Press Release - Christmas, Beethoven, & Mambo: CityMusic Welcomes Back Stefan Willich to Conduct December Concert Series Featuring French Hornist Hans Clebsch
CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra will finish 2023 off with a festive bang with their Christmas, Beethoven, & Mambo concert series, featuring renowned conductor Stefan Willich, and The Cleveland Orchestra’s own Hans Clebsch on the French horn.
The program begins with a sweeping performance of Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in G Minor, aptly known as the Christmas Concerto. This concerto has been a staple of the season since its inception in the early 18th century. Corelli opposes a small group of soloists (violins, cello, and harpsichord) in lively counterpoint with the rest of the orchestra. After several contrasting movements, the last movement, Pastorale, depicts the scene of the Nativity.
For these concerts, CityMusic musicians and conductor Stefan Willich have a little something up their sleeves to bring a bit of heat to Cleveland this winter. Imagine if Mozart was born in Cuba— that’s the inspiration for Rondo alla Mambo and the lively title of this orchestra series! Sarah Willis created the Mozart y Mambo project which focuses on combining much-loved solo pieces for French horn by Mozart with traditional Cuban music. Described as a “Cuban interpretation of one of Mozart’s most famous melodies,” Rondo alla Mambo arranged by Joshua Davis & Yuniet Lombida and Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-Flat major will highlight soloist Hans Clebsch.
The jubilant concert ends with a sunny and cheerful performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major.
These concerts are free and open to the public, and will take place at the following venues:
Thursday, December 7 at 7:30p Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights - 2757 Fairmount Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
Friday, December 8 at 7:30p Lakewood Congregational Church in Lakewood - 1375 W Clifton Blvd, Lakewood, OH 44107
Saturday, December 9 at 7:30p Shrine of St. Stanislaus in Slavic Village - 3649 E 65th St, Cleveland, OH 44105
Sunday, December 10 at 4:00p St. Noel Catholic Church in Willoughby Hills - 35200 Chardon Rd, Willoughby Hills, OH 44094
CityMusic will return in 2024 to continue their run of their celebrated 20th season on Friday, January 12th at Praxis Fiber Workshop with a performance from a handful of their chamber musicians. This concert will include the world premiere of a String Quintet by their very own violist and 2023-2024 Diversity Fellow, Patrick Prejean.
About the Featured Musicians
Dr. Stefan Willich, Conductor
Stefan Willich is the founder and conductor of the World Doctors Orchestra (WDO). He studied violin, chamber music, and conducting in Stuttgart and Berlin, and participated in prestigious conducting workshops with Sergiu Celibidache (Munich), Leon Fleisher (Boston, Tanglewood) and Leon Barzin (Paris).
His professional path, however, took him first into medicine, where he became a highly regarded internist and epidemiologist, focusing on cardiovascular disease, prevention, health economics, integrative medicine, and music and medicine. He worked for several years at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and in 1995 was appointed Professor and Director of the Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics at the Charité University Medical Center in Berlin.
From 2012 to 2014, Stefan Willich was President of the Music Conservatory Hanns Eisler in Berlin. In 2021, he received the Alumni Award of Merit from the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the highest award for former graduates of the institution. Stefan Willich has regularly appeared as conductor, mainly in Germany, Italy, and the USA, where he is principal guest conductor of the CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra.
In 2008 he founded the World Doctors Orchestra, which has given many successful charity concerts worldwide. Particular highlights include performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Berlin for the World Health Summit (2010), Mahler's Second Symphony, “Resurrection,” in Washington D.C. to commemorate the 10th anniversary of September 11 (2011), and Mahler's Sixth Symphony in Concertgebouw Amsterdam in 2022. He has worked together with outstanding soloists including Peter Zazofsky, Sergey Khachatryan, Tanja Becker-Bender, Aida-Carmen Soanea, Tamaki Kawakubo, Wenzel Fuchs, Anja Kampe, Jeanine De Bique, Falk Struckmann, Jochen Kowalski, Alexei Lubimov, Xavier de Maistre, Emily Bear, and Evelyn Glennie, and with the Vienna Boys Choir.
A year after joining the horn section of The Cleveland Orchestra in 1996, Hans Clebsch made his Cleveland Orchestra solo debut in Schumann’s Konzertstück for Four Horns, conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi for the Orchestra’s September 1997 Opening Night Celebration at Severance Hall. Before joining The Cleveland Orchestra, Mr. Clebsch served as acting principal horn with both the Houston Ballet and Houston Grand Opera orchestras. He also served as acting associate principal horn of the Houston Symphony, as well as principal horn of the Mexico City Philharmonic. Mr. Clebsch has performed with the orchestras of Oregon and San Antonio; the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra; the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy; the Seville (Spain) Symphony Orchestra; and the Mineria Symphony Orchestra in Mexico. In 1990, he was a soloist with the Fine Arts Chamber Orchestra in Mexico City and Morelia, Michoacan, during the XII International New Music Forum.
Hans Clebsch, French Horn
A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Mr. Clebsch attended the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, the Saint Louis Conservatory of Music, and the University of Tennessee. His teachers have included Thomas Bacon, William Bommelje, Michael Hatfield, William Ver Meulen, and Roland Pandolfi.
Mr. Clebsch volunteers for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where he has been involved with a planetary biodiversity grant. He also serves on committees at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes. Mr. Clebsch lives in Shaker Heights with his wife and son.