Has anyone noticed all of the classical music festivals this year? Bryce Dessner’s MusicNOW seemed to be a huge success, with big crowds at the symphony and sell-out crowds at the smaller venues. Here are my articles about the festival:

MusicNOW: Rock, symphony and world premieres

The National, CSO electrify together

CSO, MusicNOW make cutting-edge music together

And Tatiana Berman’s Constella Festival opens on Wednesday with 10 events, as well as two “partner” events. I’m particularly interested in Friday’s concert (7 p.m. April 10), featuring superstar violinist Hilary Hahn with Hauschka ((the musical alias of Germany-based Volker Bertelmann) to give the Cincinnati premiere of their project “Silfra.”  at Cincinnati Art Museum, Fath Auditorium. 

Hahn described the improvisational project, which they recorded in Silfra, just outside of Reykjavik, a place that marks the divide between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, as challenging and “with virtually no pre-planned material but with a clear sense of how we wanted to proceed. We were surprised by how far the process pushed us.”

Read more about Constella in my article here.

And now, there’s another new festival: Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra’s Summermusik, a new, three-week festival, Aug. 15–Sept. 3.  “Through beer tasting, having specialized drinks at some venues that come with your ticket price or by doing a Beatles program that’s a mash-up of rock and classical music, we’re looking for new opportunities to get in front of our audiences of the future,” says LeAnne Anklan, CCO acting general manager.

Read about their new season here.

And next month, don’t forget, it’s the Cincinnati May Festival. James Conlon has announced that he will leave after next season. Read about it here.