This concert is sponsored by Olympic Steel, Inc.
100 Points
Mar 12
Mar 13
Mar 14
Mar 15
The Cleveland Orchestra, under the leadership of Franz Welser-Möst since 2002, is one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. Year after year, the ensemble exemplifies extraordinary artistic excellence, creative programming, and community engagement. In recent years, The New York Times has called Cleveland “the best in America” for its virtuosity, elegance of sound, variety of color, and chamber-like musical cohesion.
Founded by Adella Prentiss Hughes, the Orchestra performed its inaugural concert in December 1918. By the middle of the century, decades of growth and sustained support had turned the ensemble into one of the most admired around the world.
The past decade has seen an increasing number of young people attending concerts, bringing fresh attention to The Cleveland Orchestra’s legendary sound and committed programming. More recently, the Orchestra launched several bold digital projects, including the streaming platform Adella.live and its own recording label. Together, they have captured the Orchestra’s unique artistry and the musical achievements of the Welser-Möst and Cleveland Orchestra partnership.
The 2025–26 season marks Franz Welser-Möst’s 24th year as Music Director, a period in which The Cleveland Orchestra has earned unprecedented acclaim around the world, including a series of residencies at the Musikverein in Vienna, the first of its kind by an American orchestra, and a number of celebrated opera presentations.
Since 1918, seven music directors — Nikolai Sokoloff, Artur Rodziński, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Franz Welser-Möst — have guided and shaped the ensemble’s growth and sound. Through concerts at home and on tour, broadcasts, and a catalog of acclaimed recordings, The Cleveland Orchestra is heard today by a growing group of fans around the world.
conductor
One of the most sought-after artists of her generation, Elim Chan epitomizes modern orchestral leadership through her crystalline precision and zeal. She was principal conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra from 2019 to 2024 and principal guest conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra from 2018 to 2023.
Having made her highly acclaimed debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2023 BBC Proms, Chan conducted the orchestra again at the First Night of the Proms in 2024. Summer 2024 also saw her reunite with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, appear with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival, and make her debuts with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg at the Salzburg Festival and with the Kammerakademie Potsdam at the 2024 Beethovenfest Bonn.
Highlights of Chan’s 2024–25 season include touring projects with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and MCO Academy, her highly anticipated return to the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and her debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Other engagements include debuts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, and return appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony.
A native of Hong Kong, Chan studied at Smith College and at the University of Michigan. In 2014, she was the first female winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, enabling her to spend the 2015–16 season as assistant conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra. The following season, Chan joined the Dudamel Fellowship program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She also owes much to the support and encouragement of Bernard Haitink, whose masterclasses she attended in Lucerne in 2015.
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Principal Trumpet | Principal Cornet
Michael Sachs joined The Cleveland Orchestra as Principal Trumpet in 1988. Praised by critics for demonstrating “how brass playing can be at once heroic and lyrical” (The Plain Dealer), he is recognized internationally as a leading soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, teacher, author, and clinician. Celebrating his 38th season with the Orchestra, he is the longest-serving Principal Trumpet in the history of The Cleveland Orchestra.
Since joining The Cleveland Orchestra, Sachs has been a featured soloist on numerous occasions. Highlights include the world premiere of John Williams’s Concerto for Trumpet (written for and dedicated to Sachs), Michael Hersch’s Night Pieces, and Matthias Pintscher’s Chute d’Étoiles. Sachs was the featured soloist in the US and New York premieres of Henze’s Requiem, and most recently, he performed the world premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Concerto for Trumpet (written for and dedicated to Sachs) with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst conducting. Additional solo work has included appearances with the Houston Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His orchestral discography includes over 200 recordings with The Cleveland Orchestra and a critically acclaimed recital disc with organist Todd Wilson, Live from Severance Hall, released in 2005. His world premiere performance and recording of Aaron Jay Kernis’s Elegy for those we lost for trumpet and harp (with his wife, harpist Yolanda Kondonassis) was first seen on The Cleveland Orchestra’s Adella streaming platform and later released as a single on the Azica label in 2021.
Since 2015, Sachs has served as music director of the Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In addition to conducting the chamber orchestra, his featured performances are a staple of the festival’s annual programming. As a lead artistic administrator and performer for the National Brass Ensemble (NBE), Sachs spearheaded the NBE’s 2014 Gabrieli recording project and subsequent 2015 concert in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, as well as the 2022 NBE academy, recording, and concert at San Francisco’s Davies Hall, which included a 75-minute Wagner Ring compilation and several world premieres. NBE’s latest recording, entitled Deified, was released on the Pentatone label in 2023.
In fall 2024, Sachs joined the trumpet faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music. From 1988 until 2023, he served as chair of the brass division and head of the trumpet department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. From 2018 to 2022, Sachs was also a lecturer of trumpet at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. In addition to serving on the faculty of leading summer festivals — including the Aspen Music Festival and School, Blekinge International Brass Academy, Domaine Forget, Eastern Music Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, National Brass Symposium, National Orchestral Institute, Summer Brass Institute, and Summit Brass — Sachs regularly presents masterclasses and workshops at conservatories and major universities throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a clinician for Conn Selmer (makers of Bach trumpets). At the invitation of Georg Solti, he served as principal trumpet & instructor in the Solti Orchestral Project at Carnegie Hall. In 2023, Sachs received the International Trumpet Guild’s highest award, the ITG Honorary Award, given annually to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the art of trumpet playing through performance, teaching, publishing, research, and/or composition.
Sachs is the author of Daily Fundamentals for the Trumpet and Mahler Symphonic Works: Complete Trumpet Parts (Volumes I–III), all published by the International Music Company. His most recent projects include a new edition of The Orchestral Trumpet and Practice Sequences for The Orchestral Trumpet, both published by Theodore Presser. His newly updated versions of Ernst Sachse’s 100 Transposition Etudes for Trumpet and Wilhelm Wurm’s 120 Etudes for Trumpet are published by Carl Fischer Music. Additionally, Sachs has co-authored 14 Duets for Trumpet and Trombone with Joseph Alessi and has contributed forewords to Rafael Méndez’s Prelude to Brass Playing and The Herbert L. Clarke Collection. From 2008 to 2014, he served as editor of the column “Inside the Orchestra Section” for the International Trumpet Guild Journal. Committed to the evolution of quality equipment, Sachs was extensively involved in the acoustic design and play-testing of the Artisan line of Bach Stradivarius trumpets and the new 190 Series Bach Stradivarius B-flat and C trumpets, as well as the creation of the 25M leadpipe.
Prior to joining The Cleveland Orchestra, Sachs was a member of the Houston Symphony, where he also performed with Houston Grand Opera and served on the faculty of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. He has performed with many ensembles in New York City, including the New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New York Chamber Symphony, New York Choral Society, Boys Choir of Harlem, and Speculum Musicae. Sachs’s performances have been heard on CBS This Morning, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Heroes of Conscience concert for PBS. As a baseball fan, some of his fondest memories are of performing the National Anthem at Cleveland Guardians opening days and playoff games.
Originally from Santa Monica, California, Sachs attended UCLA, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history before continuing studies at The Juilliard School. His former teachers include Ziggy Elman, Mark Gould, Anthony Plog, and James Stamp.
For more information, please visit michaelsachs.com.
Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was a German composer and pianist whose works revolutionised classical music, bridging the Classical and Romantic eras. His compositions include nine symphonies, numerous concertos, and chamber music that remain cornerstones of Western classical music.
How wonderful that such familiar pieces as Beethoven’s Fifth — the most famous of all symphonies — still “work” in performance, 200 years after its premiere in an unheated concert hall one cold night in Vienna in December 1808. Audiences of all kinds, occasional and frequent attenders alike, still enjoy its wonders — and even those few who arrive with trepidation at hearing an old warhorse one more time are inevitably drawn to the music’s opening drama, rousing ending, and innumerable discoveries in between.
Beethoven began this symphony in 1804, soon after completing his Third, which had been nicknamed “Eroica” (Heroic). That work, which contemporary audiences felt was much too long for a symphony (clocking in at more than 45 minutes), had been created just after one of the composer’s most anguishing life experiences, as he brought himself to terms with the increasing deafness that would eventually rob him of all hearing.
After sketching the first two movements, Beethoven set it aside for more than two years while he wrote his opera Fidelio and also the lively and untroubled Fourth Symphony. He then worked diligently on the Fifth throughout 1807, while simultaneously writing another new symphony, the Sixth, given the nickname “Pastoral.” This kind of multitasking, working on several compositions at once, was a normal practice for Beethoven throughout his life, with the ideas originally intended for one work slipping across into a different work entirely.
Throughout this middle period of Beethoven’s life, the composer was routinely strapped for funds and, in 1808, he developed plans for a special evening “Akademie” concert to raise money for himself. For December 22, he was able to secure performers and Vienna’s Theater an der Wien. Rehearsals were squeezed in on the previous days. Beethoven, perhaps sensing the difficulty of finding any future workable dates for upcoming concerts, kept revising the evening’s program to include more and more music.
The concert lasted more than four hours and featured the world premieres of the Sixth and Fifth symphonies, in that order; the Fourth Piano Concerto, with Beethoven as soloist; and the Choral Fantasy, as a grand finale, assembling all of the evening’s performing forces at once. Unfortunately, the weather that night was colder than usual and the building was unheated, so while no one attending could possibly have complained about not getting their money’s worth of music, the conditions for comfortable listening and performing deteriorated as the hours passed.
From that chilly start, the Fifth Symphony’s reputation only increased, and by the end of the 19th century, it had attained its current status as a classical superstar. The association of the opening four-note motive, matching Morse code’s dot–dot–dot–dash for the letter “V,” came to be a shorthand to signify victory during World War II, pushing it further into public consciousness.
The idea that those four notes represent the composer’s mighty but victorious struggle with destiny was put into circulation by Beethoven himself, or at least by his fantasy-spinning amanuensis Anton Schindler, who reported the composer’s explanation of the opening motive as, “So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte” (roughly translated as: Thus Fate knocks at the door).
Fate struck Beethoven most cruelly in about 1802 when, still in his early 30s, he acknowledged his deafness and began the long process of coming to terms with a handicap that was less of a musical disability (it did not interfere with his ability to compose) than a social one. His standing as a virtuoso pianist with excellent connections at court was seriously threatened, and his relations with friends, and especially with women, were now forever circumscribed.
We might think that, as a composer, his reactions were far more violent than the situation warranted. The “Eroica” Symphony, the immediate product of that profound crisis, transformed the world of classical music forever. But he did not stop there. His superhuman creative energy produced great heroic works of the decade that had never been heard in music before. One colossal pathbreaking work followed another, combining unearthly beauty of invention, technical virtuosity, vastness of conception, and a radical freedom of expression and form.
Beethoven may have — privately — felt inordinately sorry for himself, but there is no self-pity in his music. Defiance, certainly, although the sense of triumph expressed in the conclusion of the Fifth Symphony is surely more than a tongue-sticking-out, I-told-you-so addressed to Fate.
Whether you choose to listen to this work with the idea of “Fate knocking at the door” (something Beethoven probably never said); as a path from darkness to light, mystery to certainty, ignorance to enlightenment; or merely a well-crafted symphony, this piece in performance is sure to take you on a worthwhile, at times familiar — yet often exhilarating — journey.
The four movements are concise and focused. The first movement is built almost entirely around the four-note opening motive — stated again and again, as foreground, then background, upside down and forward again, in unison and harmonized.
The second movement takes a graceful line and works it through various guises, almost always with a sense of expectancy underneath and bursting forth toward a stronger and stronger presence.
The third movement continues in this confident vein, only to alternate between quiet uncertainty and forthright declamations. Near the end, a section of quietly forbidding darkness leads directly into the bright sunshine and C major of the last movement. Here, at last, Beethoven revels in the major key, then develops a strong musical idea through to an unstoppable finish, repeated and extended, emphatic and ... triumphant.
— Eric Sellen
Eric Sellen is The Cleveland Orchestra’s editor emeritus. He previously was program book editor for 28 seasons.
Led by conducting sensation Elim Chan, The Cleveland Orchestra boldly answers the knock of fate in Beethoven's immortal Fifth Symphony, which opens with the most famous four notes in music. Meanwhile, the witty suite from Pulcinella shows Stravinsky at his neoclassical best, and TCO's Principal Trumpet Michael Sachs demonstrates his instrument's full melodic potential in Haydn's deliciously sunny Trumpet Concerto.
There will be a concert preview presentation one hour prior to the performance in Reinberger Chamber Hall with Michael Strasser, Professor of Musicology Emeritus, Baldwin Wallace University.
Michael Sach's performance is generously sponsored by John and Deborah Warner
Elim Chan's performance is generously sponsored by Herb and Jody Wainer.
We offer a variety of concessions before and after the concert, as well as during intermission.
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