On Friday, September 30, dancer and choreographer Maureen Fleming will kick off the museum’s 2011–2012 VIVA! & Gala performing arts series with her highly anticipated performance piece Black Madonna.

European Paintings and Sculpture Curator Jon Seydl and Cleveland Orchestra Assistant Conductor James Feddeck discuss a few works in our galleries that connect to the chamber music concert series, Italian Masterworks. This collaboration will bring The Cleveland Orchestra to play in the museum’s Gartner Auditorium for the first time. In this five-video series, the two scholars ponder the connections between the painters and composers, the meanings of the works they created, and what these works might tell us about the times in which they lived.

Israeli singer Yasmin Levy, who premiers the music of her Ladino heritage on the museum’s VIVA! & Gala Performing Arts series, is beholden to her father, ethnomusicologist Yitzhak Levy. She lost him at age one, inheriting 14 volumes of Ladino songs her father had collected from families of Sephardic or Judeo-Spanish extraction.

Get an insider’s perspective of the new season via a special video conversation with Massoud Saidpour, director of performing arts, music, and film, and Thomas M. Welsh, associate director of music. They discuss the hottest performances from October to December while also providing details about a special thank-you event for members and VIVA! & Gala season subscribers that will take place on Wednesday, October 27, following the performance of Lizt Alfonso’s Dance Cuba.

All of the greats have a legend that grows up around them. The Cleveland Museum of Art’s McMyler organ is no exception. According to G.

Award-winning performer Tanya Tagaq will bring her unique style of Inuit throat singing to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s (CMA) VIVA! & Gala performing arts series on Wednesday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m. This performance, in the museum’s newly refurbished Gartner Auditorium, marks the Cleveland debut for Tagaq, who has been described as “mind-blowing” (Time Out UK), “fiercely contemporary” (New York Times) and “remarkable” (Los Angeles Times). Inuit throat singing originated as a vocal contest between two women.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is now just a little more than a month away from reaching another exciting milestone in our building expansion and renovation project. In February, we’ll celebrate the reopening of Gartner Auditorium, ushering in a new era for our VIVA! & Gala performing arts series.