Category: Chamber music

Impressions of the CSO’s “Live from Music Hall”

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Louis Langrée leads the CSO and violinist Augustin Hadelich in a rarely heard violin concerto for “Live from Music Hall.”

Question: How is recording a concert for livestream different from a regular recording session or an orchestra rehearsal?

“It’s a very strange, weird experience,” said CSO maestro Louis Langrée, during a recording session at Music Hall last week. “Because, when it’s a recording, you record bits, and you might do a run-through and make patches on what didn’t work. There is all this editing. We can’t do that. So we run it twice, and if there are places, or some movement where either I need to do it again, or the film director needs to do it again, we run it a third time.”

You may have noticed that the orchestra is facing the acoustical shell, with backs to the hall — not only to hear each other better but because the visuals looking out into the hall are pretty on film. The musicians are widely spaced, with Plexiglas between the winds. Playing without an audience is odd for the musicians and maestro.Read More »

Cincinnati arts in top 20 of U.S. communities

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CCO musicians performing at Pyramid Hill sculpture park, Hamilton
May Festival Chorus

A new report from the National Center for Arts Research names Cincinnati in the top 20 of large communities for arts vibrancy. The report takes “a data-driven approach to assessing characteristics that make up a community’s vibrancy rather than base the ranking on our own opinion about locations or on a popular vote.” Four measures were analyzed: supply, demand, and public support for arts and culture on a per capita basis.

It’s interesting that such a report would come out during a pandemic, when most arts organizations closed their doors in March, and have been struggling to survive ever since. The reason, the report says, it offers the report “as a celebration and reminder of the arts’ enduring importance, resiliency, and vibrancy.

“We should not forget the essential role that the arts play in fueling community development, emotional health, cultural literacy, social cohesion and integration, and creative expression. Ultimately, the communal nature of arts participation will be a strength to communities hungry to come together again and affirm existential meaning after prolonged isolation, trauma, and polarization.”

Indeed.Read More »

Local classical music focuses on music by African American composers

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Anthony McGill performing at the Linton Music Series recently/ photo by Tina Gutierrez

 

Something good has come out of all the turmoil this summer. Arts organizations are programming music and even entire seasons devoted to the music of African American composers. It is music long neglected in our country. From the King of Ragtime Scott Joplin, whose “Maple Leaf Rag” appears on the Pops’ digital program on Oct. 3, to Florence Price, whose elegant symphonies, concertos and piano pieces are enjoying a revival, it is wonderful music that deserves study by scholars and performances by our major institutions. And now, that is happening at the Cincinnati Symphony, the Cincinnati Pops, the Cincinnati Song Initiative and others.

The Cincinnati Symphony and Pops are programming a free “digital season,” seven livestreamed concerts recorded in Music Hall, kicking off at 8 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 26.Read More »

“Live from Linton” — Linton Chamber Music to return, livestreamed and with small audiences

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Sharon Robinson and Jaime Laredo, married duo and co-artistic directors of the storied Linton Music Series

Linton Chamber Music will return to its devoted fans. But, like everything else these days, the 2020-21 season has been “re-imagined.”

Live performances will be streamed online from the Linton stage at First Unitarian Church. Besides that, Linton Chamber Music will be making a small, limited amount of seating available to subscribers and donors.

CSO concertmaster Stefani Matsuo, principal cellist Ilya Finkelshteyn and CCM faculty member pianist Sandra Rivers

Starting Oct. 4, concerts will be streamed Live on Sundays at 4 pm on the Linton Chamber Music YouTube Channel, with audio engineering performed by WGUC (90.9) FM. Artists include co-artistic directors Sharon Robinson and Jaime Laredo, violinist Jennifer Koh, the return of the New York Philharmonic Quartet, the Miami String Quartet, faculty members from CCM and principal players from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

The musical lineup — as always — is enticing, including an all-Bach program for solo violin (Jennifer Koh), piano trios by Mendelssohn and Schumann, Bartok “Contrasts,” the Beethoven Septet in E-flat major and the Cincinnati premiere of a work by Richard Danielpour, String Quintet, A Shattered Vessel.”

You’ll be able to view programs on your flat-screen TV or your computer. Scroll to the end of this post for instructions.

The online performances are FREE. Donations are welcome, with a support button for each program on the website.

More about the programs:Read More »

Cincinnati Song Initiative to go virtual this season

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Cincinnati Song Initiative participants around the piano from a previous season (L-R): Alex Hurd, Ahyoung Jung, Samuel Martin, Ivy Walz, Kenneth Griffiths, Marie Marquis

I’ve enjoyed some of the most engaging programs in memory by Cincinnati Song Initiative, a series of programs devoted to art song. Founded five years ago by Sam Martin, it features rising stars — many of them CCM alumni — and CCM faculty in impeccable performances of music we don’t often hear.

This year, it’s all digital, thanks to Covid-19. That doesn’t mean that it’s programs aren’t just as compelling. Concerts can be streamed through CSI’s new online platform, CSI Digital. You can
access the concerts as they stream live and re-watch them as many times as you wish. You’ll also have access to extras, such as Composers & Cocktails happy hour chats, Beyond the Song webinars, Coffee Convos roundtable discussions, and CSI’s complete video concert archives.

Elena Villalón appears in January

The season includes its largest commissioning project to date. Cincinnati Song Initiative will commission a single song from ten composers for its grand finale in May.

Here’s the schedule:Read More »

New York radio WQXR to air CSO’s Beethoven Akademie 1808 concert this month

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Maesstro Louis Langrée, with soloist Inon Barnatan, the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Akademie 1808 concert in Music Hall/AJ Waltz, photos

“Mostly Mozart Festival on WQXR,” a week-long radio festival on New York’s classical radio station, will be capped on Aug. 16 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven Akademie 1808 concert performed last season in Music Hall and conducted by music director Louis Langrée.

On Monday, WQXR and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts announced a partnership to broadcast archival performances from the annual Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as interviews, discussions and “pop-up” performances daily from Aug. 10 to Aug. 16.  New Yorkers can listen at 105.9-FM, or anyone may stream it online at wqxr.org. On opening day, a series of pop-up outdoor performances across all five New York City boroughs will stream live on WQXR’s Facebook page.

Due to Covid-19, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, which is led by Langrée, was canceled for the first time since its founding in 1966.

The festival will close on Aug. 16 with the CSO’s recreation of Beethoven’s legendary Akademie 1808, the most important concert of the composer’s lifetime (Aug 16, 5 pm ET). Langrée had intended to lead the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in this extravagant program — four hours of some of the greatest music Beethoven ever wrote. Instead, the festival will feature the performance recorded in Music Hall on March 1, 2020 with Langrée conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and featuring the May Festival Chorus prepared by Director of Choruses Robert Porco.
Read More »

Chamber Orchestra announces lineup for Summermusik e-festival

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CCO musicians performing at Pyramid Hill

In lieu of its usual month-long Summermusik festival, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra has 13 virtual events on tap to enjoy at home, Aug. 8 through Aug. 29.

The Silver-Garburg Piano Duo

Three will be three “live” events — online performances in real time, with stars including the Silver-Garburg Piano Duo, who wowed us in person at the festival in 2019 (Aug. 9); the superb young cellist Coleman Itzkoff, a Cincinnati native and CCO principal violist Heidi Yenney’s son (Aug. 16); and pianist Alon Goldstein, one of the stars of the 2017 festival (Aug. 23).

Those “eConcerts” will be hosted by music director Eckart Preu, and you’ll have a chance to ask questions.

Other events include “virtual watch parties” with local collaborators, a special WGUC Music Cincinnati Broadcast (Aug. 16), and “CCO2GO Rewind” events that were taped around the region earlier this summer.

Best of all, it’s all FREE. Access begins on Aug. 8th on the CCO’s website, ccocincinnati.org. Here’s the full lineup.Read More »

CSO, Pops cancel fall season; live-streamed shows planned

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An image I captured during the CSO’s livestream from Music Hall in May.

It’s no surprise. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra announced today that its fall season concerts for the CSO and Pops are canceled through Jan. 3 2021 due to Covid-19. Click here to read the story.

Louis Langrée

The orchestra joins a growing number of major North American orchestras that are canceling all or part of their 2020-21 seasons amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus.

The Indianapolis Symphony was the latest to cancel its entire season on July 24. Here’s a link to the news.

The Nashville Symphony also has announced it will not play in 2020-21. It will furlough its musicians, staff and even its music director, Giancarlo Guerrero. Press release here.

Toronto announced that it will not have its usual season, but will present scaled-down ensembles, even in its home in Roy Thomson Hall..

Those who have announced they will cancel their fall seasons only (for now) include The New Jersey Symphony, which is led by music director Xian Zhang, who earned her doctorate at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

The San Francisco Symphony, with its season canceled through Dec. 31, was to have welcomed its new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen this fall.

Other major orchestras canceling fall seasons include the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony, Chicago Symphony (through Dec. 23) and the Baltimore Symphony, optimistically to the end of November.

CSO announces 5 new diversity fellows

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Amy Nickler

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) have selected five accomplished musicians for their next class of CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows.

The performance fellowship program was launched in 2015 out of a desire to help American orchestras be more inclusive and to better represent the communities they serve. The mission is to eliminate obstacles that can prevent musicians of color from achieving their full potential. It is funded with a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Through the collaborative program, CCM and the CSO provide graduate level academic study
and professional development and performance opportunities for the Diversity Fellows.

“The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra exists to serve our community. Our entire community,”
said CSO President Jonathan Martin. “But how can we authentically serve our entire community
if a significant part of that community doesn’t see themselves reflected in our organization? The
CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship is one of many steps we are taking to address this disparity. By
providing professional opportunities to a more diverse group of outstanding musicians, we hope
to cultivate—and begin changing —the next generation of American orchestral musicians.”

The new Fellows are:Read More »

Library of Congress commissions 10 musical works in response to Covid pandemic

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Illustration from a medieval manuscript
Public Domain. Bibliotheek, K. (2020, April 01). Giovanni Boccaccio & Florentines Who Have Fled from the Plague. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/image/12052/

The Black Plague of the 14th century had Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, a literary masterpiece about 10 Florentine authors, holed up in quarantine, who entertained themselves by telling stories. The result was 100 tales.

Now, the Library of Congress announced today it will premiere a series of 10 commissions of new music from composers across America in The Boccaccio Project, a musical response to our current plague.

That early moment in history parallels the quarantine and social distancing phenomena we have been experiencing worldwide in recent months, the Library of Congress news release stated.

Curators in the Library’s Music Division asked 10 pairs of composers and performers to write brief solo works to be premiered over the course of 10 days — June 15 to June 26. The composers and performers are working remotely, and once the new commissions have been recorded, they will be released on the Library’s digital platforms and by the artists.

The release of the commissions over 10 days is a nod to the “Decameron’s” structure, the release said.

Since the Library’s concert series was founded in 1925, more than 600 works have been commissioned under the auspices of the Library’s gift funds.Read More »