, I like to share what I call “performances by your friends and neighbors, given for you, and your friends and neighbors. Music in Mid-Ohio on Classical 101."
The series has been part of our yearly schedule for at least thirty-five years. That it continues is a testament to two things: The level of talent in the community, and the audience’s love for that talent.
That’s all very well, Christopher, but if no one has been able to perform how do you come up with new Music in Mid-Ohio programs?
Christopher has been trolling the internet. Christopher has been living on YouTube. Christopher has been going through boxes and files of past performances that deserve an audience.
The result? Three months of mostly new-to-broadcast performances by artists who live and work in Central Ohio.
Of course, there will be some repeats. Some performances you need to hear again. But through the spring, Music in Mid-Ohio 2021 brings you many new treats.
I won’t post a lot of samples of what I’ve found. I want you to tune in. But here’s one especially inventive performance, from Antoine Clark and the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra.
I’ll give a few hints of treasures to be heard on future broadcasts:
Pianist Ryan Behan plays Mozart sonatas. He has since left the area for a marvelous opportunity elsewhere. Go win the lottery and tempt him back. We’ll hear from the Otterbein University Concert Choir, Katharine Rhorer sings Melodies by Debussy, Miriam Burns conducts The Ohio State Symphony in music by Mozart and Wagner, and the New Albany Symphony gives us a recent performance of Hovhaness’s And God Created Great Whales.
Not forgetting concert music, as opposed to marches, by John Philip Sousa played by the Ohio Capital Winds.
Okay, here’s one more hit from the new Music in Mid-Ohio season:
The pandemic has kept people frightened and isolated. Music and the arts continue. The music has never stopped on Classical 101 and it never will.
Music in Mid-Ohio 2021, Sunday afternoons at 1 p.m. beginning April 4, will mirror a resilient and gifted community. Join us.
