Renee Fleming Set for Cleveland Orchestra's Annual Gala

The Cleveland Orchestra announces a Gala Concert on Saturday, October 3, at 7 p.m., with soprano Renee Fleming joining Music Director Franz Welser-Most and The Cleveland Orchestra in performance. Chaired by Norma Lerner, co-chair, Nancy McCann and corporate chair, KeyBank Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Beth Mooney, the Gala Concert supports educational services that the Orchestra provides for the Northeast Ohio community. The performance will be followed by a dinner in the lobbies of Severance Hall.

The Cleveland Orchestra Gala concert program is conducted by Music Director Franz Welser-Most and features soprano Renee Fleming. The complete program is listed at the end of the release.

Gala tickets are $1,500, $1,000, and $500, including valet parking, cocktails, and premium concert and dinner seating. Concert-only tickets will be made available to Orchestra Subscribers and Donors beginning on June 25.

This year, in addition to a formal plated dinner taking place throughout the hall, The Cleveland Orchestra Gala includes an exclusive mix-and-mingle culinary experience for young professionals. Members of The Circle, the young professionals of The Cleveland Orchestra, will have pre-sale opportunity to purchase tickets before they are open to the public. A Young Professionals Gala ticket includes valet parking, pre-concert reception, concert seating, and post-concert dinner in the Severance Restaurant catered by Fire. Tickets start at $125/single and $175/couple for Circle members, or $150/single and $250/couple for non-Circle members. If you are interested in attending the Young Professionals event, please call 216-231-7558 or email ypgala@clevelandorchestra.com.

The Cleveland Orchestra serves more than 70,000 people of all ages each year with a comprehensive array of educational concerts, workshops, and instructional resources, working in partnership with hundreds of local schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and other cultural and community-based organizations. Since 1918, the Orchestra has introduced more than four million Cleveland-area school children to symphonic music. The Orchestra's all-volunteer Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Youth Chorus, and Children's Chorus, and neighborhood Music Study Groups offer extraordinary life-long learning opportunities for participants from across Northeast Ohio.

The 2014-15 season marks Franz Welser-Möst's thirteenth year as music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, with the future of this acclaimed partnership now extending into the next decade. Under his direction, the Orchestra is hailed for its continuing artistic excellence, is broadening and enhancing its community programming at home in Northeast Ohio, is presented in a series of ongoing residencies in the United States and Europe, and has re-established itself as an important operatic ensemble.

With a commitment to music education and the Northeast Ohio community, Franz Welser-Möst has taken The Cleveland Orchestra back into public schools with performances in collaboration with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. He has championed new programs, such as a community-focused Make Music! initiative and a series of "At Home" neighborhood residencies designed to bring the Orchestra and citizens together in new ways.

Under Mr. Welser-Möst's leadership, The Cleveland Orchestra has established a recurring biennial residency in Vienna at the famed Musikverein concert hall and appears regularly at Switzerland's Lucerne Festival. Together, they have also appeared in residence at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan, and at the Salzburg Festival, where a 2008 residency included five sold-out performances of a staged production of Dvo?ák's opera Rusalka. In the United States, an annual multi-week Cleveland Orch­estra residency in Florida was inaugurated in 2007 and an ongoing relationship with New York's Lincoln Center Festival began in 2011.

One of the most beloved and celebrated musical ambassadors of our time, soprano Renée Fleming captivates audiences with her sumptuous voice, consummate artistry, and compelling stage presence. At a White House ceremony in 2013, the President awarded her the National Medal of Arts, America's highest honor for an individual artist. Known as "the people's diva" and winner of the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo, she continues to grace the world's greatest opera stages and concert halls, now extending her reach to include other musical forms and media. Over the past few seasons, Renée has hosted a wide variety of television and radio broadcasts, including the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series for movie theaters and television, and Live From Lincoln Center on PBS. She brought her voice to a vast new audience in 2014, as the first classical artist to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl.

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