PBS' Great Performances To Feature The Cleveland Orchestra's 100th Anniversary Concert

Franz Welser-Möst \ Credit: Julia Wesely

On Saturday, September 29, 2018 at Severance Hall, America’s preeminent performing arts television series Great Performances in association with ideastream will record The Cleveland Orchestra’s 100th Anniversary Gala Concert for an exclusive U.S. television broadcast on PBS slated for 2019. The broadcast is a co-production of The Cleveland Orchestra, ideastream, and THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET.

For the Anniversary Gala, Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads a program featuring pianist Lang Lang as soloist. The program offers works touching on more than a century of Viennese musical traditions with Lang Lang performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. Lang Lang made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in 2000 at Blossom Music Center and most recently performed with the Orchestra in 2014 at Severance Hall. The remainder of the concert features works by Richard and Johann Strauss, and concludes with Ravel’s viscerally cataclysmic La Valse (The Waltz), which dramatically evokes the changing artistic worlds between the 19th and 20th centuries.

The annual Gala Evening provides essential funding for The Cleveland Orchestra’s engaging education and community programs, which share the value and joy of music with people throughout Northeast Ohio. The event, which in addition to the concert, features a gala dinner, is chaired by four prominent members of the Orchestra’s board of trustees: Norma Lerner (gala chair), Nancy McCann (co-chair), Beth Mooney (corporate co-chair) and Richard K. Smucker (corporate co-chair). View details of the Gala Concert and evening, including information about tickets.

This concert marks the fourth time that The Cleveland Orchestra has been featured on the Great Performances series, most recently in 2006 when Franz Welser-Möst led the Orchestra in a Carnegie Hall Opening Night Concert. Additional appearances on the long-running series include a concert from the 1975–76 season with Lorin Maazel and a performance from 2000 conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi.