Awadagin Pratt

Pianist Awadagin Pratt keeps himself busy.  In addition to his international concert career, he is artist-in-residence and teaches at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he will begin a master class July 5-16. Trained as a pianist, violinist and a conductor, he is artistic director of the Next Generation Festival (chamber music) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, guest conducts and leads the student-organized string band Wired at CCM.  His latest CD, Brahms Sonatas with cellist Zuill Bailey, is in the top 10 on the Billboard classical chart.  May 13 and 14 at Music Hall in Cincinnati, he will perform the North American premiere of Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür's 2006 Piano Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by music director Paavo Järvi.
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Paavo Järvi at his desk in Music Hall

Paavo Järvi completes ten years as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra this weekend at Music Hall (May 13 and 14).  The concerts, to include Erkki-Sven Tüür's 2006 Piano Concerto and the Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler, are also his last as CSO music director.  The CSO's newly named music director laureate had these parting thoughts for Cincinnati and for his to-be-named successor.
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David Fishlock demonstrating siren in "Ameriques" by Edgar Varese

Edgar Varèse’s “Amériques,” to be performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by music director Paavo Järvi May 5 and 7 at Music  Hall, is a giant.  With 115 players, including a huge battery of percussion, it bids to fill the 3,516-seat hall as few works can.  It will share the program with music by all American composers, including Copland, Ives, Bernstein and Charles Coleman.
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Erkki-Sven Tüür

Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür has had a special relationship with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra during the tenure of his countryman, CSO music director Paavo Järvi.  The orchestra has performed seven of Tüür's works during Järvi's ten years in Cincinnati.  It is fitting then that Järvi's final concerts as CSO music director, May 13 and 14 at Music Hall, will feature music by Tüür, a 10th-anniversary fanfare entitled "Fireflower" and his Piano Concerto (2006) preformed by pianist Awadagin Pratt. 
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Tallinn, Estonia

Tallinn, Estonia has been designated by the European Union as the 2011 European Capital of Culture.  And rightly so, with its wealth of music, art, literary and architectural treasures.  A drama has been playing out, however, around the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra which is without a music director.  Famed conductor and native Estonian Neeme Järvi resigned the post three months after taking it in November, 2010 to protest the firing of the orchestra's executive director Andres Siitan by Estonian Culture Minister Laine Jänes.  This is Siitan's story.
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Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen team in the recording studio (Traugott, left, Järvi, right)

Perfection is an elusive goal, nowhere more so than in the recording studio.  A team who unabashedly pursue it is that of conductor Paavo Järvi and producer Philip Traugott, called by Günther Breest, veteran producer for Deutsche Grammophon, the best team of conductor/producer since Herbert von Karajan and Michel Glotz.
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Tom Heuser conducting City of Pärnu Orchestra, Leonid Grin standing right

Formerly confined to the summer months, Neeme Järvi's Academy for Young Conductors has added a winter session.  Leading the inaugural master course Feb. 21-27 in Pärnu was conductor Leonid Grin, who addressed the maestro's art in question-and-answer form on the second full day of classes.
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Daisuke Nagamine conducting Pärnu City Orchestra February 27, 2011

The first Leonid Grin Master Course in Pärnu, Estonia, winter session of the Neeme Järvi Summer Academy, held annually in this Baltic retreat, attracted eight students from all over the world.  Their "graduation" concert February 27 in Põhikool Vanalinna in Pärnu, was a celebratory affair.
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Leonid Grin conducting Pärnu City Orchestra Feb. 25, 2011

Conductor Leonid Grin's first Winter Master Course, held in ice-cold Pärnu, Estonia Feb. 21-27, braved the elements for some outstanding insights and music-making.  The first concert, led by Grin, featured pianists from Arbo Valdma's International Master Course for Pianists, held concurrently in Pärnu.
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Cincinnati will draw upon its rich choral tradition to benefit the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged at St. Monica-St. George Church in Clifton March 25.  Taking part in the mini-festival will be mezzo-soprano Catherine Fishlock, jazz vocalist Karry Kinley and six area choirs led by Howard Helvey.
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Paavo Järvi (statue of Music Hall patron Reuben Springer in the background)

Standing in the shadow of Music Hall patron Reuben Springer's marble statue, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi thanked donors Peter G. Courlas and Nick Tsimaras and artist Carin Hebenstreit for the portrait of him unveiled Feb. 17 in the lobby of the hall and acknowledged that the time he has spent in Cincinnati has been one of the "best times of my life."
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Carnegie Hall, October 2001

For the first time in 12 years, Cincinnati's May Festival Chorus will perform in New York's Carnegie Hall.  The occasion is the 2013 "Spring for Music" Festival, a new festival for symphony and chamber orchestras designed to serve as a laboratory for adventurous and creative programming and to encourage greater innovation in each orchestra's home market.  May Festival music director James Conlon will lead the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus. Repertoire will be announced at a laater date.  Conlon conducted the CSO and chorus in October, 2001 at Carnegie Hall in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, just days after 9/11.  CSO music director Paavo Järvi led the CSO's latest outing at Carnegie Hall in February, 2010.
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John Morris Russell

Cincinnati Pops conductor John Morris Russell -- "JMR" -- will lead six of the nine Cincinnati Pops concerts during the 2011-12 season.  A renowned music educator, Russell will conduct the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's "Lollipops" family concerts, also.  The Pops' season opens Sept. 16-18 with Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell and "American Idol" runner-up Katharine McPhee in "My American Dream."  Lollipops" concerts are Nov. 12 and Jan. 28.
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Paavo Järvi

According to the British web site Bachtrack.com, Paavo Jarvi was the eighth busiest conductor in the world in 2010.  Cincinnati didn't have to be told that.  The popular music director leaves the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra the end of this season after ten years.  With four other orchestras to shepherd, it was time (to be more exact -- no time).  Meanwhile, the countdown in Cincinnati has begun, with a message sent out by the orchestra this week that there are "five final chances" to hear him conduct as CSO music director.
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Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

An audible gasp went up from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra audience Jan. 29 at Music Hall as CSO president Trey Devey announced highlights of the orchestra's 2011-2012 season:  Itzhak Perlman, Lang Lang, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Philip Glass . . . stars anyone?

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