Kristjan Järvi Rocks Opening of Estonia's Pärnu Music Festival

Posted: Jul 21, 2013 - 2:55:51 AM in: reviews_2013

Anne Akiko Meyers and Kristjan Järvi (photo by Tavi Kull)

The 2013 Pärnu Music Festival in Pärnu, Estonia opened with Kristjan Järvi conducting the Sinfonietta Riga in Beethoven that rocked (the Symphony No. 8). Joining them in music by Bach, Arvo Pärt and Gene Pritsker was violinist Anne Akiko Meyers in an elegant collaboration. (first published at www.ConcertoNet.com)

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"Galileo Galilei" Ushers in New Era for Cincinnati Opera

Posted: Jul 12, 2013 - 2:31:28 PM in: reviews_2013

Andrew Garland (left) and Nathan Stark as Young Galileo and Cardinal Barberini in Philip Glass' "Galileo Galilei." Cincinnati Opera, July 11, 2013

Cincinnati Opera's "Galileo Galilei" by Philip Glass marks the company's first performances in its new alternative venue, Corbett Theater in the School for Creative and Performing Arts on Central Parkway. The opera was a perfect fit in the intimate, 750-seat theater, with nine singers performing 22 roles and a 27-piece Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by Kelly Kuo in the pit.
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Marco Panuccio Celebrates Britten

Posted: Jul 8, 2013 - 2:40:38 PM in: reviews_2013

Marco Panuccio

The centenary of British composer Benjamin Britten is this year (2013). No better observance could have been devised than tenor Marco Panuccio's all-Britten tribute July 7 at Calvary Episcopal Church in Cincinnati. Featured was the U.S. premiere of Britten's Five Canticles performed on a single program, including "The Heart of the Matter" as a companion piece to Canticle III, "Still Falls the Rain." Also on the program were three of Britten's Purcell Realizations, his Suite for Harp, Op. 83, and Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury for three trumpets.
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Cincinnati Opera's "Rosenkavalier" Worth the Wait

Posted: Jun 28, 2013 - 10:16:41 PM in: reviews_2013

Sarah Coburn as Sophie and Ruxandra Donose as Octavian in "Der Rosenkavalier" (photo by Philip Groshong)

Richard Strauss' romantic comedy "Der Rosenkavalier" has not been heard at Cincinnati Opera since 1994. It made for a long night at the opera June 27, and a week night at that, but it came together for a notable revival. Starring in the production, originally created for Indiana University and purchased by Cincinnati Opera, were Ruxandra Donose as Octavian, Twyla Robinson as the Marschallin, Sarah Coburn as Sophie and Rúni Brattaberg as Baron Ochs -- not to mention the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, led by Cristof Perick.
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Cincinnati Opera's "Don Giovanni" a Powerful Season Opener

Posted: Jun 14, 2013 - 1:45:41 PM in: reviews_2013

Lucas Meachem as Don Giovanni

Cincinnati Opera opened its 94th season with an audience favorite, and a powerful one, Mozart's "Don Giovanni." With baritone Lucas Meachem as the Don, soprano Angela Meade as Donna Anna, Burak Bilgili as Leporello and soprano Nicole Cabell as Donna Elvira, it was a uniformly strong cast, with accompaniment to match by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Roberto Minczuk in his Cincinnati Opera debut.
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Guarneri Reunion Closes Linton Season

Posted: May 20, 2013 - 1:12:29 PM in: reviews_2013

The Guarneri Quartet left to right, Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, Peter Wiley

Cincinnati's Linton Music series closed its 2012-2013 season with a special event, a reunion of members of the famed Guarneri String Quartet, which officially disbanded in 2009. They did not play quartets, however, but quintets and duos. Joining them in viola quintets by Mozart and Dvorak was violinist Ida Kavafian.
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May Festival Spellbinding in Second Weekend Opener

Posted: May 18, 2013 - 4:13:38 PM in: reviews_2013

photo by Mark Lyons

Stravinsky's "opera oratorio" "Oedipus Rex" had been heard at the Cincinnati May Festival only twice before Friday night's (May 17) concert at Music Hall led by music director James Conlon. It was an event well worth the wait in a semi-staged performance designed by Ed Stern, former producing artistic director at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park. Making it an even more delectable concert were performances of Debussy's La Damoiselle elué and Sirènes from Nocturnes and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2. - [Read more]

Requiems Mark May Festival Opening

Posted: May 13, 2013 - 2:08:37 PM in: reviews_2013

The 2013 Cincinnati May Festival opened on a more-or-less somber note May 10 and 11 with a pair of requiems, the Requiem, K. 626 by Mozart and Benjamin Britten's searing War Requiem. Music director James Conlon was on the podium for his 34th year with the festival, making him the longest-tenured music director in the May Festival's 140-year history. (first published at www.ConcertoNet.com)
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Nally's Farewell "Special"

Posted: May 6, 2013 - 11:33:08 PM in: reviews_2013

Donald Nally

Donald Nally, music director of Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble, bowed out after three years with the VAE May 5 at Cincinnati's Covenant First Presbyterian Church. The choir's annual collaboration with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra comprised established classics by Handel, Mendelssohn and Benjamin Britten. As an advocate for new music in Cincinnati during his three-year tenure with the VAE, including Cincinnati premieres by James MacMillan, David Lang, and others, the program truly classified as "special." (first published at cincinnati.com/blogs/arts/2013/05/06/cincinnatis-art-carved-furniture-and-concert-and-a-downtown-church/ - [Read more]

CSO Season Ends with Fanfare

Posted: May 4, 2013 - 4:25:00 PM in: reviews_2013

Garrick Ohlsson

The Cincinnati Symphony dubbed its final concert of the 2012-13 season "Fanfare for Cincinnati" and for good reason. Not only did it feature Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3, which uses his iconic "Fanfare for the Common Man" (premiered by the CSO in 1943), but there was a CSO premiere, composer/CSO creative director Jennifer Higdon's "All Things Majestic," which included a video presentation by CET of images of the city in celebration of its 225th anniversary. Soloist in a thrilling performance of Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto was Garrick Ohlsson.
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Mozart in Context by the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra

Posted: May 3, 2013 - 12:37:46 PM in: reviews_2013

It happens in Europe regularly, i.e. Mozart's sacred music as part of the liturgy for which it was composed. The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, the KSO Chorale and Voices of the Commonwealth led by KSO music director James R. Cassidy brought that concept to Cincinnati May 2 -- on the National Day of Prayer, coincidentally -- with a performance of Mozart's "Vesperae solennes de confessore," K. 339 at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cincinnati. Framing the service as Prelude and Postlude were Mozart works heard in the 1984 film "Amadeus."
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Reich's Music Receives Remarkable Tribute

Posted: Apr 30, 2013 - 2:36:29 PM in: reviews_2013

Steve Reich

Steve Reich's music could not have been better served than it was by Cincinnati's concert:nova April 29 at Pallet 23 in Northside. The concert, a sellout, featured representative works from his early, experimental "Pendulum Music" to his four-movement psalm setting, "Tehillim." Interleaved with them was music that inspired Reich or was inspired by him, including African drumming, jazz, gamelan-derived and recent works by New York composer David Lang. - [Read more]

Lamsma, Kalmar Inspire with the CSO

Posted: Apr 27, 2013 - 11:35:05 AM in: reviews_2013

Simone Lamsma and Carlos Kalmar

There have been abundant disasters throughout the world in recent weeks (Boston bombings, West, Texas explosion, Newtown massacre). The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's program of Benjamin Britten, Carl Nielsen and Beethoven seemed to address that April 26 at Music Hall. Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma was a splendid soloist in Britten's elegiac Violin Concerto, while guest conductor Carlos Kalmar led Nielsen's inspiring Symphony No. 4, "The Inextinguishable."
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Dowland's Woes Get Worthy Setting

Posted: Apr 24, 2013 - 9:12:58 PM in: reviews_2013

David Walker, lute, Annalisa Pappano, viola da gamba

John Dowland's "Lachrimae" is an iconic work for viol consort. Cincinnati's Catacoustic Consort presented it April 20 in a wonderfully atmospheric setting: by candle light in Cincinnati's century-old St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace Park. It was like a step back in time. Players from as far as New York and San Francisco came to take part in the event. (first published at www.concertonet.com)
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"Waiting for Wings" Flies at the Pops

Posted: Apr 23, 2013 - 9:15:12 PM in: reviews_2013

The Cincinnati Pops' Lollipops Family Concert April 20 at Music Hall had a buggy theme. Insects, that is, not carriages. Entitled "Waiting for Wings," it featured the world premiere of a work by Jason Robert Brown and Georgia Stitt inspired by the children's book by Lois Ehlert about the life cycle of the butterfly. Also on the concert, which was led by Pops conductor John Morris Russell, were "Dance of the Mosquito" (Liadov) and "La Cucaracha."
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