Ailyn Perez and Soloman Howard – Photo by Soloman Howard
Soprano Ailyn Pérez, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, tenor Matthew White, baritone Michael Chioldi, and bass Soloman Howard are the international opera stars who will headline Cincinnati Opera’s “Viva Verdi!” special concert as part of its 2027 Summer Festival.
The concert, to be at 7:30 p.m. June 25, 2027 in Music Hall, celebrates a transformational $6 million gift from the Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation.
Tenor Matthew White JustJamiPhotography
Cincinnati Opera announced the cast this week. The cast includes some of the most sought-after voices in classical music who perform regularly with prestigious opera companies and orchestras throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. (Opera fans will recognize a number of Cincinnati Opera appearances, as well.)
They will be joined by the Cincinnati Opera Chorus, under the leadership of Chorus Master Henri Venanzi, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alex Amsel.
This special concert is made possible by a transformational $6 million gift from The Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation, led by trustees Nanci Wilks Lanni and Barbara Wilks.
The gift was first announced from the Music Hall stage during Cincinnati Opera’s July 2026 performances of Carmen. It will establish The Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation Fund for Leading Artists, an endowed fund that will provide Cincinnati Opera with ongoing support for the presentation of singers of the highest quality, beginning in 2027 and continuing with key principal artist engagements in seasons to come.Read More »
Molly Norcross is the new principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Just when you thought you knew most of the new musicians in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra under the direction of Music Director Cristian Măcelaru has announced nine more new hires. They’ve also announced the appointment of Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra’s (CSYO) new Concert Orchestra Conductor, and two conducting contract extensions for the 2026–27 season.
The musicians won positions following extensive auditions from a national applicant pool.
The new players are: Molly Norcross, Principal Horn; Mark Debski, Associate Principal Oboe; Drew Morgan, Associate Principal Horn; Ania Lewis, Assistant Principal Cello; Jessica Kovach, Section Bass; and Alex Pride, Section Trumpet. One-year appointments include Celia Daggy, Acting Associate Principal Viola and Micah Reinharz, Acting Associate Principal Trumpet.
Also joining the Orchestra this year is cellist Osheen Manukyan as the CSO’s inaugural CSO Resident Fellow. Leading the Cincinnati Symphony
Youth Orchestra Concert Orchestra is Lina Jeong, who is currently orchestra director at Xavier University.
In addition, the CSO announced a one-year contract extension with CSO Assistant Conductor Duo Shen, and Assistant Conductor Alex Amsel has been promoted to Associate Conductor with a one-year contract extension.
Cincinnati Opera will mount Puccini’s “Turandot” for the first time since 2015. Production photos of Palm Beach Opera Turandot, January 24, 2020. Bruce Bennett – Palm Beach Opera
Cincinnati Opera’s 2027 Summer Festival will open with the world premiere “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” chronicling the life of the U.S. Congressman and Civil Rights icon. The season will include a lavish production of Puccini’s “Turandot,” not seen in Music Hall since 2015. And Mozart’s irresistible comedy “The Marriage of Figaro” will round out the mainstage season.
As we have come to enjoy in recent years, there will be several single-night musical events. In celebration of a new, $6 million gift from the Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation,“Viva Verdi!” will feature some of Verdi’s best-loved operatic music in a Music Hall concert in Springer Auditorium (7:30 p.m. June 25, 2027). And the popular Studio Sessions of intimate musical evenings curated by the performing artists will continue in two performances in Wilks Studio, July 1 and July 14, both at 8 p.m. in Wilks Studio at Music Hall. More details on those events will be unveiled later.
Performances will run from June 18 through August 1, 2027.
Artistic director Evans Mirageas announced details of the 2027 on July 25 to the Music Hall audience assembled for opening night of Bizet’s “Carmen.”
Said Mirageas in a statement: “During our 2026 season, it was thrilling to see how enthusiastically audiences responded to The Black Opera Project’s first work, Lalovavi,’ an encouraging sign that this endeavor has arrived at just the right time. We continue that momentum next summer by shining a light on an inspiring American icon with the world premiere of ‘John Lewis: Good Trouble.’ Combined with the epic emotions of ‘Turandot,’ the witty charm of ‘The Marriage of Figaro,’ the celebratory spirit of ‘Viva Verdi!,’ and the artist-curated Studio Sessions, we look forward to creating memorable experiences that connect and uplift our community.”
Cincinnati Opera’s production of “Carmen” continues through Aug. 2 in Music Hall. Philip Groshong, photo/Cincinnati Opera
Evans Mirageas, artistic director of Cincinnati Opera, announced at the opening night production of “Carmen” last night in Music Hall that the Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation has made a $6 million gift for a new fund in Cincinnati Opera’s endowment that will ensure artistic excellence for decades to come.
The Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation Fund for Leading Artists “will support world-class voices on this stage” in perpetuity, said Mirageas, whose position is the Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director. Mr. Wilks, who died in 2014, was a Hamilton based attorney and philanthropist.
“Harry loved opera, and served for many years on the Cincinnati Opera Board of Trustees. For decades, he made sure that this opera company could showcase the greatest voices in the world. Tonight, his family is making that vision permanent,” Mirageas said.
Mirageas also announced season repertoire for the 2027 Summer Festival, which will celebrate the gift with a special concert, “Viva Verdi!” showcasing great singers performing the music of one of Mr. Wilks’ favorite composers, Giuseppe Verdi.
Mr. Wilks was also an art collector who founded the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park in Hamilton, preserving hundreds of acres to become one of the most remarkable outdoor art spaces in the country. He was an alumnus of Miami University and The University of Cincinnati College of Law.
I’m still thinking about ‘Lalovavi,” the first opera in Cincinnati Opera’s Black Opera Project, which had its world premiere last week, July 9 and 11. The Afrofuturist opera is set in a fantasy world that reimagines Black history and culture, with music by Kevin Day and the libretto by Tifara Brown.(Cincinnati MacDowell Society friends might be interested to know that Day wrote much of his score at the MacDowell colony.)
The creators spoke in a panel discussion with artistic director Evans Mirageas. Left to Right: composer Kevin Day, choreographer Chloe O. Davis, librettist Tifara Brown and conductor Kevin Miller
Besides the artistry that we witnessed onstage, the opera had an overwhelming reception by the audience on the evening I attended. Both performances were sold out, with only a few “limited view” seats available, I was told by officials. Music Hall seats 2,388 in its “opera” configuration. I was extremely impressed by the company’s success in getting out the Black community, which bodes well for the next two operas in this trilogy, coming, respectively, in the next two seasons. This project, which aims to tell uplifting Black American stories, could signal a seminal moment in American opera programming.
Click on the links above to interviews with the creators and my review, both on Cincinnati Business Courier. They are free to read. If you have a problem, please let me know.
Coming soon: Bizet’s “Carmen,” starring J’Nai Bridges in the title role and Matthew White as Don José in four performances in Music Hall: July 25, 29, 31 and Aug. 2. cincinnatiopera.org/carmen for info and tickets.
Stephen Hough joined Roderick Cox and the CSO in Beethoven. Photos by JP Leong.
If you ever doubted the power and majesty of Beethoven, pianist Stephen Hough puts those thoughts to rest with his brilliant performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor,” with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on May 8 in Music Hall.
The British pianist joined returning guest conductor Roderick Cox for the CSO’s season finale that, besides the “Emperor,” included Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 and an upbeat opener by Jennifer Higdon, “Fanfare Ritmico.” Whether because of these fine artists or the crowd-pleasing repertoire on the program, a large audience attended the Friday morning concert, and a sellout was expected on Saturday night.
Hough has visited Cincinnati a number of times, including a memorable recital for the Xavier Piano Series in 2021 during his 60th birthday tour, when he performed one of his own compositions. The pianist is regarded by media such as the Economist and the BBC as a “polymath,” with a distinguished concert and recording career of more than four decades, as well as success as a writer and a composer. Among his many accomplishments, he was the first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and was awarded a Knighthood for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2022. He is now Sir Stephen Hough.Read More »
The Vocal Arts Ensemble will join with the May Festival in a unified vision and board of directors. Photo by Phil Armstrong
Two of Cincinnati’s most distinguished choral organizations are expanding a longstanding partnership to establish a shared governance structure with a single unified board of directors.
The Cincinnati May Festival, which was founded in 1873, and Cincinnati’s Vocal Arts Ensemble (VAE), a professional choral group founded in 1979, announced on May 5 that they will be partnering in a new model that will deepen their ties. Although they will share a single board of directors, each organization will preserve its own, independent nonprofit status.
The Cincinnati May Festival centers around its community-based May Festival Chorus, and has presented a vast catalog of important choral works, including world and American premieres, over the past 150 years. VAE has performed with the May Festival since its founding, a tradition that continues today. Its leadership has included some of the nation’s top choral conductors. Joe Miller serves as its fifth music director.
Former director of choruses Robert Porco leading the Hallelujah Chorus. Photo by JP Leong.
“This is an intentional, measured step toward greater alignment building on a legacy of artistic and operational collaboration,” Julianne Akins Smith, Executive Director of the May Festival and VAE, said in a statement. “By connecting more closely with the May Festival’s vision and infrastructure, we are expanding what’s possible for professional choral singing in Cincinnati — allowing the vision of VAE to come to life.”
The shared model will enable both organizations to leverage their strengths more effectively. VAE, which regularly performs in intimate and varied settings, will play a vital role in advancing the May Festival’s year-round presence in the community. This month, concertgoers will see its members in pop-up performances during the festival.
In addition, audiences can hear VAE, 7:30 p.m. May 19, performing in the concert “May Festival Presents | Vocal Arts Ensemble: Rossini’s Pettie Messe Solennelle” as part of the 2026 May Festival curated by Festival Director Julia Bullock and Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson. (For tickets visit mayfestival.com.)
It is the second ensemble to come under the May Festival umbrella. In 2024, the May Festival announced a strategic alliance with Cincinnati Boychoir, while honoring the unique roles of each partner organization.
Together these efforts reinforce a shared goal: to make world-class choral music more visible and more accessible, transforming Cincinnati into a destination for aspiring singers while encouraging life-long relationships with singing at every age, the announcement said.
“On behalf of the May Festival Board of Directors, we look forward to this strengthened partnership,” said Dr. Michael Curran, Board Chair of the May Festival. “It honors VAE’s legacy, creates innovative new pathways for artists to connect with audiences, and ensures that choral music will continue to thrive in Cincinnati.”
I shouldn’t have been astonished when I saw thousands of people Friday night streaming to events in the Washington Park area of Over-the-Rhine. However, this wasn’t about Flying Pig, the great Cincinnati marathon that was happening that weekend, or FC Cincinnati. All those people were going to see Damon Gupton conduct the music of Star Wars with the Cincinnati Pops at Music Hall, as well as to theaters, Memorial Hall, events at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, to Washington Park and to an art opening in a tiny gem of a gallery a few steps from Music Hall.
I was heading to Wash Park Art for the opening of a remarkable installation, Anna VanMatre’s “Primary Fundamentals.” This is the U.S. premiere of the exhibition, which had its world premiere in Guiyang, China, a joint commission of the SKYSEA Museum of Art and the Xiyun Academy Gallery in 2025.
In this series, Anna explores the fundamentals that sustain our life on Earth — water, sun and fire — in stunning, nature-inspired creations that are almost hyper-realistic. (Read about her process in this article I wrote about another exhibition she had at the Auschwitz death camp in her native Poland a few years ago.) Anna’s husband, Rick VanMatre, saxophonist and professor emeritus of Jazz Studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, created new music to accompany the exhibition’s opening.
The author with the artist
Coming up: Anna will be giving an Artist Talk, 6 p.m. May 21 at the gallery, 1215 Elm Street. It runs through June 13. info: washparkart.com.
And on Sunday (May 3), I attended the final program of the Linton Chamber Series in Avondale’s First Unitarian Church. Besides the sun streaming in through its Tiffany windows, I’m partial to piano trios, and there were two of them: Beethoven’s Trio in D Major, “Ghost,” and Mendelssohn’s Trio No. 2 in C Minor, with pianist Benjamin Hochman, CSO concertmaster Stefani Matsuo and CSO principal cellist Ilya Finkelshteyn.
Haydn’s Flute Trio in G Major opened the program, featuring the CSO’s retiring principal flute Randolph Bowman, with Finkelshteyn and Hochman.
Each trio was distinctive and inspiring in its own way. The Haydn made a delightful opener, and I especially enjoyed the fleet, light articulation of each player. What is there to say about Beethoven? It was utterly profound, absorbing and played with breathtaking artistry. And what a treat it was to hear Mendelssohn’s “other” piano trio, written after the more familiar D Minor, and the last chamber piece he wrote. It is difficult for the pianist, and yet it was so brilliantly performed by Hochman, who balanced “fairy” lightness with moments of massive sonority at the Steinway. I could see Matsuo and Finkelshteyn smiling through these movements. For an encore, they played the unforgettable second movement of Mendelssohn’s D Minor Piano Trio.
Hochman told us he was last here 20 years ago, to appear with the CSO and the Linton. I hope he returns.
This program repeats tonight at Congregation Beth Adam in Loveland. Linton also announced next year’s season under its artistic directors Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson. More information here: lintonmusic.org.
Just a week earlier, more than 4,500 people attended the CSO’s two sold-out performances of “The Firebird” with giant puppets. Here’s my review, free to read, with thanks to the Cincinnati Business Courier.
Guest conductor Ramón Tebar led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Photos are by Phil Armstrong
An explosive standing ovation answered the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 conducted by Ramón Tebar at Saturday’s concert in Music Hall (April 11). The enthusiasm for Rachmaninoff’s arch-romantic symphonic masterpiece was not surprising. But this response went on for many minutes, calling Tebar back to the stage several times, until finally the conductor went into the orchestra to shake the hands of each principal player and acknowledge each section of the orchestra.
The gifted Spanish conductor made a welcome return to the orchestra with a program of emotional power and lyricism. He opened with the CSO’s first performance of American composer Margaret Brouwer’s “Pulse” and concluded with Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony in E Minor.
Equally engaging was the return of Canadian violinist James Ehnes in Max Bruch’s “Scottish” Fantasy. Just before launching into his encore (J.S. Bach’s Preludio from Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006), Ehnes spoke movingly about feeling nostalgic as he was turning 50 this year. The CSO was one of the first orchestras to support him early in his career, with his debut in 1995, he said, adding, “I’m grateful to be brought here.”
The orchestra has been sounding exceptional all season, and this was a concert that showcased their artistry.Read More »
Conductor James Conlon is back in town to lead a program of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra this weekend at Music Hall.
Violinist Blake Pouliot
However, his soloist has changed. Yesterday the orchestra announced that the planned soloist, violinist Renaud Capuçon, is unable to be here due to an ear infection. He has been advised by a medical professional not to fly at this time. Violinist Blake Pouliot (pool-YACHT) has agreed to step in for Capuçon to play the scheduled Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3.
Pouliot studied violin in Canada with Marie Bérard and Erika Raum, and he completed his training as an associate of The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He graduated from the Colburn School Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Robert Lipsett, the Jascha Heifetz Distinguished Violin Chair.
Pouliot performs on the 1729 Guarneri del Gesù on generous loan from an anonymous donor.
Conlon is Music Director Laureate of the Cincinnati May Festival, which he served for an unprecedented 37 years. He is in his 20th and final season as Music Director of LA Opera. His career of more than 50 years has taken him to the world’s most significant stages, and he is one of our country’s greatest advocates for classical music. For more, visit jamesconlon.com.
