When it comes to classical music, opera is the "greatest show on earth.” Cincinnati Opera's 2007 summer festival, opening with Gounod's "Faust” at 8 p.m. Thursday at Music Hall, will be a four-ring event.   - [Read more]

Banner announcing Neeme Järvi's 70th birthday concert at "Estonia" concert hall in Tallinn, June, 2007

TALLINN, Estonia - Non-person?  Outcast? Hardly. When conductor Neeme Järvi celebrated his 70th birthday concert with the Estonian National Orchestra here last Saturday in the "Estonia" Concert Hall, he was introduced by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves himself.   - [Read more]

Trombonist/conductor Jaime Morales

It's classical music's golden quest.  Maintaining its centuries-old tradition, while keeping current with a changing world.  Dick Waller, artistic director of Cincinnati's Linton Chamber Music Series had precisely that in mind when he created the "Mayor's 801 Plum Concerts” in 1995.
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Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi

On April 22, music director Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra returned from a week-long tour of Southern California. “I felt that the orchestra played in many ways the best I’ve heard them play,” said Järvi, whose uncommon rapport with the orchestra was noted at every stop.  On Wednesday the CSO announced that Järvi has extended his contract through August, 2011, after which it will become “evergreen." The Estonian born conductor, 44, shared some of his thoughts and concerns about the CSO last week at Music Hall.
  
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Charles Coleman is a brisk walker, a lively talker and a still-living composer. That’s as opposed to a “dead composer,” he adds, because it’s the specter of “those famous dead guys” that he has sought to banish on his visits to Cincinnati. The native New Yorker, composer-in-residence with the CSO this year, has spent five weeks in the city since January.   - [Read more]

“Cincinnati truly has it all,” read a headline in the April 23 Orange County Register. The Reds? Bengals? Skyline Chili?  The reference this time was to Cincinnati’s 112-year-old symphony orchestra, just back from a week-long tour of Southern California under its music director Paavo Järvi.
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Three time zones, four temperate zones. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and music director Paavo Järvi arrived in Palm Desert, California Sunday afternoon for a week-long tour of the Golden State. The early contingent disembarked their cross-continent flight in San Diego and boarded a bus for the 120-mile drive to Palm Desert, first stop on the five-city tour. “If you go the route we went, through the San Bernardino Mountains, you go up four temperate zones,” said driver John Martin. “We went all the way from desert to Alpine, 4,000 to 4,500 feet. When we got to the top, there were trees and it started to snow.”   - [Read more]

Northern Kentucky University is looking east. All the way to Eastern Europe. NKU colleagues David Cole, Diana Belland and Kurt Sander made the trip in January to Pleven, Bulgaria, where they participated in a joint concert with the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra. Cole, director of orchestral studies at NKU, conducted. Belland, a member of the NKU piano faculty, was guest artist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The concert opened with the world premiere of theory/composition professor Sander’s “Pantocrater.”   - [Read more]

Maarika Järvi

The flute and Estonia seem to go together, especially with flutist Maarika Järvi on the scene. Like the rest of the musical Järvi family, including father Neeme and brothers Paavo and Kristjan, all famous conductors, Maarika is an active proponent of the music of her native country.   - [Read more]

Those who attend Cincinnati Symphony concerts know that principal bassist Owen Lee rocks (classically speaking).  He is one of the most visible members of the orchestra, wielding his bass near the edge of the stage just behind the cello section.   - [Read more]

Classical and hip-hop music would seem as far removed as you can get.
But don’t tell violinist “Kev Marcus” and violist “Wil-B” Kevin Marcus Sylvester and Wilner Baptiste, both 25 – also known as “Black Violin.”

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“Once again, from the top,” might have been the introduction to Tuesday night’s taping of the popular NPR talent show at Music Hall. On its prior visit to the Queen City in 2003, “From the Top,” the weekly showcase young classical musicians hosted by pianist Christopher O’Riley, drew the largest audience for a live recording in the show’s history.   - [Read more]

Being Cincinnati Symphony assistant conductor means more than just “covering,” i.e. waiting in the wings, baton in hand, in case the scheduled conductor is unable to go on.  It can lead to a big break, as when Leonard Bernstein stepped in with the New York Philharmonic at age 25.  However, it can be as small as looking for a wrong note in a score.   - [Read more]

Choral music is a natural for Paavo Järvi.  The Cincinnati Symphony music director comes from a country with one of the richest choral traditions in the world, Estonia. He began singing in Estonian choirs at age 7.  He won a Grammy in 2004 for Sibelius Cantatas with the Estonian National Orchestra, Estonian National Male Choir and Ellerhein Girls' Choir. It may come as a surprise, then, that he has not led a choral/orchestral work with the CSO. The omission will be corrected this weekend at Music Hall when Järvi leads the CSO and Cincinnati May Festival Chorus in Mozart's Mass in C Minor, "The Great."


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