Music Hall, Cincinnati, opening night (May 20) of 2011 May Festival

The 2011 Cincinnati May Festival opened in grand fashion with Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem.  A powerhouse quartet of singers, soprano Christine Brewer, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, tenor Rodrick Dixon and bass Morris Robinson, joined the May Festival Chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by music director James Conlon. (first published at www.ConcertoNet.com)
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Perfect love casts out fear in Francis Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" about a young aristocrat who seeks shelter in a convent during the French Revolution.  Directed by Steven Goldstein, The 1957 opera received an inspiring and elegant performance by the opera department of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music May 15 in CCM's Corbett Auditorium. (first published in the Cincinnati Enquirer May 17, 2011)
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How do you say goodbye?  With music if you're Paavo Järvi, who performed his final concert a music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Friday night (May 13) at Music Hall (there is a repeat at 8 p.m. tonight).  It was a hyper-emotional event, but a very fitting one programmatically, with a world premiere (Erkki-Sven Tüür's "Fireflower"), a North American premiere (Tüür's 2006 Piano Concerto) and a work given its premiere by the CSO in 1905 (Mahler's Fifth Symphony).  Jarvi, highly popular in Cincinnati, leaves the orchestra this season after ten years in the post.
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Paavo Järvi conducting the combined Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestras at Music Hall

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi has done many things this week, his last as CSO music director after ten years in the post.  One of them was the annual "side by side" concert by the CSO and the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.  The concert, May 11 at Music Hall in Cincinnati, brought nearly 200 musicians together onstage.  Soloist was CSYO Concerto Competition winner Jacqueline Fitzmiller in a fine performance of the first movement of Sibelius' Violin Concerto.  CSYO conductor/CSO associate conductor Ken Lam led Sibelius' "Finlandia," the Violin Concerto and Smetana's Overture to "The Bartered Bride."  Järvi's "farewell" was "The Moldau" from Smetana's "Ma Vlast."
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Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble, premier choir in the tristate region, saluted the British cathedral music tradition May 8 at Armstrong Chapel in Indian Hill.  It was a celebration of the new, with music by Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells, James MacMillan, Jonathan Harvey, Francis Pott and Gabriel Jackson, the oldest being Finzi's 1949 "My Lovely One."  Fresh from the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton -- but by pure happenstance, said VAE music director Donald Nally -- was the encore, Hubert Parry's anthem "I Was Glad" (processional for the May 6 royal wedding).
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Martin Fröst

In one of the freshest and most invigorating Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concerts in recent memory, music director Paavo Järvi led the CSO in music by Edgar Varese (“Amériques”), Leonard Bernstein (Three Dance Episodes from "On the Town"), Charles Ives (Fugue from Symphony No. 4), Aaron Copland (Clarinet Concerto) and Charles Coleman ("P.J. Fanfare").  The Bernstein and Ives were CSO premieres, the Coleman, a fanfare composed for Järvi to help celebrate his 10th and final year as CSO music director, was a world premiere.  Guest artist in the Copland Concerto was the remarkable Swedish clarinetist Martin Fröst.
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Conductor Anu Tali and the Nordic Symphony do themselves proud on this ECM New Series album pairing Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür's Symphony No.6, "Strata," and his Concerto for Clarinet, Violin and Orchestra, "Noesis."  This challenging music rewards repeated listening to experience what the composer calls "abstract dramas in sound."  Soloists in the concerto are Jörg and Carolinn Widmann on clarinet and violin, respectively. (first published at www.concertonet.com)
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Yo Yo Ma

Yo Yo Ma, Paavo Järvi, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra  and Dvorak made for a stellar evening in a one-night-only gala May 3 at Music Hall in Cincinnati.  Coming just a week before Järvi's final concerts as CSO music director it made for a highly emotional evening.
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Dwight Parry

The principal wind players of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra are a formidable bunch.  Not only do CSO fans get to hear them regularly, but they make occasional appearances on Cincinnati's Linton Chamber Music series.  Principal oboist Dwight Parry, principal clarinetist Richard Hawley, principal bassoonist William Winstead and principal French hornist Elizabeth Freimuth filled First Unitarian Church in Avondale with splendid sound May 1, capped by Mozart's great Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452.
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Vocal Arts Ensemble rehearsing at Summit Country Day Chapel

Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble began Holy Week with a program of modern Passions April 16 at Summit Country Day Chapel in Hyde Park.  The area premiere of David Lang's "The Little Match Girl Passion" (2007) takes its cue from Bach's "St. Matthew Passion."  Led by VAE music director Donald Nally, the 24-voice choir also sang Ēriks Ešenvalds, "Legend of the Walled-in Woman" (2005) about a woman's sacrifice to protect her village from invaders, also in its area premiere (first published at www.cincinnati.com)
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Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

It was a coup for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra when they persuaded conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos to serve as one of three creative directors for its 2011-12 season.  The Spanish born maestro, who will open the CSO subscription concert season  in September, made his debut as creative director designate April 15 at Music Hall in a program that included a thrilling performance of Richard Strauss' "Ein Heldenleben."  Making a fine debut as guest artist was pianist Markus Groh in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2.
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Roberto Abbado

It's not everyday that members of two famous musical families appear with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  It happened April 8 at Music Hall.  One was a CSO debut, Roberto Abbado, nephew of famed conductor Claudio Abbado.  Guest artist was pianist Peter Serkin, son of the great Rudolph Serkin, who performed two works by Stravinsky: the 1929, neo-classic Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra and Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1958-59) from his late, 12-tone period. The featured work, Mussorgsky-Ravel's "Pictures at an Exhibition," got a richly detailed and powerful reading by Abbado and the orchestra.
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The Takács Quartet

TheTakács Quartet closed Chamber Music Cincinnati's 2010-2011 season with a well balanced program spanning the 28th to the 20th centuries.  Included were quartets by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Bartok, including Mendelssohn's highly romantic Quartet No. 2, Op. 13.
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Hannu Lintu

The beauty contest is on to find a successor to Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi, who leaves the orchestra at the end of this season.  Stepping up with the CSO April 1 at Music Hall was Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu in his CSO debut.  It was an impressive one, in music by Haydn, Debussy and Magnus Lindberg.  His fellow debutante was violinist Augustin Hadelich in Haydn's Violin Concerto No. 1 in C Major, a performance that won the audience's heart.
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Stewart Goodyear

As if welcoming an old friend, Messiaen fans were out in force to hear Stewart Goodyear on piano and Cynthia Millar on ondes martenot join music director Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Messiaen's "Turangalîla" Symphony March 25 at Music Hall.  It was the second performance of the work in ten years on CSO programs.  Goodyear did double duty, performing Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor on the first half of the concert. (first published at www.ConcertoNet.com)
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