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John Williams

The Cincinnati Pops' 2010-2011 season reads like a love letter to Erich Kunzel, the revered conductor who led pops concerts in Cincinnati for 44 years and founded the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in 1977.  Names like John Williams, Bernadette Peters and Henry Mancini dot the season as do Kunzel-style Halloween, Celtic and holiday concerts.  Williams will lead a special non-subscription concert in Kunzel's memory August 7 at Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati.
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Hans Rott

Dissing Cincinnati seems to be a regular exercise, perhaps like the viola, perpetual butt of "viola jokes"  It remains a fact, however, that much of great moment does occur in this Midwest river city.
   A great musical moment was the world premiere of Austrian composer Hans Rott's 1880 Symphony in E Major by the Philharmonia Orchestra of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music on March 4, 1989 in Corbett Auditorium at CCM.  Conductor Gerhard Samuel and the Philharmonia introduced the work to Europe at the International Mahler Festival in Paris on March 10 at the Theatre du Chatelet and made the world premiere recording the next week in London.
   Rott "returns" to Cincinnati in a performance of his now-celebrated Symphony in E Major by Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at 8  p.m. Feb. 19 and 20 at Music Hall.  The same program includes the Violin Concerto by Brahms, whose dissing of Rott's symphony helped send the young man to his grave at 25.
   You can hear the viola this weekend played by Roberto Diaz, guest artist with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.  Diaz, former principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, now president of the Curtis Institute of Music, will perform works by Tchaikovsky and Alfred Schnittke on an all-Russian program led by music director Mischa Santora at 2 p.m. Feb. 21 in Memorial Hall.

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Radu Lupu

Witold Lutoslawski's 1954 Concerto for Orchestra goes to Carnegie Hall Feb. 15, via concerts by Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Feb. 12 and 13 at Music Hall in Cincinnati.  Guest artist will be Romanian pianist Radu Lupu in Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3.
  Meanwhile, Valentine's weekend in Cincinnati takes quite a spin on love, from Sleeping Beauty and "they lived happily ever after" to Benjamin Britten's "Rape of Lucretia."  Meet Sleeping Beauty in Ravel's "Mother Goose" Suite, to be performed by Järvi and the CSO, both in Cincinnati and New York, and Britten's ill-fated heroine in the production of "Lucretia" by the opera department of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Feb. 11-14 in Patricia Corbett Theater at CCM.
  
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Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner is a composer not everyone warms to.  But those who do tend to put him at the top of their list.  Music director Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra invites everyone -- Bruckner aficionados as well as those those who don't know his music, aren't sure they like it, or just want to take the plunge -- to experience his monumental Symphony No. 8 (1890 version) January 22 and 23 at Music Hall.  Seventy-five minutes long and a showpiece for brasses, it has been called the "Apocalyptic."  The program opens with the CSO debut of the rising young pianist Alice Sara Ott in a work that needs no introduction, Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major.
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photo by Mark Lyons

Many reasons are being advanced for Paavo Järvi's decision to leaves the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at the end of next season, his 10th with the orchestra.  Ultimately, they boil down to career.  He could stay in Cincinnati and build the CSO (as Erich Kunzel did the Cincinnati Pops) or he could seek his fortune and share his art in the wider world.  In today's uncertain economic climate, which impacts the arts more in the U.S. than in Europe, the choice seems obvious.
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It was written by a German, premiered in Dublin and became a staple of the English oratorio repertoire.  Handel's "Messiah" will be performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus led by guest conductor/baroque interpreter Nicholas McGegan December 17, 19 and 20 at Music Hall.  Soloists are soprano Dominique Labelle, mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson, tenor Norman Shankle and bass Christopheren Nomura.
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One of Cincinnati's philanthropic angels, Louise Dieterle Nippert, has established an $85 million Musical Arts Fund, 75% of which will benefit the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  The purpose of the gift, called "transformational" by CSO president Trey Devey, is to help perpetuate the CSO as a full-time, world class orchestra performing at the highest professional level.  The balance of the Fund will go Cincinnati Opera and Cincinnati Ballet for the purpose of maintaining the CSO as their resident orchestra and to help support smaller arts organizations in Cincinnati on a case-by-case basis.
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"Adoration of the Magi" by Hieronymus Bosch (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Since it made history in 1951 as the first opera written for television, Gian-Carlo Menotti's one-act "Amahl and the Night Visitors" has never gone out of style.  The touching work, about a crippled boy and his mother who are visited by The Three Kings on their way to Bethlehem, has several connections to Ohio and Cincinnati history, including the original Amahl, Chet Arkins, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director (1970-75) Thomas Schippers, who conducted the world premiere telecast.  "Amahl" can be heard again this season at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College in Batavia and Ascension Lutheran Church in Montgomery.
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Tito Munoz

Tito Munoz is no stranger to Cincinnati audiences, having served as assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra during the 2006-07 season.  Munoz, who moved up I-71 to become assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, where he is now in his third year, will guest conduct the CSO Dec. 4 and 5 at Music Hall.  His program comprises Copland's "El Salon Mexico," Elgar's "Enigma Variations" and the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Chopin with guest artist Ingrid Fliter.
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If you haven't had enough of the witching season, there's more at Cincinnati's Music Hall this weekend.  Vocalists Megan Hilty and Julia Murney, Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, in "Wicked" on Broadway, will perform with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra led by Steven Reineke at 8 p.m. November 13 and 14, 3 p.m. November 15.  They replace previously announced guest artist and "Wicked" star Kristin Chenoweth (Glinda), who canceled because of illness.  The  program, dubbed "Wicked Divas," will comprise diva moments from Broadway, including "Wicked."   
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Peaslee Neighborhood Center in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine has been enriching the lives of inner-city residents for the past 25 years.  There will be a benefit concert for Peaslee -- tickets $15-$25 on a sliding scale -- November 10 in the School for Creative and Performing Arts Auditorium on Sycamore Street in OTR.  Scheduled to perform are African Drum Call, the OTR Steel Drum Reunion Band, MUSE -- Cincinnati's Women's Choir, The Keyboard Club, Morpheus Chamber Ensemble of Miami University and Brazil Band, plus Peaslee performers and special guests.  Emcee is Tracy L. Wilson.
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Making babies is always a serious proposition, but in Francis Poulenc's opera bouffe "Les Mamelles de Tiresias" the subject takes on surreal proportions.  That's because the libretto is by Guillaume Apollinaire, the turn-of-the-century poet who coined the word "surrealism" and was sincerely concerned about replenishing France's population.  The opera will be presented in a semi-staged, Opera Studio production at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music November 6-8, finale of CCM's "Fete Francais" this fall.
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Vocal Arts Ensemble with music director Donald Nally

Donald Nally, newly appointed music director of Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble, is committed to introducing audiences to contemporary music.  He will open the VAE's 30th anniversary season accordingly, with James MacMillan's powerful "Cantos Sagrados" ("Sacred Songs") November 6 at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral.  Each of the VAE's four concerts during the 2009-2010 season will feature "new music," with, among others, works by Kaija Saariaho, John Tavener, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Steven Stucky and David Lang.
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Steven Gross and Randy Gardner

The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra conducted by music director Mischa Santora offers Haydn, Stravinsky and Ginastera on its Oct. 18 program at Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati (with repeat Nov. 22 at Anderson Center in Anderson Township).  Or is it Haydn?  The Concerto for Two Horns attributed to him may actually be by Italian composer Antonio Rosetti.  However, there is no mystery about "Pulcinella,"which Stravinsky based on music by 18th-century composer Giovanni Pergolesi.  WCPO-TV's Dennis Janson will narrate an adaptation of "Pulcinella" by Santora.  Soloists in the Haydn (??) are CCO French hornists Steven Gross and Randy Gardner.  Also on the program is Alberto Ginastera's "Variaciones concertantes."
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