Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (Florida State University Photo Lab)

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich charmed the citizens of Hamilton, Ohio March 6 with a concert of her music, including her Symphony No. 4, "The Gardens," heard for only the second time since its premiere at Michigan State University in 1999.  Doing the honors at New Life Vineyard Church in Hamilton were the Hamilton Fairfield Symphony Orchestra led by music director Paul John Stanberg, members of the HFSO Chorale, a children's choir and hand bell ringers from the community.  Soloist in her 1993 Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra was HFSO principal hornist Todd Fitter.  And giving the concert punch was Zwilich's 1996 "Peanuts Gallery" for piano and orchestra performed by Kenneth Danielson, winner of the orchestra's 2009-2010 young artist competition.
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Augusta Read Thomas

The central division convention of the American Choral Directors Association, held in Cincinnati Feb. 24-26, included the Midwest premiere of two important choral works, Krzysztof Penderecki's 1996 Credo and Augusta Read Thomas' 2000 "Ring Out, Wild Bells, to the Wild Sky."  Delivering a handsome performance Feb. 27 in Corbett Auditorium at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music were the CCM Philharmonia Orchestra, CCM Chamber Choir and Chorale, Cincinnati Children's Choir and more than a dozen vocal soloists.  Conducting was Earl Rivers, director of the choral studies program and head of the division of ensembles and conducting at CCM.
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The Swedish Radio Choir is without doubt one of, if not the world's greatest a capella choir.  Shaped and nurtured for 30 years by the legendary Eric Ericson, there seem to be no vocal challenges these 32 singers cannot meet.  Led by guest conductor Ragnar Bohlin, the choir made its Cincinnati debut at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral Feb. 24 in music by Hugo Alfven, Ned Rorem, Gustav Mahler, Sven David Sandström, J.S. Bach, Anders Hillborg and Frank Martin.
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Roberto Diaz

How do you say "It's gonna rain" in Russian?  The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra led by music director Mischa Santora said it with Prokofiev and Alfred Schnittke Feb. 21 at Memorial Hall.  There was sunshine, too, in Tchaikovsky.  Guest artist, with both points of view, was violist Roberto Diaz.
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Hans Rott

Music director Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra juxtaposed Brahms and Hans Rott on its concert Feb. 19 at Music Hall.  How fitting, since it was Brahms who allegedly helped send the young composer to any early grave.  Rott, it seems, brought his Symphony in E Major to Brahms for his comments, which were negative.  Rott later slipped into insanity and died of tuberculosis in a mental asylum at age 25.
   Guest artist Janine Jansen did the honors for Brahms with his Violin Concerto.
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Paavo Järvi

Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra performed their third concert together at New York's Carnegie Hall Feb. 15 with pianist Radu Lupu.  They had a hall with fabled acoustics to perform in and played it accordingly. Their program of Ravel, Bartok, Bach/Webern and Witold Lutoslawski was tailored for the occasion and presented the orchestra -- and Carnegie Hall -- at their very best.
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Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi music director

Music director Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony previewed the program they will take to New York's Carnegie Hall Feb. 15 in subscription concerts Feb. 12 and 13 in Cincinnati's Music Hall.  It is a substantial and enticing program, with four 20th-century works:  Ravel's "Mother Goose" Suite, Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3 with guest artist Radu Lupu, Anton Webern's orchestration of the Fuga Ricercare from Bach's "The Musical Offering" and last, but not least, the Concerto for Orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski.
   The Feb. 12 concert promised a successful appearance at Carnegie Hall, the third by Järvi and the CSO in the legendary Manhattan venue and their last in New York together.  Estonian-born Järvi, CSO  music director since 2001, announced in January that he will not renew his contract with the orchestra when it expires at the end of the 2010-2011 season.
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Dmitri Slobodeniouk (photo by Svenna Martens)

Dmitri Slobodeniouk, a rising star in Europe, picked a portentous time and place to make his North American debut.  As guest conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra February 4 at Music Hall, he came to an orchestra that is searching for a new music director. Current CSO music director Paavo Järvi announced in January that he will leave the orchestra at the end of the 2010-2011 season, thus casting a spotlight on the Music Hall podium and those who will cross it during the coming months.  With an all-Tchaikovsky program to buoy him, including the Symphony No. 4 and Serenade for Strings, Op. 38, the 34-year-old Russian acquitted himself handsomely.
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Jim Brickman

Cincinnati Pops associate conductor Steven Reineke led the band and Jim Brickman tickled the ivories for a Pops "Remix" show Jan. 31 at Music Hall that looked ahead to Valentine's Day.  Vocalists Anne Cochran and Mark Masri and sensational electric violinist Tracy Silverman helped warm the hall on a cold night.
(first published in the Cincinnati Enquirer Feb. 2, 2010)
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John Nelson

Want to impress a younger crowd?  Older, too, for that matter.  Try Beethoven.  The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by guest conductor John Nelson did just that Jan. 29 at Music Hall on a matinee concert attended by the entire student body of Cincinnati's School for Creative and Performing Arts.  The youngsters mingled with the many retirees and older people who routinely attend CSO matinees for a program including Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with guest artist Imogen Cooper and his rhythmically charged Seventh Symphony.
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Poster image for "A Musical Legacy: Three Works from Three Centuries and Two Continents," Plum Street Temple, Cincinnati, January 27, 2010

United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed each year on January 27, anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz in 1945.  Cincinnati, a city with historic German and Jewish roots and sister city of Munich, Germany, held a special remembrance January 27 at Plum Street Temple in the form of a concert by musicians of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  The program highlighted reconciliation, with premieres of works by Jewish composers Hermann Levi and Walter Braunfels, led by conductor Martin Wettges, a non-Jewish German and former CCM student, who unearthed them in his native country.
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Paavo Järvi (photo by Mark Lyons)

"Heavenly length" has been used to describe the music of Franz Schubert.  However, Anton Bruckner qualifies as well or better, with nine long symphonies deeply rooted in his devout Roman Catholic faith.  Longest (75 minutes) and greatest of them is the Symphony No. 8 performed  by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by Paavo Järvi January 22 and 23 at Music Hall.  Opening the program was the CSO debut of pianist Alice Sara Ott in Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1.
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Sergei Polusmiak

Pianist Sergei Polusmiak, distinguished artist-in-residence, at Northern Kentucky University, heads a chamber music series each year with guest artists from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and elsewhere.  The first concert of the 2009-10 "New Beginnings" series Jan. 17 in Greaves Concert Hall featured Polusmiak with violinist Tatiana Berman and cellist Ilya Finkelstehyn in a program of Debussy, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, including an emotionally charged performance of Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor.
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Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk

The "Great Music in a Great Space" series at Cincinnati's St. Peter in Chains Cathedral is a jewel of the city, with distinguished guest choirs and ensembles.  The series honored retiring Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk January 17 with a concert by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by music director Paavo Jarvi.  The "all Bach" concert featured a 20th-century work inspired by the baroque master, Estonian composer Arvo Part's "Wenn Bach bienen gezüchtet hätte . . ."  ("If Bach had kept bees"), a natural for Estonian-born Järvi.
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Paavo Järvi

Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" is one of the most popular works in the repertoire.  It was no surprise, then, that Music Hall in Cincinnati was nearly full for its opening performance January 15 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus.  Led by CSO music director Paavo Järvi, it was also one of the best in memory, with soloists Laura Claycomb (soprano), Lawrence Brownlee (tenor) and Stephen Powell (baritone).  Making the concert even more special was the complete "Les nuits d'ete" by Berlioz performed by soprano Measha Brueggergosman and the CSO premiere of Olivier Messiaen's "Un Sourire."
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