Category: WVXU

Grammy Awards local ties

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The Grammy Awards were announced today, and there are a few familiar names this year. The biggest news: Elaine Martone has won Producer of the Year, Classical for a host of recordings, including: Joy! (John Morris Russell & Cincinnati Pops). It is her sixth Grammy Award in her stunning career. Congratulations to Elaine, who produces the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops recordings. She is truly world-class. (Martone is married to Robert Woods, founder of Telarc Records, which was famous for the 100 or so Pops albums they recorded during the Erich Kunzel years … )

The other supporting works on her list are:

• Bartók: String Quartet No.3; Suite From ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’ (Franz Welser-Möst & The Cleveland Orchestra)
• The Book of Spells (Merian Ensemble)
• Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 (Franz Welser-Möst & The Cleveland Orchestra)
• Divine Mischief (Julian Bliss, J. Eric Wilson & Baylor University Wind Ensemble)
• Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6 (Franz Welser-Möst & The Cleveland Orchestra)
• Schubert: The Complete Impromptus (Gerardo Teissonnière)
• Stranger at Home (Shachar Israel)
• Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 (Franz Welser-Möst & The Cleveland Orchestra).

Here are some other classical music awards, which also have a few Cincinnati connections:Read More »

Violinist, Broadway star Kelly Hall-Tompkins to perform benefit concert

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Kelly Hall Tompkins/photo provided

On Sunday, January 19, violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins will perform a recital to benefit the Ben Carlson-Berne (BCB) Scholarship Fund in support of classical music education for Cincinnati’s youth. Her performance, 3 p.m. next Sunday in the Mayerson Theater at the School for Creative & Performing Arts, is open to the public.

She performed as the “Fiddler” violin soloist in the Grammy/Tony nominated Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Featured as soloist in more than 400 Broadway performances, plus a Grammy-nominated cast album alongside a bonus track by Itzhak Perlman, Hall-Tompkins has been the featured subject on NBC’s Today Show with Harry Smith, and many other news outlets.

Among her awards, she received a Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize, a Concert Artists Guild Career Grant, and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence. She is featured in the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History.

She’s also the founder of Music Kitchen-Food for the Soul, a program which has brought more than 100 chamber music performances to New York City, Los Angeles and even Paris, France, homeless shelters.

She also has a Cincinnati connection — in 2018, she was appointed as the Cincinnati Symphony‘s inaugural Classical Roots program Artist-in-Residence. To read her impressive biography, click here.

Since 2004, the BCB Fund has helped provide instruments and lessons with premier, private instructors to underserved and economically disadvantaged Cincinnati Public School (CPS) students with an interest in classical music. To date, the fund has provided 350 lesson years to 131 youth.

Here’s a story I wrote for the Courier in 2018 about how one former student benefited from the BCB Scholarship.

Details:Read More »

Isabel Leonard to make Cincinnati recital debut

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Isabel Leonard will make her Cincinnati debut in recital on Dec. 1/photo by Sergio Kurhajec

Opera star Isabel Leonard has been wowing audiences and critics around the world. She’s about to make her Cincinnati recital debut.

The singer, a mezzo-soprano and New York native, was scheduled to perform one of her signature roles, Rosina, in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville during Cincinnati Opera’s 100th anniversary season in 2020. We all know what happened — Covid caused the whole season to be canceled. Nevertheless, she did a charming podcast with artistic director Evans Mirageas, available here.

Finally, we’ll have a chance to hear Leonard’s artistry in some of her signature operatic arias and much more when she performs a recital with collaborative pianist John Arida for Matinée Musicale Cincinnati on Dec. 1 at Memorial Hall. The concert is at 5 p.m.

Since making her Metropolitan Opera debut as Stéphano in Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in 2007, she has sung on the world’s leading stages in a range of repertoire. This season (in June 2025), she’ll reprise Rosina in Damiano Michieletto’s production of Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Opéra National de Paris. She’s also performing Anita in a concert performance of Bernstein’s West Side Story, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

In 2020, Leonard appeared with Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a staged production of Ravel’s one-act opera, L’enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Sorceries). Here’s my review of her enchanting performance. (She also won a Grammy for the recording of this piece.)

Her Cincinnati program will show some of that versatility. Of course, we can’t wait to hear her sing “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s Barber of Seville, or “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” from Bizet’s Carmen. There’s also a set of Spanish songs.

But for many in this audience, the icing on the cake will likely be her final set of Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and a song by Jeanine Tesori and Dick Scanlan often performed by Kristin Chenoweth, “The Girl in 14G.”

Leonard has won three Grammy Awards — for Michael Tilson Thomas’ From the Diary of Anne Frank on SFS Media; Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges on Decca; and The Tempest from The Metropolitan Opera on Deutsche Grammophon.

Her list of television and movie credits includes an appearance in the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper, in the finale of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.” She was just nominated for another Grammy for her performance in Maestro, alongside the London Symphony Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, in the category Best Compilation Soundtrack.

Tickets: $15-$35; students $10. Call the box office at 513-977-8838 (Tues-Friday, 1-6 p.m.) or visit matineemusicalecincinnati.org.

In 2025, Cincinnati Opera to present ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ and opera favorites

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Cincinnati Opera will revive its lavish production of Tosca in 2025. Philip Groshong , photo

For its 105th anniversary this summer, June 12-July 27, 2025, Cincinnati Opera will present the all-time favorite musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” in a new production. The season also will include Verdi’s “Rigoletto” and Puccini’s “Tosca.” The 2025 Summer Festival, which will feature acclaimed casts, will include the return of the popular Studio Sessions, intimate, artist-curated concerts presented cabaret-style. All performances are in Cincinnati’s Music Hall.

This will also mark Evans Mirageas‘ 20th season as Cincinnati Opera’s artistic director.Read More »

Organ series to return to Cincinnati Museum Center Rotunda

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If you’ve ever heard the 1929 Grand E.M. Skinner Symphonic Concert Organ, you know the majesty of this instrument.

This historic organ, lovingly restored and installed in the Rotunda of Cincinnati Museum, can be heard in three concerts this season. Three renowned organists joined by local choirs and musicians will perform selections on the organ from Wagner to Messiaen, using every color of the symphonic spectrum.

Cincinnati Museum Center has announce the 2024–2025 Music in the Museum series, where they look forward to sharing the glorious sounds of the organ with you. Tickets are available now. Full programs are listed below.

During a capacity audience that I heard last season, s Michael Barone, host of “Pipedreams” on American Public Media told the large crowd, “There is no other organ like this in this kind of setting, anywhere. You have a treasure.”

Nearly 5,000 Pipes and four manuals — From 1987–2010, the 1929 Grand E. M. Skinner Symphonic Concert Organ was restored and installed in specially designed organ chambers. The main chambers are located on either side of the Rotunda where it meets the rear concourse. The antiphonal division is over the entrance to the Cincinnati History Museum. The organ has nearly 5,000 pipes played from a console with four manual keyboards.

Here’s the lineup:Read More »

Concert Review: Love letter to the Viola

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Photos by Gayna Bassin

It’s unusual to hear an entire program of music written for the viola. The recital on Sept. 15 in Memorial Hall by violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt and pianist Adam Golka was a rare treat.

They opened the Matinee Musicale concert season with an inventive program that included music by two women composers, born 100 years apart. Pajaro-van de Stadt called it “a love letter to the viola.”

Brahms’ Sonata Op. 120, No. 2 in E-flat Major was the perfect introduction to this duo. (The work was originally written for clarinet and piano.) I was instantly struck by the rich, compelling tone of Pajaro-van de Stadt’s instrument. The warmth was palpable in her phrasing, and she took her time to allow the music to breathe in this wonderful, autumnal work.Read More »

Rick Steves reveals cancer diagnosis; still set to live film Pops show in Music Hall

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Travel writer Rick Steves visiting the Sognefjord in Norway.

The world’s most famous travel writer Rick Steves has just announced on social media that he received a diagnosis of prostate cancer. He sounds upbeat in his message, saying it hasn’t spread and he will likely have surgery in late September.

“I have great trust in my doctor and in Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. And I have lots more to be thankful for…including the support of friends and loved ones and a strong faith that I’m in good hands,” Steves wrote on X.

The Cincinnati Symphony and Pops spokesperson Felecia Tchen Kanney confirms they are moving forward with plans for the concerts, Sept. 13-15, as well as the live filming and recording of the shows that will be made available to PBS stations across the country.

Wishing Rick all the best!

Here are the Pops concert details, with filming in collaboration with CET.

The Cincinnati Pops and CET, Cincinnati’s public television station,  are partnering for the live filming and recording of the Pops’ September 13-15 program, Rick Steves’ Europe: A Symphonic Journey.

John Morris Russell leads the Pops  program, which will feature on-stage narration by popular public television host and best-selling guidebook author Rick Steves. The music will include composers Edvard Grieg, Camille Saint-Saëns, Bedřich Smetana, Johann Strauss Jr., Giuseppe Verdi and others. Steves will host the program and share personal stories of his extensive travels across the continent as well as insights into European history.

All three performances, including occasional shots of Music Hall audiences, will be filmed and made available for PBS stations across the country.

For tickets and more information, visit cincinnatisymphony.org.

CSO adds new “experiences”

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The Fall season is fast approaching. And here are some fun, just-announced Friday Experiences and CSO Proof programs coming up during the CSO season:

NEW FRIDAY EXPERIENCES
COPLAND: SYMPHONY IN LIGHT — Jan. 10, 2025 in Music Hall
For this special concert experience, you’ll be treated to a multi-sensory performance of Copland’s Symphony No. 3,  accompanied by stunning visual and lighting effects created by designer Luke Kritzeck.
DVOŘÁK DECONSTRUCTED — Feb. 7, Music Hall
You’ll start your evening with full performance of Dvořák’s New World Symphony – a work that resonates with emotional depth and continues to evoke a sense of longing, discovery, and the blending of old and new worlds.
After that, choose-your-own adventure by exploring as many of these offerings as you desire:

Read More »

Paul McCartney sending message to ‘Liverpool’ opening night audience

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Photo by Mary McCartney

Former Beatle Paul McCartney will not be attending the July 18 opening night performance of “Liverpool Oratorio,” the world premiere of it’s first-ever staged version presented by Cincinnati Opera in Music Hall. But he will send a personal message to Cincinnati opera audiences, officials said on July 15.

“While we’ve just learned that Sir Paul is unable to travel to Cincinnati for opening night, he wanted to be with us at Music Hall however he could. He’s shared an exclusive message intended just for Liverpool Oratorio audience members—only those in attendance at Music Hall will have the chance to experience it,” said artistic director Evans Mirageas, in a note to attendees of “To Sir with Love,” a party taking place after the opening night show.

An audio of Sir Paul’s message will be played for the opening night audience.

Don’t give up — McCartney could potentially appear for another performance during the run, which includes four addditional shows through July 27. That is not confirmed, however.

A city-wide “Get Paul to Music Hall” campaign has been mounted to invite him to the premiere. Tickets are nearly sold out for opening night, but some remain for the rest of the run.

McCartney — along with composer Carl Davis — penned the oratorio for the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society in 1991. It’s a love letter to Liverpool, with personal remembrances from McCartney’s boyhood there. The oratorio has never been presented with opera-style staging, sets, lighting and costumes before. There will even be ballet dancers.

You’ll find more information about the production here: I interviewed the creative team and two of the leading cast members. (Cincinnati Business Courier arts stories are free to read.)

For the full synopsis, performance times and tickets, click here.

 

Drama at Music Hall before the opera

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A review of La Traviata is coming… It’s a gorgeous production and a must see. Unfortunately, there was an incident at Music Hall last night just as we were arriving. Here’s the statement from Chris Milligan, general director and CEO, just released:

As you may be aware, there was a police incident outside Music Hall on Thursday, June 27, just as our opening night performance of La Traviata was about to begin.

Police Chief Teresa Theetge offered a public statement that police officers had been in pursuit of a suspect accused of attacking a woman in a neighborhood west of downtown. The chase ended near Music Hall, where the armed suspect was shot by police. The suspect died at the scene.

More information is available here: https://www.wvxu.org/local-news/2024-06-27/police-kill-man-outside-music-hall-after-he-reportedly-pointed-a-gun-at-officers.Read More »