From Inner Peace to Iguanas

Catch concert:nova, the dynamic new chamber ensemble comprising members of the Cincinnati Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, stay healthy and enjoy the photos of Tom McFarlane May 30 at Inner Peace Holistic Center, 708 Walnut St. downtown.
   Doors to the Center’s new tea room open at 8 p.m. for a viewing of McFarlane’s award-winning digital images (for a sample see http://www.thomas-mcfarlane.com).

photo by Tom McFarlane

  
   There will be Chinese tea and wine tastings, mystical tea leaf readings, door prizes, a raffle and select spa services will be available throughout the evening (information at www.innerpeacecenter.net).
   Concert:nova, (www.concertnova.com),

concert:nova violinist Tatiana Berman

which has been popping up in the most unexpected places since its inaugural concert at the Coffee Emporium on Central Parkway last fall,will perform works by Vivaldi and Mozart, plus Argentine composers Alberto Ginastera and Astor Piazzolla, at 9:30 p.m.
   Admission is $5 at the door and proceeds go to the Concert Nova Foundation.

“Rappaccini’s Daughter,” a spooky tale by Nathaniel Hawthorne made into a play by Octavio Paz and now an opera by Mexican composer Daniel Catan, opens at 8 p.m. May 30 in Cohen Family Studio Theater at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
   The fully staged production -- about a very lethal female who identifies with plants -- will be sung in Spanish with English surtitles and  piano accompaniment.  Repeats are 8 p.m. May 31 and 2:30 p.m. June 1.  The event marks the close of CCM’s 2007-08 Studio Series and the first collaboration by CCM and Cincinnati Opera in their new, three-year Corbett Foundation Opera Fusion Program (see details in Features).
   Admission is free, but reservations are required since seating is limited.  Call the CCM box office at (513) 556-4183.

Looking ahead to its July production of Catan’s “Florencia en el Amazonas” Cincinnati Opera will present a special, wiggly Opera Rap, “Opera in the Amazon” at 7 p.m. June 4 in the Harold C. Schott Education Center at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.

illustration by Rene Milot for Cincinnati Opera's "Florencia en el Amazonas" by Daniel Catan

   Opera marketing director Christopher Milligan will discuss the world of locales inhabited by opera.

green iguana

Zoo executive director Thayne Maynard will introduce some of the animal life native to the Amazon rain forest where “Florencia” takes place.
   The event is free with Zoo admission, but reservations for Zoo tickets must be made by calling (513) 241-2742.

The Cincinnati Chamber orchestra enlists the Madcap Puppet Theater -- or is it the other way around? – for a family concert at 2 p.m. June 1 at the new Anderson Center, 7850 Five Mile Rd. in Anderson Township.
   Having double-booked the hall, Mysterion, the phantom of the concert hall, demands that the CCO and Madcap Puppets perform together.

Illustration for Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra's "Mysterian, Phantom of the Concert Hall" with Madcap Puppet Theater

They do, under the baton of CCO assistant conductor Kelly Kuo, who leads the combined forces in delightful interpretations of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee, Mozart’s Overture from “Don Giovanni” and a special puppet performance of Hansel and Gretel set to the Nocturne from Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
   Soloist will be cellist Coleman Itzkoff, a 10th grader from Walnut Hills High School, who will perform Haydn’s Cello Concerto In D Major.  Itzkoff, principal cellist of the CSO Youth Orchestra, was the winner of the CSYO’s Concerto Competition and a featured guest on National Public Radio’s “From the Top” in the spring of 2007.
   Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children18 and under.  Call the CCO at (513) 723-1182, the Aronoff Center box office at (513) 621-2787, or order online at www.ccocincinnati.com or www.cincinnatiarts.org/tickets.

In the news: Eric Kim, principal cellist of the CSO since 1989 has accepted a faculty appointment at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music effective in September, 2009.  He leaves the CSO at the end of next season.

Eric Kim

   Kim, who made his solo debut with the Chicago Symphony at age 15, has forged a distinguished career as a solo and chamber artist concurrent with his CSO post.  With undergraduate and graduate degrees from New York's Juilliard School, he was a student of Leonard Rose, Lynn Harrell and Channing Robbins and was the first recipient of the school's William Schuman Prize for outstanding leadership and achievement in music.
   Kim joins his former colleague, Alexander Kerr, concertmaster of the CSO from 1992-94, on the faculty of the prestigious school.