Trio con Brio Copenhagen

Trio con Brio Copenhagen, the award-winning piano trio from Denmark, came to Cincinnati Oct. 26 with a concert for Chamber Music Cincinnati in Robert Werner Recital Hall at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Unintentionally, since they are on a U.S. tour, but coming just five days before Halloween, their program fit the season, with Beethoven's "Ghost" Trio and Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A Minor, written R.I.P. Nicholas Rubenstein.
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Yuja Wang

Just 23, pianist Yuja Wang is making herself known.  In her debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by guest conductor Carlos Kalmar October 15 at Music Hall, Beijing born Wang delivered a stunning performance of Bartok's exacting Piano Concerto No. 2.  The world will be hearing from her. (first published in the Cincinnati Enquirer October 18, 2010)
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Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Composer Ellen Zwilich's 2008 Septet is one of a kind, the first ever written for a piano trio and a string quartet.  Premiered by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and the Miami String Quartet at the 92nd Street Y in New York in April, 2010, it was brought to Cincinnati's Linton Series by the same musicians October 17 at the First Unitarian Church in Avondale.
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Michael Maniaci

Male soprano Michael Maniaci, now earning fame on the world stage and helping spur the revival of baroque opera, came to Cincinnati to perform with Cincinnati's fine early music group Catacoustic Consort October 14 in East Walnut Hills Christian Church.  In a program of Italian songs and arias, Maniaci showed that he is not only a vocal phenomenon but a phenomenal artist.
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Clara and Robert Schumann

The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra's first concerts of the season recall Robert Schumann on the 200th anniversary of his birth.  "Affairs of the Heart" October 10 at Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati and Anderson Center in Anderson Township, focused on the relationship between Schumann and his wife Clara.  Guest artist was pianist Anne-Marie McDermott in Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor.  Santora and the CCO performed his piano pieces "Carnaval" as orchestrated by Russian composers Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Liadov and Tcherepnin with narration from Robert and Clara's letters to each other by actors Charlie Clark and Alison Vodnoy.
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James Gaffigan

The conductor search has begun at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, with the departure at the end of this season of current music director Paavo Järvi.  A candidate who turned heads on his last visit to the CSO in 2009, James Gaffigan, was on the podium again Oct. 8 at Music Hall for a program of Beethoven, Schubert, Verdi and a CSO premiere, Daniel Bernard Roumain's "Dancers, Dreams and Presidents."  Fortunately, the concert repeated the next night, since the opening night audience was severely diminished by the National League playoffs, which had many people at home glued to their TV's to watch the Cincinnati Reds take on the Philadelphia Phillies.  And the winner was?  The CSO.  The Reds went down to defeat. (first published in the Cincinnati Enquirer Oct. 9, 2010)
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Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, L to R: Walter Seyfarth, Andreas Wittmann, Fergus McWilliam, Michael Hasel, Marion Reinhard

Mozart's Fantasia for a Clockworkorgan, KV 594 was just one of the treats brought to Cincinnati by the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet Oct. 5 at Robert J. Werner Recital Hall at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Opening concert of Chamber Music Cincinnati's 2010-11 season, their program also featured music by Franz Ignaz Danzi, Paul Hindemith, Samuel Barber and in conclusion, Carl Nielsen's masterful Quintet, Op.43, composed in 1922.  The arrangement of Mozart's Fantasia was by Berlin Quintet flutist Michael Hasel.
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Tenor Mark Panuccio

Something called Eyjafjallajökul kept lyric tenor Mark Panuccio from fulfilling his engagement with pianist Sergei Polusmiak on the "New Beginnings" series at Northern Kentucky University last April.  What would have been a spring happening became an autumn event and a beautiful one, too, October 3 in NKU's Greaves Concert Hall.  Panuccio performed English and Italian art songs and opera arias while Polusmiak was heard in Franz Liszt's arrangement for solo piano of the "Liebestod" from Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde" and Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in C Minor.
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Kathleen Battle

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra opened its 2010-11 season September 30 in Music Hall with an all Richard Strauss program featuring soprano Kathleen Battle in selected songs.  Music director Paavo Järvi, who leaves the orchestra this season after ten years in the post, led Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra" and the Suite from "Der Rosenkavalier."  It was a mixed evening, both professionally and promotionally, but the lesson seemed to be that Cincinnati loves it own. 
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Baritone Michael Young

"Without a Song," sang tenor David Bezona to introduce the opening concert of "Music in Ascension" at Ascension Lutheran Church in Montgomery, Ohio September 25.  An opera gala, the sumptuous event included 14 opera excerpts, including arias and duets, from 11 operas, from Handel's "Julius Caesar" to Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes." Heard were tenors David Bezona (director of "Music at Ascension"), tenor Mateo Husted, sopranos Katy Lindhart, Stacey Erin Sands and Blythe Walker, mezzo-sopranos Emily Lorini and Ivy Walz, baritone Michael Young and bass Samuel Smith.
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American composer Evan Mack's "Angel of the Amazon" about Sister Dorothy Stang, the Roman Catholic nun who was murdered by logging interests in Brazil in 2005, got a sneak peek, at least in part, by the Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony Orchestra in Cincinnati, Ohio September 6.  Mezzo-soprano Catherine Fishlock performed "Three Reflections of Sister Dorothy," three arias from the opera, with the BAMSO led by music director Michael Chertock.  The complete opera is slated for performance in May, 2011 by Encompass New Opera Theatre in New York.
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Cincinnati Opera closed its 90th anniversary season on a well-loved high note, Puccini's "La Boheme," July 21 at Music Hall.  The co-production with English National Opera, directed by Jonathan Miller, was updated to Paris during the 1930s, which ultimately made little difference in the impact of the performance.  What gave it real chemistry was the pairing of husband-and-wife Stephen Costello and Ailyn Perez as Rodolfo and Mimi.  Preceding the opera, board of trustees president announced that artistic director Evans Mirageas and general director Patty Beggs had renewed their contracts through 2015 and that the Opera expected to end its 2010 season with a balanced budget.  The season lineup for 2011 was announced, too: Verdi's "Rigoletto," John Adams' "A Flowering Tree," Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" and Mozart's "The Magic Flute."
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Antonello Palombi

Cincinnati Opera's 2010 season has seen its share of difficulties.  The latest involved Verdi's "Otello," when tenor Antonello Palombi came down with tracheitis opening night.  Palombi agreed to continue singing despite an announcement that he was ill following the second act.  After three days of rest and consultation with doctors, he returned for the repeat performance July 10 which showed him considerably on the mend, as were other aspects of the performance.
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Tenor John Horton Murray as Walther von Stolzing singing for the Mastersingers in act one

It's been a long, dry spell, but Richard Wagner returned to Cincinnati Opera June 23 at Music Hall.  Nothing could have been more fitting for this very German city than "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg."  The Opera's last performance of "Meistersinger" was in June, 1982.  In all, it was only the 12th performance of "Meistersinger" in Cincinnati Opera's 90-year history.  The production, by Günther Schneider-Siemssen, acquired at a bargain price from Düsseldorf Opera, replaced a previously planned production set in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood that fell victim to the recession last fall.  It was a dream cast (mostly new to Cincinnati), headed by bass-baritone James Johnson as Hans Sachs.  John Keenan replaced Cincinnati native James Levine, who was scheduled to conduct until he canceled in April to undergo back surgery, followed in seemingly domino fashion by all of the leading singers.  Still, it was a "Cinderella" outcome, a magical production with an ensemble cast to match.
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Mischa Santora

On the face of it, you might think George Gershwin and Arnold Schoenberg had nothing in common.  Perhaps they didn't musically, with one staking out Tin Pan Alley and the other the future of classical music.  The composers were friends, however, and shared a hobby, painting (they even painted each other).  The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra led by music director Mischa Santora made that the link between their music June 6 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Pianist Michael Chertock captured all the tints in Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."  Santora and members of the CCO found a multitude of colors in Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht" and Five Pieces for Orchestra. Tying them together were projections of their paintings and those by Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt and James McNeill Whistler.  (first published in the Cincinnati Enquirer June 7, 2010)
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