In Saturday’s (4/7) Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Zachary Lewis writes, “Luck appears to be on the Cleveland Orchestra’s side as it departs this week for an excursion to the West Coast. With a stop in Las Vegas on the itinerary, surely the prevalence of the number seven in the tour’s background is a good omen, a harbinger of musical success for the orchestra and music director Franz Welser-Möst.” The orchestra will perform at Davies Symphony Hall as “part of the San Francisco Symphony’s centennial celebration, a spectacular parade of the nation’s leading ensembles, each with its own music director (or, in the case of the Philadelphia Orchestra, chief conductor) and at least one work it commissioned. Cleveland occupies the middle of the series, arriving after Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles but before Philadelphia and New York. … Cleveland responded to the commission request with not one but two modern works, Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Orion’ on April 15 and the ‘Powder Her Face’ suite by Thomas Ades on Monday, April 16. … Neck and neck with the San Francisco concerts in terms of significance is the tour finale, in Las Vegas. There, on Saturday, April 21, the orchestra will appear for only the second time and go down in history as the first major orchestra to perform at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, a brand-new hall downtown. The Las Vegas Philharmonic, the resident company, has played there already.”
Posted April 9, 2012
