Belcea Quartet

England's award-winning Belcea Quartet ended Chamber Music Cincinnati's 2009-2010 season April 27 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory on a high note.  As high, you might say, as first violinist Corina Belcea-Fisher's left hand on her Stradivarius violin.  Heard on the choice program were Beethoven's Quartet Op. 18, No. 6 ("Malinconia"); Karol Szymanowski's Quartet No. 1 in C Major, Op. 37; and Bartok's Quartet No. 1, Sz. 40, Op. 7.
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Sergei Polusmiak

Another casualty of Eyjafjallajökull -- the Icelandic volcano whose eruption grounded flights in Europe in mid-April -- was the recital by tenor Mark Panuccio and Sergei Polusmiak April 25 at Northern Kentucky University's Greaves Hall.  Polusmiak carried on handsomely, however, with a solo recital that might have been called "love conquers all."  On the program were romantic works by Liszt, Chopin and Schumann, including Liszt's "Sonetto del Petrarco" No. 104, "Liebestraum" and "Isolde's Liebestod" and Schumann's Grand Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, "Florestan and Eusebius."
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Julian Kuerti

Both music director Paavo Järvi and and guest artist Isabelle van Keulen had to cancel their April 23-25 performances with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra when the ash cloud from erupting Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull halted flights from Europe.  "Look for the silver lining," the old song goes.  For the CSO, that meant guest conductor Julian Kuerti and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama.    - [Read more]

Naomi Lewin

Leave it to concert:nova, Cincinnati's boundary-busting chamber group, to tickle the fancy of music (and art) lovers.  Their multi-media event April 18 at the Midwest Culinary Institute in Cincinnati encompassed music, drama, film and cooking, with "The Four Seasons" as represented by Vivaldi, Piazzolla and Aaron Jay Kernis and a post-concert meal by chefs of the MCI.
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Mark Wigglesworth

Brahms, Haydn and John Pickard, two of them in subscription concert premieres, gave the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra a lift on its April 16 concert at Music Hall.  Guest conductor Mark Wigglesworth introduced Haydn's Symphony No. 90 and Pickard's "The Flight of Icarus" -- a span of two centuries separating them -- and presided over a performance of Brahms' Double Concerto for Violin and Cello featuring CSO concertmaster Timothy Lees and guest artist/cellist Alisa Weilerstein. 
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Paavo Järvi

Music director Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra have achieved a remarkable level of empathy and communication in their nine years together.  This was shown with stunning clarity on their all-orchestral program March 26 at Music Hall including Mozart's Overture to "The Abduction from the Seraglio," Dukas' "La Peri" and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade."  "Music seduction" for sure.
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Trumpeter Robert Sullivan with Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

For symphony orchestras today (or any day), there is nothing more important than educating the audiences of tomorrow.  For that reason alone, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's "In Your School" concert March 23 at Princeton High School in Springdale was one of the most important of the CSO season.  Music director Paavo Järvi was in rare form for the performance, which included Arvo Pärt's charming/challenging "Wenn Bach Bienen Gezüchtet hätte" ("If Bach Had Raised Bees . . .") and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4.  Soloist was the CSO's stellar new principal trumpeter, Robert Sullivan in Hummel's Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major.  CSO assistant conductor Ken Lam opened with the Princeton High School Orchestra in the finale of Britten's Simple Symphony, culmination of a "mini-residency" with the orchestra by Lam and coaches from the CSO.
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Mark Panuccio

As lovers of chamber music know, classical music close up is to die for.  Make that opera and the analogy is even more fitting.  The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra has a tradition of doing superb concert opera.  The CCO's March 21 concert at Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati wasn't a single opera.  Instead there were scenes from "La Boheme," "Otello" and "La Traviata," all with heroines that die at the end.  As sung by soprano Melody Moore and tenor Mark Panuccio, who both sang stand-alone arias as well, it was truly "March opera madness."
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Sonia Morales

Classical music from Latin America was the subject at Northern Kentucky University's first-ever "Fiesta Filarmonica" March 19 in Greaves Concert Hall.  Jaime Morales, music director of the Clermont Philharmonic Orchestra led the band for a rewarding program including the world premiere of Sonia Morales' "Paisajes" ("Passages") for viola and orchestra.  In an additional salute to Women's History Month, the soloist was Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violist Denisse Rodriguez.
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Stefan Jackiw

There were two debuts at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's March 19 concert at Music Hall.  One was guest conductor Arild Remmereit, a Norwegian who has been getting lots of attention recently, particularly by orchestras, like Cincinnati, who are on the lookout for a new music director.  Remmereit's reading of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 nevertheless seemed overwrought and a bit out of character with Tchaikovsky's most "classical" symphony.  Guest artist was violinist Stefan Jackiw, 24, undisputably a major talent, who stirred listeners with Bruch's "Scottish Fantasy." 
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Jean-Yves Thibaudet

They called this collaboration between the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by music director Paavo Järvi and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet "Magnifique," and so it was with music by Henri Dutilleux, George Bizet and Edvard Grieg.  Grieg?  Yes, his famous Piano Concerto, in a newly polished reading by Frenchman Thibaudet. 
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Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (Florida State University Photo Lab)

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich charmed the citizens of Hamilton, Ohio March 6 with a concert of her music, including her Symphony No. 4, "The Gardens," heard for only the second time since its premiere at Michigan State University in 1999.  Doing the honors at New Life Vineyard Church in Hamilton were the Hamilton Fairfield Symphony Orchestra led by music director Paul John Stanberg, members of the HFSO Chorale, a children's choir and hand bell ringers from the community.  Soloist in her 1993 Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra was HFSO principal hornist Todd Fitter.  And giving the concert punch was Zwilich's 1996 "Peanuts Gallery" for piano and orchestra performed by Kenneth Danielson, winner of the orchestra's 2009-2010 young artist competition.
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Augusta Read Thomas

The central division convention of the American Choral Directors Association, held in Cincinnati Feb. 24-26, included the Midwest premiere of two important choral works, Krzysztof Penderecki's 1996 Credo and Augusta Read Thomas' 2000 "Ring Out, Wild Bells, to the Wild Sky."  Delivering a handsome performance Feb. 27 in Corbett Auditorium at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music were the CCM Philharmonia Orchestra, CCM Chamber Choir and Chorale, Cincinnati Children's Choir and more than a dozen vocal soloists.  Conducting was Earl Rivers, director of the choral studies program and head of the division of ensembles and conducting at CCM.
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The Swedish Radio Choir is without doubt one of, if not the world's greatest a capella choir.  Shaped and nurtured for 30 years by the legendary Eric Ericson, there seem to be no vocal challenges these 32 singers cannot meet.  Led by guest conductor Ragnar Bohlin, the choir made its Cincinnati debut at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral Feb. 24 in music by Hugo Alfven, Ned Rorem, Gustav Mahler, Sven David Sandström, J.S. Bach, Anders Hillborg and Frank Martin.
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Roberto Diaz

How do you say "It's gonna rain" in Russian?  The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra led by music director Mischa Santora said it with Prokofiev and Alfred Schnittke Feb. 21 at Memorial Hall.  There was sunshine, too, in Tchaikovsky.  Guest artist, with both points of view, was violist Roberto Diaz.
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