What a year! If you’re a musician or a music fan, you probably remember the last live concert you attended or performed before Covid-19 shut down the country in March. Mine was on March 10: My granddaughter’s middle school orchestra concert.

Looking back, I realized that my annual “best of the year” in performances could only apply to the 10 weeks before we were locked down. So I wrote my Year in Review column for the Business Courier in two parts, as BC — Before Covid — and after.

There were some unforgettable shows during both periods. In the second half — a season of screens — I am still enthralled by the Sept. 26 CSO digital program streamed from Music Hall, conducted by Louis Langrée. Gorgeous-voiced soprano Angel Blue gave an emotional performance of Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” a piece rarely heard. And what a treat it was to hear Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” as originally scored for 13 instruments.

And in a rare live performance by Cincinnati Ballet outdoors at Sawyer Point, I loved a new work for four dancers, choreographed (and danced) to Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat (fourth movement) by soloist David

Morse. It was thrilling to see the exuberance and strength, the lifts and turns of the entire company. The program was enhanced by performances by a CSO quartet and Cincinnati Opera singers Victoria Okafor and Maria Miller.

You can read that column here (it’s free).

Earlier this year, local critic and retired opera singer Rafael de Acha asked people in the arts to answer the question, “What have you been during during the pandemic?” for his blog, rafaelmusicnotes.com.

I thank him for that, because it made me look back at how I had the opportunity to document the impact of the pandemic on our arts community in the pages of the Business Courier. Here is some of that column:Read More »