The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra’s 12th Summermusik festival will hail America at 250 whil it carries on the orchestra’s tradition of imaginative programs across the city and region. This summer’s festival, Aug. 4-29, will included the artist debuts of renowned cellist Zuill Bailey and Fabiola Méndez, a virtuoso of the cuatro, a Latin American string instrument.

Eckart Preu, music director of the CCO, will open the mainstage season with the world premiere of  “Visions of Humanity and Unity,” featuring Bailey as soloist. The cello concerto is a tribute to America’s 250th birthday this year, and each of its five movements is composed by a different composer: Mark O’Connor, Avner Dorman, Enrico Chapela, Zhou Tian and Chanda Dancy.

Cincinnati-based opera soprano Victoria Okafor joins the CCO for a semi-staged performance of Kurt Weill’s 20th century masterpiece “The Seven Deadly Sins.” And audience favorite Roger Klug returns to The Redmoor for a Chamber Crawl highlighting the legacy of American rock legends such as Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson.

The festival will continue the successful mix of four mainstage concerts at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, as well as weeknight “Chamber Crawls” and Sunday matinees dubbed “A Little Afternoon Musik.”

In recent years, the festival has included more new works alongside traditional chamber orchestra repertoire. Says executive director Evan Gidley, “We are lucky to have an audience that embraces classics like ‘Appalachian Spring’ as enthusiastically as they do a world premiere by one of our Kreitler Executive Commission Competition winners.”

The 2026 Festival includes works by Copland, Mozart, Beethoven, and Shostakovich as well as works by 17 living composers – including Max Richter, Angélica Negrón, Roberto Sierra, and the 2026 Kreitler Commission Competition winner Simon Rivet.

As an example of the “expected and unexpected,” the festival will close with Mozart’s Symphony No. 35, “Haffner” paired with music by Frank Zappa.

Click here to see the full 2026 season calendar.

For the 2026 Festival, Summermusik will again offer a discounted single ticket rate for Young Professionals under 40 for all 11 programs. It will also continue offering free tickets for children under the age of 13 for Mainstage and A Little Afternoon Musik concerts. Subscriptions are now on sale, with single tickets on sale on Monday, April 6.

Info and tickets: Call 513-723-1182 x2 or visit Summermusik online at http://www.summermusik.org