Category: WVXU

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 »

Unusual choral concert tonight on Purple People Bridge

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A previous gig by the YPCC at Rhinegeist Brewery

The Young Professionals Choral Collective (YPCC) kicks off its 9th season with an unconventional, in-person performance on the Purple People Bridge at 6 p.m. today (Friday) October 16th. Their concert takes place in perhaps the most unusual venue ever used by a local arts organization — although they have come up with a number of other creative places to sing.

Produced in partnership with The Carnegie’s Creative Disruption Committee, Building Bridges – Keep the Arts Alive’ will be one of the first in-person, public choral performances in Cincinnati since March and demonstrates the importance of continuing to support the arts through the pandemic.

Repertoire features two original works by Jacob Stone, commissioned by YPCC through the Young Professional Composers Project. The performance also features an arrangement of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, signifying what the arts are to so many people during COVID-19 times.

(You  may recall this mention when I interviewed YPCC’s new director Danielle Cozart Steele for this story about how choruses can safely rehearse.)

Performers will be fully masked and socially distanced for the duration of the performance, lasting approximately 25 minutes. YPCC singers will be joined by select members of the Cincinnati Boychoir for a portion of the program.

What to expect: This event is free and open to the public. Masked-singers will be situated along the thinner, “walking” portion of the bridge, and socially distanced spots will be marked on the wider portion for audience members to occupy.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 »

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.

In memoriam Atarah Jablonsky

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Atarah Jablonsky was a legendary music educator
Atarah Jablonsky is remembered as a dedicated piano teacher who was beloved by several generations of students, and an accomplished musician.

“She was not only a music educator but a life educator. She was wonderfully open minded, an optimist, and accepting of others,” said Roxanne Engle, who taught with her at the Peaslee Neighborhood Center and Evendale Cultural Arts Center.  “Atarah was inspirational in developing her own unique way to bring musicality and expression into playing the piano.  Teaching and performing were in her thoughts up to the end. She was looking at the score of the Beethoven Pastorale Sonata in her last few weeks and asked me, ‘When will we teach piano again?'”

Mrs. Jablonsky, a longtime resident of Wyoming, OH, died on July 14 at Wellspring Health Care Center. She was 92.

A noteworthy teacher, she was adjunct assistant professor of music at the College of Mount St. Joseph from 1970 to 2001.  She taught piano from 1958-70 at the University Cincinnati, where she was also an adjudicator from 1970 to 2001. She also was a lecturer at Edgecliff College (1972-74).Read More »

Cincinnati Opera, CET to air documentary on opera’s first 100 years

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In recent years, Cincinnati Opera has kicked off its season with a free concert in Washington Park, OTR

Cincinnati Opera and CET have announced plans for “Cincinnati Opera at 100,” an hour-long televised program commemorating Cincinnati Opera’s centennial. Featuring
insights from local and national opera experts and performances by artists from across the country, “Cincinnati Opera at 100” will premiere on CET 48.1 on Friday, July 3 at 9 p.m. EST.

Additional airings will follow on CET Arts 48.3 through Tuesday, July 7.

The nation’s second-oldest opera company, Cincinnati Opera presented its first performance on June 27, 1920, at Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, and its annual Summer Festival has become a Cincinnati arts-going tradition.

Lisa Daltirus in “Aida” at Cincinnati Opera in Music Hall.

Though the company’s 100th Anniversary Season was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, “Cincinnati Opera at 100” transports the opera-going experience into viewers’ homes, including performances by much-loved singers from recent Cincinnati Opera productions and historical highlights from opera experts.Read More »