"Mis toimus Cincinnatis" 2006*

A look back, my favorite concerts and a mystery come to mind as 2006 draws to a close in Cincinnati.

It was a year of anniversaries. Mozart turned 250 in January, Shostakovich 100 in September. September also marked the fifth anniversary of Paavo Järvi's inaugural concert as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The CSO released a commemorative DVD entitled "The First Concert" in November.

A Music Hall Working Group was formed in August to explore ways to make 3,517-seat Music Hall more intimate for CSO concerts, provide more patron amenities and preserve its fine acoustics. Representatives of the hall's tenants plus the Cincinnati Arts Association, which manages Music Hall for the city (owner of the hall), spent the fall exploring needs for the historic structure.

No report or wish list was issued, but the group announced completion of the needs assessment phase in November. Recommendations will be made "sometime after the first of the year," said Steve Loftin, president and executive director of the CAA.

Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Bush in November, the highest honor an artist can receive from the U.S. government.

In December, Cleveland-based Telarc received a Grammy nomination for best engineered classical album for the CSO's Britten/Elgar CD (see below).

Best concerts.

There were a lot of fine concerts this year. I counted 14 as my personal favorites:

Jan. 19. Music Hall. CSO, Järvi. Elgar, "Enigma Variations." Britten, "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra." This luminous performance - "something you can only do with your own orchestra," said Järvi - bore witness to the excellence of the CSO's continuing collaboration with its Estonian born conductor.

Feb. 24. Music Hall. CSO. Sir Roger Norrington, guest conductor. Vaughan-Williams, "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis." Haydn, Symphony No. 104. Beethoven, Symphony No. 7. Norrington, a master of authentic performance practice, set his seal on music from three centuries.

April 7. Music Hall. CSO. Jaime Laredo, guest conductor. Pianist Benjamin Hochman. Mozart, Symphonies No. 1 and 41, Piano Concerto No. 9 ("Jeunehomme"). This loving Mozart salute drew flocks to Music Hall.

April 23. Corbett Auditorium. Concert Orchestra and choirs of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Earl Rivers, conductor. John Adams, "On the Transmigration of Souls." Rivers and CCM got the jump on everyone with the regional premiere of Adams' 9-11-inspired, Pulitzer Prize-winning work.

April 27. Music Hall. CSO. Järvi. Pianist Anna Polusmiak. All-Rachmaninoff, "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini," Symphony No. 2. Northern Kentucky's young "lioness" of the keyboard (a Netherlands critic) made a splashy CSO debut. Järvi and the CSO performed a ravishing Symphony No. 2.

May 13. Greaves Hall. Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. James R. Cassidy, music director. Cassidy and the KSO broke new ground again with the tri-state premiere of Tan Dun's Concerto for Water Percussion with guest artist James Culley and colored lighting, as the composer wished, for Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy."

May 14. First Unitarian Church. Linton Series. This delightful re-creation of a 19th-century "house concert" was all arrangements, the only means of home consumption before the advent of recorded music. Members of the Cincinnati and Indianapolis symphonies, violinist Tatiana Berman, and pianists Michael Chertock and Lei Weng performed movements from Haydn and Beethoven symphonies, Mozart opera arias and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12.

May 20. Music Hall. May Festival. May Festival Chorus, CSO, guest artists. Robert Porco, conductor. Tippett, "A Child of Our Time." Composed in response to Kristallnacht (Nazi Germany) and incorporating Negro spirituals, this devastating oratorio hit home after the 2001 riots in Over-the-Rhine.

May 26. Music Hall. May Festival. CSO, guest artists, Chorus. James Conlon, music director. Mozart, "Abduction from the Seraglio." Headlined by actor Michael York as both narrator and Pasha Selim, this sparkling concert performance demonstrated great singing (Mary Dunleavy, Amanda Babayan, Matthias Klink, Morris Robinson) and a Muslim ruler as the exemplar of nobility.

June 11. Patricia Corbett Theater. Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Mischa Santora, music director. Mozart, "Cosi fan tutte." Santora and the CCO abetted by stage director Robert Neu proved that less is more with their compact concert "Cosi." The talented CCM cast and Neu's narration compiled from the opera's recitatives kept the action bright.

June 22. Music Hall. Cincinnati Opera. Chabrier, "L'Etoile." Chabrier's wacky show stole the opera season with its musical pizzazz and eye-popping look. Who will ever forget King Ouf (tenor Jean-Paul Fouchecourt) and his astrologer Siroco (bass Kevin Galvin), mourning their impending deaths over glasses of green chartreuse?

Nov. 3. Music Hall. CSO, Järvi. Violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky. The Shostakovich anniversary and U.S. mid-term elections came together in this deftly chosen concert featuring his wartime Symphony No. 7 ("Leningrad"), Bernstein's "Slava" Overture and Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2.

Nov. 10. Music Hall. CSO. Järvi. Preformed Veteran's Day weekend, this concert paired Messiaen's "L'Ascension," an unquestioning affirmation of life after death, and Mahler's doubt-ridden Symphony No. 9. Järvi drew them together in their respective finales, each a fervent Adagio featuring strings.

Dec. 5. Corbett Auditorium. Antares Quartet. Stravinsky, "L'Histoire du Soldat" (trio version). Shostakovich, Piano Trio No. 2. Messiaen, "Quartet for the End of Time." Presented by Chamber Music Cincinnati, this violin, clarinet, cello, piano ensemble brightened the December calendar with a war and peace-themed program capped by Messiaen's sublime apocalyptic vision.

Finally, a mystery: Where is the portrait of former CSO music director Max Rudolf that used to hang in the portrait gallery in the well of the foyer at Music Hall?

*"What happened in Cincinnati?" in Estonian

Update, Jan. 9, 2007: According to Scott Santangelo, director of operations at Music Hall, the portrait of Max Rudolf formerly in the portrait gallery at Music Hall, now hangs in the Music Hall offices. It was re-located, he said, to accommodate May Festival music director James Conlon's new portrait, whose horizontal format made a good fit for the space. The site originally anticipated for Conlon's portrait to the left of the doorway on the south side of the foyer is being held open to become an exhibit area for Music Hall.