Cornettos Charm Catacoustic Consort Audience

Posted: Dec 22, 2009 - 10:27:18 PM in: reviews_2009

Bruce Dickey

Benvenuto Cellini's father called it "that lascivious cornetto," but only because he disapproved of his son's infatuation with it. Revived in the 20th century after two centuries of neglect, this relative of both the woodwind and brass families, was the star of Catacoustic Consort's "Christmas Fanfare" December 19 at North Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati's Northside. Performing music of 17th century Italy were cornettists Bruce Dickey and Kiri Tollaksen, with Daniel Swenberg on theorbo and Catacoustic artistic director Annalisa Pappano on bass viola da gamba.
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"Messiah" in Winter: A First for the Cincinnati Symphony

Posted: Dec 21, 2009 - 10:24:14 PM in: reviews_2009

Nicholas McGegan

Handel's "Messiah" has been a creature of spring as far as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is concerned, since the May Festival, for which it is the official orchestra, has first call on the choral orchestral repertoire. The great oratorio enjoyed its CSO subscription premiere December 17-20 at Music Hall in a performance that also brought the orchestra up to date with the "historically informed" performance movement. On the podium was baroque expert Nicholas McGegan.
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Down with the Rosemary and Bays: the New VAE

Posted: Dec 15, 2009 - 12:33:32 AM in: reviews_2009

The Vocal Arts Ensemble in St. Boniface Church in Cincinnati

Donald Nally, music director of Cincinnati's professional Vocal Arts Ensemble and a ardent supporter of new music, kept the faith at the VAE's annual Christmas concert December 13 at St. Boniface Church in Northside. There was nothing composed before 1960 on the program, which included selections by eight composers, six of them living. There was even a world premiere, Benjamin C.S. Boyle's aptly titled "Down with the Rosemary" about the old English custom of taking down the Christmas greens on the Eve of Candlemas (February 1) to make way for the new year.
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African Children's Choir Evokes True Meaning of Christmas

Posted: Dec 13, 2009 - 11:26:21 PM in: reviews_2009

African Children's Choir

The universal message of the Christmas season was best exemplified by the African Children's Choir on the Cincinnati Pops annual holiday concert Friday evening at Music Hall. The 11 boys and girls ages 7-12, many of them orphaned by poverty or disease, brought smiles to more faces than Santa, Rudolph and Frosty combined. Joining them were versatile soprano N'Kenge, and members of the May Festival Youth Chorus and School for Creative and Performing Arts Chorale and Children's Choir. Guest conductor was Robert Bernhardt, music director of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera and principal pops conductor of the Louisville Orchestra, who led with verve (and not a few corny jokes in the spirit of the late Pops conductor Erich Kunzel).
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concert:nova: Making Their Garden Grow

Posted: Dec 8, 2009 - 12:28:18 AM in: reviews_2009

Performing Arvo Pärt's "Fratres" in concert:nova Garden. Video by Charles Woodman (photo by David Cohen)

Cincinnati's experimental chamber group concert:nova filled its "Garden" space in the Metaphor Building on Reading Road to overflowing December 7 with a multi-media concert featuring works by George Crumb, Toru Takemitsu, Andre Jolivet, George Tsontakis and Arvo Pärt. Visual artists Anthony Luensman and Charles Woodman collaborated in the seasonally reflective program, "Playing with Light," which incorporated lighting and video imagery by Charles Woodman and Anthony Luensman.
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Tito Munoz Returns Elgar to Music Hall

Posted: Dec 6, 2009 - 11:41:08 AM in: reviews_2009

Tito Munoz

Among the storied artists who have made music in Cincinnati's storied Music Hall is Sir Edward Elgar. The great British composer was guest conductor at the 1906 May Festival, when he led his oratorio "The Apostles." Of course, he has been back many times since, not only in numerous "Pomp and Circumstance" marches, but in repertory staples such as his "Enigma" Variations (1899). Tito Munoz, assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, presided over Elgar's latest "Enigma" December 4 and 5 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
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KSO's Chant-Inspired Program Sublime at Cathedral Basilica

Posted: Nov 23, 2009 - 1:55:34 PM in: reviews_2009

Nave of St. Mary's Cathedral of the Assumption, Covington, Kentucky

The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra chose music inspired by Gregorian chant for its November 22 and 23 concerts at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky. Led by music director James R. Cassidy, the KSO was joined by the KSO Chorale and the Cincinnati Choral Society in Maurice Durufle's sublime Requiem and by pianist Michael Chertock in Liszt's devilishy difficult "Totentanz."
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Time Travel at the CSO

Posted: Nov 21, 2009 - 1:41:32 PM in: reviews_2009

Henning kraggerud

"Pay what you can" (suggested minimum $10) provided an added incentive to welcome the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra back from its recent two-week tour of Japan. The concert, led by guest conductor Stephane Deneve November 20 and 21 at Music Hall, spanned the 18th to the 21st century with works by Mozart, Brahms and French composer Guillaume Connesson. Soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major was Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud. Deneve led the CSO in Brahms' Symphony No. 2 and the CSO premiere of Connesson's 2007 "Aleph."
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Schulhoff Highlight by Vogler Quartet at CCM

Posted: Nov 20, 2009 - 5:42:16 PM in: reviews_2009

Berlin's Vogler Quartet is known for its advocacy of contemporary music. The meaning of "contemporary" had a plaintive ring at their concert for Chamber Music Cincinnati November 17 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where they performed Erwin Schulhoff's 1924 String Quartet No. 1. Czech-born Schulhoff, a victim of the Holocaust eclipsed by Nazi-era suppression, has been enjoying a belated introduction thanks to groups like Vogler.
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Fancying the Viol

Posted: Nov 15, 2009 - 4:16:07 PM in: reviews_2009

Violas da gamba

Viol fanciers are just one constituency who enjoy Cincinnati's pre-eminent early music ensemble Catacoustic Consort. A feast of viols led off Catacoustic's first concert of the 2009-10 season November 14 at North Presbyteran Church in Northside. Catacoustic artistic director/founder Annalisa Pappano was joined by fellow viola da gambists Joanna Blendulf from Oregon, Mary Burke from Minnesota and Cincinnatians James Lambert and Micah Fusselman in Bach's Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582, plus music by Orlando Gibbons, Christopher Tye, Tarquinio Merula, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Heinrich Isaac, Johannes Ockeghem, Josquin des Pres, Samuel Scheidt, Antonio and Hernando de Cabecon. To come during the Catacoustic season, will be music featuring cornettos, baroque oboe, voice and Bach's Cantata No. 106.
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"Mamelles de Tiresias" Serio-Comic Business

Posted: Nov 9, 2009 - 10:27:52 PM in: reviews_2009

Tenor Thomas Gunther (center) as the Husband in Poulenc's "Mamelles de Tiresias" at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (photo by Steven Goldstein)

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music's month-long Fete Francaise closed on a bubbly, surreal note November 6-8 with Francis Poulenc's opera bouffe "Mamelles de Tiresias." With feminist Therese turning into a man (Tiresias), her breasts turning into balloons (which she gleefully popped) and her husband left to make 44,000 babies all by himself, both labels fit. The student cast directed by CCM Opera head Robin Guarino turned in a frothy, farcical performance that lost nothing by being semi-staged. (first published in The Cincinnati Enquirer November 8, 2009)
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A Bold Beginning for the "New" VAE

Posted: Nov 7, 2009 - 1:36:54 PM in: reviews_2009

Guest writer Thom Mariner, co-publisher of Express Cincinnati (www.expresscincinnati.com) and a professional baritone, brings good news of the Vocal Arts Ensemble, which opened its 30th anniversary season November 6 at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral downtown. The concert marked the official debut of the VAE's new music director Donald Nally, who is putting his stamp on the ensemble, with up to date repertoire and a fresh new brand identity. Centerpiece of the concert, which had a definite emotional arc, was James MacMillan's searing "Cantos Sagrados."
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"Shabby Little Shocker" in Kentucky

Posted: Oct 30, 2009 - 1:54:15 AM in: reviews_2009

Marcelo Alvarez and Karita Mattila in "Tosca" (photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)

Swiss theater director Luc Bondy's new production of "Tosca" came to Florence, Kentucky October 24 in an Encore presentation of the "Live in HD" performance transmitted to movie theaters worldwide October 10. The controversial production, starring Karita Mattila and Marcelo Alvarez as Tosca and Cavaradossi and Georgian baritone George Gagnidze as Scarpia, recalled Joseph Kerman's famous description of the Puccini favorite as "that shabby little shocker."
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Kunzel Memorial Concert a Testament to Love

Posted: Oct 20, 2009 - 4:05:09 PM in: reviews_2009

Memorial concert for Erich Kunzel October 19 at Music Hall in Cincinnati. L to R in front: Vincent Lee, Paavo Järvi, Kathleen Brett, Keith Lockhart, Steven Reineke and Robert Porco

The power of music and the power of love were demonstrated at the Memorial Concert for Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel October 19 at Music Hall in Cincinnati. Taking part in the tribute to the famed pops conductor, who died of cancer September 1, were Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi, Cincinnati Pops associate conductor Steven Reineke, Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, Cincinnati May Festival Chorus director Robert Porco, CSO assistant conductor Vincent Lee, soprano Kathleen Brett, the May Festival Chorus and the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts Chorale and Children's Choir. Audience for the concert, a sampler of Kunzel favorites, spilled out of Music Hall onto Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati, where people watched it live on a giant video screen.
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Treats and Tricks: Chamber Orchestra Program Fits the Season

Posted: Oct 19, 2009 - 10:58:14 PM in: reviews_2009

L to R: Steven Gross and Randy Gardner

It kind of fit Halloween -- perhaps only subtly, but the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra's October 19 concert at Memorial Hall had mystery, disguises and tricks and treats: Who actually wrote Haydn's Concerto for Two Horns in E-flat Major? Can you always find the theme in Ginastera's Variaciones Concertantes? As for tricks and treats, Stravinsky provided those in his"Pulchinella" Suite, based on music by Pergolesi. Santora added some treats of his own by combining the Suite with portions of the original ballet music and providing a narration. Who is Pulchinella? Punch, Petrouchka, a 16th-century Homer Simpson all fit said narrator/local TV sportscaster Dennis Janson. Soloists in the concerto -- by a member of the scary-sounding Oettingen-Wallerstein School, Santora theorized -- were CCO French hornists, Steven Gross and Randy Gardner.
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