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Nobody Does It Better

Mary Ellyn Hutton
Posted: Jun 19, 2009 - 12:43:15 PM in reviews_2009

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Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati swelled with emotion -- you could feel it in the air -- Thursday night at Riverbend as Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra celebrated the 25th anniversary of their summer home on the Ohio River.  Guest artists were the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in their second appearance at the outdoor venue, encoring a very popular debut last season.
 
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Neil Armstrong
  Very special guest was Ohio native Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 astronaut who first set foot on the moon.  Armstrong, as it happens, was a guest on the very first concert at Riverbend in 1984 when Kunzel and the Pops inaugurated the facility.  It was a double anniversary for Armstrong, since this year also marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.  As he did for that first Riverbend concert, Armstrong narrated the finale of Copland's "Lincoln Portrait."
   Constructed in 1983-84 with support from J. Ralph and Patricia Corbett, the Taft Broadcasting Company and Louise Semple Taft Foundation, Riverbend is unique in many ways.  For one thing, it may be the only concert facility anywhere designed to withstand flooding (anyone who has ever visited it when the Ohio River overflows its banks in the spring knows what this means).
   For another, Riverbend hosts everything from Cincinnati Symphony and Pops concerts to rock bands and contemporary events of all kinds.  Designed by architect Michael Graves, who gave it a post-modern look topped by eight porcelain enamel Muses, it along with the newly added (2008), smaller PNC Pavilion is a money-maker for the CSO and provides significant support for the organization.
   So it was Thursday, with what appeared to be a sold out pavilion and many more listeners on the lawn.  Preliminary estimates set the attendance at 10,000 or more.  Fortunately, the lawn-goers were spared what looked like a downpour at any moment from the leaden sky.
   There were many late-comers, with a huge crush of traffic on Route 52 trying to cram itself into the parking areas, but most people seemed quite good-natured about it.
   Kunzel and Mormon Tabernacle Choir director Mack Wilberg shared conducting duties.  Kunzel opened with Pops associate conductor Steven Reineke's "Riverbend 25th Anniversary Celebration Fanfare," a stirring tribute with a typical Reineke romantic glow.
   The National Anthem was sung by Cincinnati Bengal Ben Utecht, whose talents include -- in addition to blocking and receiving -- singing, having just released an album of contemporary Christian music.
   The program was divided into five categories, "Songs of Praise," "Songs of Faith and Hope," "Songs of the People," "Songs of the Land" and "Songs of Country."
   It was a wall of sound, well delineated, if not particularly flattered by the Riverbend sound system.  The sheer size of the ensemble makes its flexibility that much more remarkable.  Listeners could also become viewers with closeups of the performers projected onto video screens on either side of the pavilion and at the rear.
   Wilberg led off "Songs of Praise" with "Praise to the Lord" from the 1665 Stralsund Gesangbuch followed by John Wyeth's 1813 "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing."  Both were lovely arrangements (by Wilberg), given sheen and emphasis by choir members on hand bells.
   "Songs of Faith and Hope" included first half highlight was "Betelehemu," a Nigerian carol  with alternating  chantlike and rhythmic sections.  Choristers played along on African drums and percussion as it culminated in a virtual swaying, clapping village of sound.  Vocalist Alex Boyer was featured in a pair of African-American spirituals, the soulful "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" and a rousing "Rock-a-my-soul in the Bosom of Abraham."
   Kunzel turned to "Songs of the People" with a George M. Cohan medley ("Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "It's a Grand Old Flag").  Particularly moving, however, was the Latter-day Saint Hymn "Come, Come, Ye Saints," with its touching refrain ("All is Well"). 
   CSO/Pops principal clarinetist Richard Hawley and principal trombonist Cristian Ganicenco shone in John Rutter's jazzy arrangement of "When the Saints Go Marching In," an evocative score wiith string tremolo sul ponticello (on the bridge) giving just the right color to "When the moon has turned to dust."
   John Williams' "Call of the Champions," written for the Choir and premiered at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, was fanfare-like, with the voices used like instruments on repeated incantations of the Olympic motto "citius! altius! fortius!" ("faster, higher, stronger").
   Armstrong strode onstage to a standing ovation and delivered Abraham Lincoln's words in Copland's "Portrait" with great conviction and expression.  Some seemed just as urgent for modern day America as they were when Lincoln uttered them:  "We must dis-enthrall ourselves and then we will save our country."
    There couldn't have been two selections more fitting to the theme "Songs of the Land" than Marta Keen Thompsons touching "Homeward Bound" with tin whistle accompaniment and the raucous folk song "Cindy."  Wilberg led this foot-stomper with gusto -- "Get along home little Cindy, I'll marry you sometime" -- though I would like to have heard the CSO's Paul Patterson's banjo, which got submerged in  the texture.
   "Songs of Country" climaxed the evening.  Led with presence and dynamism by Kunzel, the words and music moistened many an eye.  One of Kunzel's specialties, a medley of Armed Services anthems, saluted members of the audience who had served in the military, calling them to their feet individually as their particular anthem was sounded.  A huge American flag mounted on the wall behind the chorus and boy scouts marching on with flags added visual punch to this and to Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" and Robert Ward's "America the Beautiful."
   Everyone came to their feet for "God Bless America," sung by Utecht, garbed in a royal blue tux, with red vest and tie.  Kunzel cued the audience to sing along on the final verse which must have sent a glorious sound out into the night.
   Encores were "Climb Every Mountain" led by Wilberg and "Battle Hymn of the Republic," where, again, Kunzel signaled the crowd to sing along.