The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". The orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall. Its current music director is Franz Welser-Möst.
George Szell, originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. Considered one of the twentieth century's greatest conductors, he was music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and recorded much of the standard classical repertoire in Cleveland and with other orchestras.
Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor.
Severance Hall, also known as Severance Music Center, is a concert hall in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, home to the Cleveland Orchestra. Opened in 1931 to give the orchestra a permanent home, the building is named for patrons John L. Severance and his wife, Elisabeth Huntingdon DeWitt Severance. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of Cleveland’s Wade Park District.
Martin Leung is an American pianist. He plays classical music and is known as Video Game Pianist. He gained recognition for playing video game music on the piano, both in concert venues and in online videos.
Vronsky & Babin were regarded by many as one of the foremost duo-piano teams of the twentieth century. Vitya Vronsky was born in the Crimean city of Yevpatoria, Russia. Victor Babin was born in Moscow, Russia. They both died in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.
Daejin Kim is a South Korean pianist, an alumnus of the Juilliard School. He won the first prize in the 6th Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition - which is called Cleveland Competition today, in 1985. Kim is a professor of piano, the Dean of the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and the music director of the Changwon Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sergei Babayan is an Armenian-American pianist. Described by Le Devoir as a "genius", Babayan won many international competitions, including the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition in 1989 and the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in 1991. He appears as soloist with leading orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester, London Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, under such conductors as Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Tugan Sokhiev, Neeme Järvi, Rafael Payare, and David Robertson. He served as artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1992 to 2024 and currently teaches at both The Juilliard School and Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts.
Adella Prentiss Hughes was a pianist and impresaria based in Cleveland, Ohio. She is best known for founding The Cleveland Orchestra.
Yaron Kohlberg is an Israeli pianist. He won prestigious international prizes and performs regularly on major stages worldwide. Beginning in 2018, Kohlberg is the President of the Cleveland International Piano Competition.
Martina Filjak is a Croatian concert pianist.
Ran Dank is an American-Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York and teaches at the Eastman School of Music.
Antonio Pompa-Baldi is an Italian-American pianist. The first prize winner in the 1999 Cleveland International Piano Competition, Pompa-Baldi has been noted by The New York Times for his "meltingly beautiful" playing. He was also a prizewinner of the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition and the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Pompa-Baldi continues to regularly perform internationally as a recitalist, as a chamber musician, and as a concerto soloist under such conductors as Hans Graf, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Theodore Kuchar and Krzysztof Urbański. Additionally, Pompa-Baldi currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Piano at the Cleveland Institute of Music and as honorary guest professor and visiting professor at three universities in China, including the China Conservatory of Music.
George Li is an American concert pianist who was a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2016 and silver medalist of the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition.
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) is a group of 100 young musicians, selected from over 45 cities across Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Marlon Daniel is an American composer, conductor, and music director. He is known for being a specialist in the music of Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Daniel was the winner of the 2009 John and Mary Virginia Foncannon Conducting Award, and a prizewinner at the 2018 Bucharest Symphony Orchestra International Conducting Competition.
The Thomas & Evon Cooper International Competition is a piano and violin competition held annually at the Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and is one of the most prestigious competitions for young musicians in the world. It is sponsored by Thomas and Evon Cooper and is presented jointly by the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Orchestra. The competition is for young musicians 13–18 years of age and awards more than $35,000 in prize money, with a first prize of $20,000. The competition gives three finalists the opportunity to play a complete concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra. The competition debuted in the summer of 2010 with a piano competition, followed by a violin competition in 2011, and the competition alternates annually between both instruments. George Li won the first prize in the first piano competition and Sirena Huang won first in the first violin competition.
Tony Yike Yang is a Canadian-Chinese pianist.
John Long Severance was a businessman and philanthropist in Cleveland, Ohio.
William Thomas Appling was a renowned American conductor, pianist, educator and arranger. As a conductor he led the William Appling Singers & Orchestra for almost twenty-five years and conducted other choirs and musical organizations, premiering new works by many American composers. As a pianist he played under the batons of conductors including Robert Shaw, Louis Lane, and Darius Milhaud, and he was the first African American to record the complete piano music of Scott Joplin. As an educator he taught at American schools and universities including Vassar College, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music and Western Reserve Academy. He made a number of recordings as both conductor and pianist, and his choral arrangements have been performed and recorded by such prominent ensembles as Chanticleer, Cantus and Dale Warland Singers.
Zijian Wei
Evren Ozel
Giuseppe Guarrera
Martín García García 
Lovre Marušić
Byeol Kim
Nikita Mndoyants 
Dinara Klinton 
François Dumont 
Alexander Schimpf
Dmitri Levkovich
Yaron Kohlberg 
Kotaro Fukuma 
Andrius Zlabys
Özgür Aydin
Gilles Vonsattel
Per Tengstrand 
Gulnora Alimova 
Ilya Itin 
Hsin-Bei Lee
Paweł Chęciński 