“At last, he’s officially a Clevelander,” writes Zachary Lewis in Monday’s (10/3) Plain Dealer (Cleveland). “Franz Welser-Möst, music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, received the key to the city Saturday from Mayor Frank Jackson in a short ceremony at Severance Hall. The award, given in recognition of Welser-Möst’s work enhancing Cleveland’s reputation internationally, was the prelude to a colorful gala concert and reception celebrating the recent start of the conductor’s 10th season in Cleveland. Welser-Möst may have been the night’s main honoree, but the musical festivities were about the orchestra. Each of the five pieces on the program featured a different cast of musicians. Principal trombone Massimo La Rosa took center stage in a suave presentation of two movements from Ferdinand David’s E-Flat Concertino, while principal oboe Frank Rosenwein treated the black-tie crowd to a bubbly reading of the Allegro from Mozart’s C-Major Oboe Concerto.”
Posted October 4, 2011
