Blue Morpho butterfly (morpho peleides)

Mexican composer Daniel Catan's "Florencia en el Amazonas" will light like a Blue Morpho on the stage of Cincinnati's Music Hall at 7:30 p.m. July 10 and 12.  Pesented by Cincinnati Opera in the 1996 Francesco Zambello production for Houston Grand Opera, Catan's Garcia Marquez-inspired work is a rarity in the music world, an opera written in Spanish (as opposed to zarzuela, Spain's indigenous music theater). Why this is so seems as elusive as the  beautiful butterfly itself.
  - [Read more]

Song is powerful. It can even help topple an empire. "The Singing Revolution," a 2007 film about Estonia's bloodless struggle for re-independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has been made into a compelling documentary by James and Maureen Castle Tusty.  The 2007, 97-minute film comes to the Cincinnati Art Museum June 24-26.
  - [Read more]

Mikhail Simonyan

There's something about Siberia, or at least Novosibirsk, which keeps turning out star violinists.  The latest, Mikhail Simonyan, makes his debut with Eric Dudley and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra June 22 at Riverbend Music Center.  Simonyan, 22, follows in the footsteps of violinists and fellow Novosibirskians Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin.  He will perform Saint-Saens' "Havanaise" and Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen" on a "Vintage Classics" sampler that also features a pre-concert wine-tasting in Riverbend's new National City Pavilion.
  - [Read more]

Shu-Ying Li as Madama Butterfly

With the look of an Asian. the personality of an Italian and a keen dramatic sense, Chinese soprano Shu-Ying Li is a rare combination to sing Puccini's "Madama Butterfly."  Li will sing the tragic heroine for Cincinnati Opera June 11-15 at Music Hall.  The production, by Mark Lamos for New York City Opera, with its wide open, minimalist look, seems ideally suited for her with its focus on the music and drama.
  - [Read more]

Wesley Lawrence as Giovanni and Paola Gonzalez as Beatriz in Daniel Catan's "Rappaccini's Daughter" at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

"Rappaccini's Daughter," the ultimate femme fatale, comes to the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music May 3-June 1.  The Spanish language opera by Mexican composer Daniel Catan is both a Cincinnati premiere and first fruit of the new Corbett Foundation Opera Fusion Program, an artistic and academic collaboration between CCM and Cincinnati Opera.
  - [Read more]

Naimah Bilal

When an orchestra performs, there is a large supporting cast that performs offstage.  One of them, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra artistic coordinator Naimah Bilal, has just been tapped for the League of American Orchestra's prestigious Orchestra Management Fellowship Program.  Bilal, 26, a violist trained at Indiana University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, says working behind the scenes is "her passion."
  - [Read more]

Paavo Järvi led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in works by Arvo Pärt, Benjamin Britten and Shostakovich at the Vienna Konzerthaus in Vienna April 6, 2008.  He gave this interview to Vienna's Der Standard April 4 in Frankfurt addressing his busy conducting life.  Already music director of the CSO, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (in addition to artistic advisor of the Estonian National Orchestra) he becomes chief conductor of the Orchestre de Paris in 2010. English translation by Mary Ellyn and John Hutton.
  - [Read more]

Pärnu Concert Hall, Pärnu, Estonia (photos by Mary Ellyn Hutton)

The David Oistrakh Festival in Pärnu, Estonia is like a jewel tucked away in a drawer. In this small town on the Baltic Sea, a 90-minute drive from  Tallinn, one can experience a wide range of fine music in some of the loveliest and most congenial venues imaginable. (This article was first published in American Record Guide, Nov-Dec. 2006.  The 2008 festival, celebrating the centenary of the birth of legendary violinist David Oistrakh, takes place July 17-Aug. 1, complete schedule to be announced. For information, visit www.oistfest.ee.)

  - [Read more]

Music Hall, Cincinnati Will it eat the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra?

It's the question few orchestras today want to answer.
   How’s your attendance?
   The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra makes figures available once a year and the results for 2006-07 were disappointing.   - [Read more]

  - [Read more]

  - [Read more]

  - [Read more]

An orchestra, said Cincinnati Symphony music director Paavo Järvi, is "not a football team. "It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about having something very fragile that needs to be nurtured and protected, not turned into a mass event."
Järvi, who is back in Cincinnati to lead the opening concerts of the CSO’s 111th season, nevertheless knows how to play the game.
  - [Read more]

Paavo Järvi

Time is Paavo Järvi’s enemy. The clock is ticking as the Cincinnati Symphony music director sits at an outdoor café in Pärnu, Estonia, having just left a press conference where details of an upcoming music festival were announced.  It is mid-July and Järvi has come to Pärnu to coach students at his father Neeme Järvi’s annual master classes in conducting (feature article, Ohio magazine, Nov. 2004).
  - [Read more]

This weekend’s Cincinnati Symphony concerts might have been authorized by an act of Congress.
Friday is “National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day” and according to 36 U.S.C. §129,  “The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

  - [Read more]