A Week to Celebrate Erich Kunzel

Erich Kunzel (photo taken in Memorial Hall, Cincinnati)

The public is invited to the induction of Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame Wednesday evening (May 6) in Cincinnati's Memorial Hall.

   The medallion ceremony will take place at 6:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St. in Over-the-Rhine, where the Hall of Fame is located.  Taking part will be performers from the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts, an institution Kunzel has supported throughout his career.

   In fact, going up nearby on Central Parkway is the new SCPA, a magnificent brick and glass structure whose construction Kunzel championed through the fund-raising efforts of the Greater Cincinnati Arts and Education Center, which he chairs.  Admission is free.

   It is sure to be a moving event, especially after news announced last week that Kunzel, 74, is suffering from pancreatic cancer.

   Making it even more of a week to celebrate Kunzel, the famed Pops meister will close the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra's 2008-09 season this weekend at Music Hall.  The concerts, which feature vocalist Sandi Patty in a Broadway-themed program, are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday (May 8-10) in Music Hall.

   Tickets are $20-$97, available by calling (513) 381-3300, or online at www.cincinnatipops.org

Sergei Polusmiak

Pianist Sergei Polusmiak, distinguished artist in residence/Thomas and Christine Neyer Family Professor of Music at Northern Kentucky University, performs a blockbuster recital at7:30 p.m. Thursday (May 7) in Greaves Concert Hall at NKU.

   You are certain to find one of your favorites on his ravishing program which comprises Beethoven's Sonata No. 23 in F Minor ("Appassionata"); four Preludes  from Chopin's Preludes, Op. 28; Chopin's Ballade No. 4 in F Minor;  selections from Rachmaninoff's Preludes and Etudes-tableaux; and Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op.83.  Fasten your seat belts.

   Tickets are $10 at the door, or contact the NKU department of music at (859) 572-6399.

Annalisa Pappano with treble viola da gamba

Travel backward in time Sunday (May 10) with the Catacoustic Consort, the eminent, Cincinnati-based early music ensemble led by Annalisa Pappano.  The concert begins at 3 p.m. in the Cincinnati Art Museum Auditorium, where it may be preceded by a tour of artwork from the museum's medieval and Renaissance collections.

   The program, to be repeated for the Medieval Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, features music for tenor and viols (predecessors of the violin family).  Tenor Daniel Carberg of Champaign, Illinois, will perform, with Wendy Gillespie, Mark Burke, James Lambert and Pappano on violas da gamba ("leg viols," meaning held between the legs like a cello).

   Admission is $20, $7 for students, free for children 12 and under and members of the Cincinnati Art Museum.  Tickets will be available at the door, or in advance at (513) 772-3242 or online at www.catacoustic.com

   Hear Paul Jacobs, one of today's finest organists, at 7 p.m. Monday (May 11) at Calvary Episcopal Church, 3766 Clifton Ave. in Clifton.  Chairman of the organ department at New York's Juilliard School of Music, Jacobs will perform the Cincinnati premiere of a re-discovered Prelude and Fugue by American composer Samuel Barber.  Also on the program are the Prelude and Fugue in B Major, Op.7, by Marcel Dupre, Trio Sonata in E Minor by J.S. Bach, "Pageant" by Leo Sowerby and Fantasy and fugue on "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam" by Franz Liszt.

   Admission is free.

   Performed just once (1928), Barber's Prelude and Fugue was unearthed at the Library of Congress by music historian Barbara Heyman in 1984 and re-introduced by Jacobs in Philadelphia last fall.

   Jacobs, 32, made history at age 23 by performing the complete organ music of J.S. Bach in an 18-hour marathon in Pittsburgh honoring the 250th anniversary of the German master's death.  He has also performed the complete organ works of French composer Olivier Messiaen in a series of nine-hour marathons across the U.S.

    Jacobs was named "best organist of 2007” by New York magazine, and one of his recent concerts in Washington D.C. was named one of the best performances of 2008 by the Washington Post.

   For further information, call (513) 861-4437.