Constella Opening a Stellar Affair

Hilary Hahn

Valentina Lasitsa

It’s not every day that you can hear 13 world premieres on the same program or see an exhibit of art works designed to complement them.

Such was the felicitous idea behind Thursday evening’s stellar opening of Cincinnati’s brand new Constella Festival of Music and Fine Arts at Memorial Hall.

The music was provided by violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Valentina Lasitsa, who held their listeners in thrall with music spanning Bach to Nico Muhly on the Memorial Hall stage. 

“Encores,” the art show curated by Sandra Gross and Lisa Merida-Paytes, comprised contemporary miniatures (maximum size: 6 x 6 inches) by Lea Busch, Cedric Michael Cox, Christopher Daniel, Stuart Fink, Gross,  Andrey Kozakov, Merida-Paytes, Casey Riordan Miller, Rod Northcutt, Sara Pearce, Mark Schlachter, Kim Watling and Rondle West.  It was presented in the downstairs meetings rooms after the concert and drew an enthusiastic crowd.

The two art forms went well together.  Hahn’s 13 premieres are from a set she has commissioned called “In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores.”  She is introducing them on tour and will record them.  Given a first hearing Thursday -- and announced from the stage by Hahn -- were short pieces (2-5 minutes long) by Lera Auerbach, Tina Davidson, Avner Dorman, Soren Nils Eichberg, Christos Hatzis, Jennifer Higdon, Bun-Ching Lam, Paul Moravec, Muhly, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Max Richter, Somei Satoh and Gillian Whitehead.  It was a shining example of Hahn’s commitment to new music.

The pieces showed considerable diversity, not so much in language (post-modern to neo-romantic) as in inspiration and structure.  They ranged from Dorman’s “Memory Games,” based on the 1980s memory game “Simon” to Hatzis’ programmatic ’ “Coming To,” about a mortally ill ballet dancer who rises from his bed to dance with an imaginary violinist only to collapse from exhaustion at the end.

 The full resources of the violin were tapped in the 13 commissions, fingered harmonics (Whitehead’s “Törua” and Auerbach’s “Speak, Memory”), left-hand pizzicato (“Memory Games”) and pure, sweet high-lying passages (Richter’s “Mercy”).  In Davidson’s “Blue Curve of the Earth,” Hahn fingered the strings audibly (without the bow), while for sheer beauty, Satoh’s “Bifü” and Rautavaara’s “Whispering” were standouts. Higdon’s “Echo Dash” with its delightfully staggered lines is surely destined to take its place among Hahn’s most popular encores-to-be.

Hahn’s E’s (encores) shared the program with the three B’s, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.  All were exquisitely performed and illustrated the comprehensive range of Hahn’s musicality.  Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G Minor for solo violin, which began the second half, earned a spontaneous standing ovation.  And well it should.  Her bow control and articulation were astounding as she outlined the music’s polyphonic textures, projecting double stops and rapid passages with jaw-dropping precision.  (She even made it sound easy.)  In Beethoven’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in A Major, she visited the Classic period with grace and a beautiful singing tone.  As she did all evening, pianist Lisitsa accompanied her with sensitivity and precision. 

Hahn’s Brahms represented the romantic period with his dramatic, dashing Sonatensatz in C Minor Wo0 2 (without opus number), again prompting a standing ovation.  There was a genuine (unprogrammed) encore here, Charles Ives’ 1901 Largo for Violin and Piano.

The “Encore” art show showed similar range and diversity, with canvases, bronzes, porcelain, glass, wood sculpture, even paper art and dollhouse figures.  Browsers (and buyers) could sample the special Constella ice cream (chocolate with hot pepper) prepared by Madisono's Gelato and Coffee Emporium.

The Constella Festival continues at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 14 with “Cincinnati Connections,” featuring New York Philharmonic principal oboist Liang Wag in the Fifth-Third Bank Theater at the Aronoff Center for the Arts.  Admission is $22.