Category: Opera

Cincinnati Opera releases world premiere recording of ‘Blind Injustice’

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(L to R) Mark Godsey, Rickey Jackson, Laurese Glover, Derrick Wheatt, Eugene Johnson, Nancy Smith, and Clarence Elkins. Photo by Space Cabin Studios/provided by Cincinnati Opera

Cincinnati Opera has just announced the release of the live audio recording of the world premiere production of “Blind Injustice,” the acclaimed new opera with music by Scott Davenport Richards and libretto by David Cote. Directed by Robin Guarino, the opera was recorded in the Wilks Studio at Cincinnati’s Music Hall in July 2019 and is being released on the Fanfare Cincinnati label.

The digital album is now available for purchase via Amazon Music, iTunes, and other digital music retailers, and for streaming via Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, and other music streaming services.

The CD is available for pre-order at cincinnatiopera.org/bravo-shop.

The recording features the original cast, the Cincinnati Opera Chorus, members of YPCC, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by Cincinnati Pops Conductor John Morris Russell.

The opera explores the true stories of six innocent people who were convicted of crimes they did not commit, then ultimately freed by the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) at UC Law. A collaboration with the OIP and Cincinnati’s Young Professionals Choral Collective (YPCC), the opera is based on casework by the OIP and the book Blind Injustice by UC law professor and OIP Director Mark Godsey. Read More »

Paul Stanbery, conductor and composer, contributed to the arts and culture of SW Ohio

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A few years ago, Paul John Stanbery, conductor of the Butler Philharmonic, endured chemotherapy, radiation and finally, proton therapy to tackle what began as a sore in his mouth that wouldn’t heal. The cancer was eradicated. An elated Stanbery was going to Carnegie Hall.

“Conducting your own music in Carnegie Hall after having beaten cancer – it just doesn’t get any better than that,” Stanbery told the Cincinnati Business Courier in 2018.

Unfortunately, cancer doesn’t always cooperate, and it returned. Mr. Stanbery died at his home on Feb. 6. He was 66.

He did get to Carnegie Hall to conduct his own “Music for Mass” in June, 2018. The performing forces included the Butler Philharmonic Orchestra Chorus in the choir of 200 singers from around the country and the New England Symphonic Ensemble. It was, for him, a personal and artistic triumph.

Christopher Scott Wyatt, who performed as tenor soloist in the Mass and is now director of the Butler Philharmonic Chorus, recalled, “We got a standing ovation and people were yelling. It was a wonderful climax and the audience loved it.”

As a result, the presenters, MidAmerica Productions, commissioned Mr. Stanbery to compose a new work to be premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2022, Wyatt said. “They wanted a patriotic work, in the powerful sense of people coming to America trying to fulfill the American dream.”Read More »

Film to tell story of ‘Blind Injustice’ exoneree profiled in book, opera

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Mark Godsey joined six people who won release from prison by the Ohio Innocence Project for crimes they did not commit: Rickey Jackson, Laurese Glover, Derrick Wheatt, Eugene Johnson, Nancy Smith, and Clarence Elkins. They were profiled in his book, “Blind Injustice” and the subsequent opera premiered by Cincinnati Opera at Music Hall in 2019. Jackson is now to be the subject of a film/documentary. Photo by Space Cabin Studios/provided by Cincinnati Opera

You may have read Mark Godsey’s book, “Blind Injustice,” or seen Cincinnati Opera’s production of the opera, based on the book — if you were lucky enough to get a ticket in the sold-out run. Now one of the Ohio Innocence Project’s exonerees, Rickey Jackson, who at the time of his release was the longest-serving person in U.S. history to be exonerated, is the subject of a film being produced by Cleveland-based Zodiac Features.

Portions of the film were shot at UC College of Law in the mock courtroom, the law library and inside the OIP offices.

“I have a fantasy of Rickey Jackson in a tuxedo with his family on a red carpet in France,” said producer Matt Waldeck, in my article today in the Cincinnati Business Courier.

A recording of the opera written by Scott Davenport Richards and David Cote and premiered by Cincinnati Opera is set for release in February. Watch for more news about that soon.

Eiji Hashimoto was a virtuoso and scholar of the harpsichord

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Eiji Hashimoto

Eiji Hashimoto is remembered by his students and colleagues as as a brilliant performer, a distinguished scholar of baroque music and a dedicated teacher of the harpsichord.

Mr. Hashimoto died in Cincinnati on Jan. 14 at the age of 89.

“His legacy is great,” said Michael Unger, associate professor of organ and harpsichord at CCM. “He had a strong reputation in the harpsichord world, and he leaves behind a rich legacy among his former colleagues and students at CCM. His name is still remembered well for his long and distinguished work at CCM as a teacher, harpsichordist and director of ensembles dedicated to eighteenth-century music.”

In 1968, while on a concert tour of the United States, Mr. Hashimoto, a native of Japan, was invited by the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music to establish a harpsichord program at the school. He served for 33 years on the faculty until 2001, when he became professor emeritus.

Quiet and unassuming, Mr. Hashimoto built a distinguished academic and performing career over three decades. As a soloist, he dazzled audiences in more than 50 international tours, and made numerous recordings in the U.S. and Japan. His own editions of baroque music for the keyboard are highly regarded.

Between 1968 and 1986, Mr. Hashimoto performed many times with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as a guest artist and soloist. In the ’80s, he was the orchestra’s official harpsichordist under the tenure of music director Michael Gielen, and performed J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with him in Music Hall.

Mr. Hashimoto also performed under maestros Max Rudolf and Thomas Schippers, as well as at the Cincinnati May Festival under the legendary Robert Shaw. He recalled to me in an interview that Schippers loved 18th-century music and “needed me all the time” for Handel and Bach oratorios and concerti grossi. He also performed a contemporary harpsichord work by Ned Rorem during that time.Read More »

Cincinnati Opera panel to discuss diversity in the arts

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Participants in a previous Cincinnati Opera performance of “Opera Goes to Church”

This is a no-miss:

Cincinnati Opera Center Stage presents an honest and informal discussion about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts, to be streamed live on social media next Thursday (Jan. 21) at 7 p.m.

The conversation will be moderated by Cincinnati Opera Artistic Advisor (and superstar opera bass) Morris Robinson. It will feature a panel of expert educators, performers, and professionals discussing opportunities to break down barriers through this important work. The program concludes with a question-and-answer session.

The panel:

  • Morris Robinson, bass and Cincinnati Opera Artistic Advisor, moderator

  • Flávia Bastos, PhD, Cincinnati Opera board member and distinguished research professor of art education, University of Cincinnati School of Art

  • Tiffany Cooper, director of community engagement and diversity, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

  • Jennifer A. Ingram, founder and CEO of Calibrated Lens and former vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion at United Way of Greater Cincinnati

This event will be streamed live—registration is not required. Watch on Facebook or YouTube on Thursday, January 21, at 7:00 p.m.

What I’m watching to ring in 2021

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A lot of us would like to say good riddance to 2020. To celebrate, I’m planning to drink in some lavish performances on PBS and streaming media to ring in the New Year.

At 4 p.m. tomorrow, New Year’s Eve, the Metropolitan Opera is continuing its annual New Year’s Eve gala concert — but this year it’s virtual. The Met rings in 2021 with opera stars Javier Camarena, Angel Blue (who just sang so brilliantly with the CSO this fall), Pretty Yende, and Matthew Polenzani, in a livestream a pay-per-view performance. It is being broadcast from the historic Baroque-style Parktheater, ca. 1886, in Augsburg, Germany.

The New Year’s Eve Gala program will include arias, duets, and ensembles from Donizetti to Puccini, as well as arrangements of operetta and Neapolitan songs.

The concert, part of the Met Stars Live in Concert series, will be streamed live on the Met’s website at 4 pm EST/10 pm CET, and then be available on demand for 14 days. It costs $20.

The gala will be shot with multiple cameras, and linked by satellite to a control room in New York City, where host Christine Goerke will be situated. Gary Halvorson, the Met’s award-winning director of the company’s Live in HD cinema transmissions, will direct.

Tickets can be purchased on the Met’s website at metopera.org. Gala Committee tickets, with enhanced benefits, are also available at a range of donation levels. The gala supports the company.

The performances will be available for on-demand viewing for 14 days following the live event. The programs can be viewed on a computer, mobile device, or home entertainment system (via Chromecast or AirPlay).

The Vienna Philharmonic performs its annual New Year’s Concert in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein

On New Year’s Day, it’s the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Concert with Riccardo Muti, in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, which airs over PBS locally on CET Channel 48 and nationwide. The 2021 New Year’s Concert will be broadcast in over 90 countries and followed by millions of television viewers around the world. Due to Covid-19, the 2021 New Year’s Concert will take place without an audience.

Of course, you can expect lots of Strauss waltzes, galops, polkas and marches. Here are the local times for From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2021 on CET (Channel 48). It continues on CETARTs Jan. 4-6 at various times.

Friday, January 1, 9:00 pm on CET HD

Saturday, January 2, 1:00 am on CET HD

Monday, January 4, 3:00 am on CET HD

Join the Ariel Quartet for Hanukkah special — food and music

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The Ariel Quartet
Photo by Marco Borggreve

Who doesn’t love Viennese apple strudel and chocolate babka? The Ariel Quartet—violinist Alexandra “Sasha” Kazovsky; violinist Gershon Gerchikov; cellist Amit Even-Tov, and violist Jan Grüning—invites you to celebrate Hanukkah with an afternoon of music and holiday baking today, December 13 at 4 pm ET. The delicious and musical interactive livestream event is free to those who sign up at https://ourconcerts.live/shows/hanukkah and will be produced by OurConcerts.live.

The Ariel Quartet — Quartet in Residence at CCM — will perform Schulhoff’s String Quartet No. 1; Beethoven: Quartet in G major, Op. 18, No. 2, and Steve Cohen’s “A Klezmer Nutcracker,” live from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

They’ll also share their family recipes for making Viennese Apple Strudel and Chocolate Babka, and there will even be a bake-off matching up Lebkuchen and Hanukkah doughnuts.

Friends since their early teenage years in Israel, Kazovsky, Gerchikov, and Even-Tov formed the ensemble two decades ago as young students at the Jerusalem Academy Middle School of Music and Dance. Violist Jan Grüning joined in 2011. Today, the Ariel Quartet is distinguished by its virtuosity, probing musical insight, and impassioned, fiery performances, and has earned praise and fans worldwide.

The bake-off promises to show a “much sillier side of our friendship,” says Even-Tov.

“Hanukkah encourages each of us to find a way to radiate light into the world, and it’s in that same spirit that inspires that openness with which we try to approach our music-making and our relationships with each other, our audience, and the world beyond us. In our sound you can hear that we have been friends for a very long time,” she said.

The livestream is free.

Hamilton, Matinee Musicale postponed due to Covid

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The race has heated up for a Covid vaccine. But that hasn’t stopped the postponement and cancellation of cultural offerings this season, one after another.

The latest is the much-anticipated return of “Hamilton” to the Aronoff Center this March. Today, I received this statement from Broadway in Cincinnati:

Broadway in Cincinnati has announced that due to the challenges of scheduling touring Broadway shows across the country during this unprecedented time, an additional change must be made to the upcoming season.

The Cincinnati engagement of HAMILTON, originally scheduled for March 2 – 28, 2021, has been postponed. New dates will be announced at a later time.

Season Ticketholders for this show will retain their same seats for the rescheduled engagements and will be notified when those dates have been set.

Nicole Cabell

And my inbox also had this update about Matinee Musicale. Due to ongoing concerns around the COVID-19 health crisis, Matinée Musicale has rescheduled the remaining recitals for their 2019-2020 season in Memorial Hall.

  • Nicole Cabell postponed from January 2021 to early 2022, exact date to be announced.
  • Christina Nam postponed to 2022-2023 season, exact date to be announced

Matinee hopes that Pene Pati’s recital will go on as planned June 6, 2021 but will notify ticket holders of any change.

If you are a ticket holder for Nicole Cabell and/or Christina Nam, please call the Memorial Hall box office (513-977-8838) before December 15, to either donate the cost of your tickets to Matinée Musicale or to receive a refund. Box office hours are Tuesday – Friday, 1:00-6:00 pm.

Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony presents Veterans Day concert

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Michael Chertock

A wonderful tribute to United States Veterans is available online today and for the next 48 hours. The Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Chertock, presents an inspiring Veterans Day ceremony and concert, all performed and recorded for the streamed program using Covid-19 safety precautions.

The orchestra sent out this announcement: “No Town Square Celebration. No marching band. No traditional community luncheon. This year, Veterans Day will have a new look!  But, it doesn’t mean we won’t be able to acknowledge or celebrate Veterans Day!”

The orchestra is joined by local Veterans, performing onstage in the orchestra and as soloists, as well as through narrative.  You will hear moving stories, poems read by the students from EH Greene school as well as The Armed Forces Medley, Victory at Sea, God Bless America and other patriotic selections. It is funded by The City of Blue Ash.

One of the soloists is U.S. Navy veteran Jim Cannon, who performs Debussy’s “Clair de lune,” recorded live in his recent — and very impressive — piano recital in Werner Recital Hall for the master’s degree in piano performance at CCM.

During his career, Cannon flew the P-3 Orion, primarily an anti-submarine aircraft, in the 1980s.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 »