Perspectivesfrom the Executive Director January 2014 On behalf of every member of The Cleveland Orchestra family, we welcome you to these first concerts of 2014. This month, Franz Welser-Möst and the Orchestra launch a multiyear exploration of the music of Johannes Brahms. His symphonies and major concertos will be performed here in Severance Hall as well as on tour, and the repertoire will be recorded for worldwide television broadcast and release on DVD. Franz and the Orchestra are working in partnership with acclaimed soloist Julia Fischer for the violin concerto and plans are being made for Yefim Bronfman to return next season for the two piano concertos. Our focus on the music of Brahms follows closely on the heels of our exploration of Bruckner symphonies recorded for television and DVD between 2006 and 2012. Those recordings, together with live performances on three continents, have brought great acclaim to the ongoing partnership between Franz and the Orchestra. Among the highlights of the Brahms focus will be a series of concerts next September in Austria pairing all four Brahms symphonies with works by Jörg Widmann, who was the Orchestra’s Lewis Young Composer Fellow in 2009-11. Widmann’s Teufel Amor is being given its American premiere performances this month at Severance Hall, January 16-18. Last month saw the Annual Meeting of the Orchestra’s non-profit governing organization, the Musical Arts Association, and the news that in 2012/13 we balanced the budget, grew the endowment, and developed a larger and younger audience. In covering these year-end results, the Plain Dealer reported that “The Cleveland Orchestra is now exactly where a thriving organization needs to be.” Much of the credit for ongoing good news accrues to the leadership and generosity of our Board of Trustees led by President Dennis W. LaBarre. I hope you will take a moment to read Dennis’s Annual Report message on pages 59 and 60 of this book, in which he details the success of the past year and looks ahead to the Orchestra’s Centennial. The Cleveland Orchestra finished 2013 strongly with record-breaking ticket sales for the Holiday Festival here at Severance Hall, and numerous expressions of support in the form of year-end philanthropic gifts. Many thanks to each and every generous donor who remembered the Orchestra as 2013 drew to a close. Our Annual Fund continues through to the end of the Orchestra’s fiscal year on June 30, with an ambitious goal of exceeding even last year’s all-time record. If you have not yet made your pledge, please consider how you might help with a new or increased gift. Thank you. I close with special congratulations and thanks to the Cleveland Foundation, which marked its one-hundredth birthday on January 2. Created as the world’s first community foundation in 1914, this non-profit philanthropic organization has helped bring focus and funding toward an evolving set of common goals, including support for the many arts groups that together create a vibrant cultural climate that each year enhances and energizes the quality of life here. Hats off to one-hundred years of commitment and success in strengthening Northeast Ohio.
Severance Hall 2013-14
Gary Hanson
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