Hey, composer!" That’s how neighbors greet Jennifer Higdon on the streets of Philadelphia, she said. Higdon, 42, whose Concerto for Orchestra recorded by Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony received four Grammy nominations in December including "Best Classical Contemporary Composition," is one of today’s most popular classical composers. Her music is performed over 100 times a year. "I think it’s important that music speaks to the audience," she said from Philadelphia, where she is a faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music.

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The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra has been on a roll with music director Mischa Santora for the past five years. Back in town for the CCO’s final concerts of the season, the arrestingly tall Hungarian (6 ft. 5 inches) believes the ball is at the top of the hill and must not be allowed to roll backward. Like all arts organizations, the CCO is having to deal with tough economic times. That, plus venue issues – a key concern for the CCO, as for the Cincinnati Symphony in over-sized Music Hall - will keep him busy here for the next month.   - [Read more]

Paavo Järvi isn’t jet-lagged, he said. One-year-old daughter Lea is. "She’s up at 2 (a.m.) and that’s it. Then there’s nobody sleeping." Just back from Europe, the Cincinnati Symphony music director relaxes over a cup of tea in his Music Hall office. He begins a new round of CSO concerts this weekend, and there are meetings, player auditions and fund-raisers to attend, plus the myriad other responsibilities that consume a music director’s life. Järvi, 42, begins his fifth season with the CSO in September.   - [Read more]

The Vocal Arts Ensemble is brushing up its Shakespeare. There will be plenty of The Bard on its 25th anniversary concerts led by music director Earl Rivers. Featured work is "Wm’s Ghosts," a world premiere by University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music dean Douglas Lowry. "Wm" is William Shakespeare and Lowry has exhumed – musically speaking - some of the ghosts in his life.   - [Read more]

Sandra Bernard. head of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music opera department, took her first bows directing CCM Opera since accepting the post with an updated, political reading of Handel's "Ariodante" Feb. 10 in Patricia Corbett Theater. There were cell phones, bureaucrats and a fine cast of singers, including mezzo-soprano Audrey Luna as Dalina, secretary to the King's daughter Ginevra.
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What a decade it has been for Keith Lockhart. Named conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra at 35 – the press conference in Boston was ten years ago to the day this Sunday – he has led over 750 concerts and 60 television shows with the Pops, made nine Pops CDs (two nominated for a Grammy) and taken the Pops on 21 national and four international tours. In 1998, he donned a second hat by becoming music director of the Utah Symphony in Salt Lake City.   - [Read more]

What do WOBO-FM broadcaster Diederik De Jong in Batavia and famed maestro Neeme Järvi have in common? Both are Knights of the Order of the North Star of Sweden. De Jong was knighted in 1981 for airing more programs of Swedish music than any program host in the world. Järvi, father of Cincinnati Symphony music director Paavo Järvi, received the distinction in 1990 for his leadership of the Gothenburg Symphony, the National Orchestra of Sweden. It’s an honor De Jong - a botanist who earned his Ph.D. in plant taxonomy from the Michigan State University and taught at the University of Cincinnati’s Raymond Walters College for 25 years - wears lightly.
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As she did in Cincinnati Opera’s old home in the south wing of Music Hall, soprano Marta Wittkowska will greet visitors to the Corbett Opera Center, the opera’s new $4 million headquarters in the north wing of the 127-year-old landmark. Wittkowska, whose portrait (as Carmen) hangs opposite the elevator on the second floor of the COC, sang at the Cincinnati Zoo from 1926-31. Like much in the new facility, which is being dedicated today in ceremonies attended by Mayor Charlie Luken, she will recall the tradition that adheres to the nation’s second oldest opera company (founded in 1920).   - [Read more]

Cincinnati Opera has moved. Not far, but it now has a home of its own. In October, the company packed up and moved its headquarters from the south wing to the north wing of Music Hall. The move – to the new $3.3 million Corbett Opera Center in the north wing - frees up the south wing for the Cincinnati Symphony and May Festival, with whom it has shared scattered, cramped quarters since moving to Music Hall from the Cincinnati Zoo in 1972.   - [Read more]

The Cincinnati Chamber Music Society is into marathons. To open their diamond jubilee (75th anniversary) season last fall, the CCMS presented violinist Christian Tetzlaff in the complete sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin. In April, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio will perform the complete Beethoven piano trios over a three day period. Tuesday and Wednesday, the renowned Colorado Quartet will perform the complete string quartets by Bela Bartok.   - [Read more]