L to R: Ariel Quartet members violinists Gershon Gerchikov, Alexandra “Sasha” Kazovsky and violist Jan Grüning; pianist Liza Stepanova and Ariel Quartet cellist Amit Even-Tov
It’s hard to believe that the Ariel Quartet has been quartet-in-residence at CCM for 15 years. Lest we ever take this astonishing young ensemble for granted, it’s important to know that their annual concert performances are as fresh, invigorating and insightful as they were when they’d just arrived.
The Ariels – violinists Alexandra “Sasha” Kazovsky and Gershon Gerchikov, violist Jan Grüning and cellist Amit Even-Tov – came together as teenagers in 1998, and three are original members. Lately, their big project has been to record the entire cycle of Beethoven String Quartets. Vol. III is expected out any day on CD and on streaming platforms. Read more about that here.
Their program, titled “Blueprints,” included Haydn’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 33, No. 3 (“The Bird”) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw’s “Blueprint” in the first half. (The Ariel will reprise these two works on Dec. 8 at Carnegie Hall.)
The small Werner Recital Hall at CCM was jam-packed with faculty members, students, patrons and loyal fans of the quartet. They opened with Haydn’s Quartet Op. 33, No. 3, subtitled “The Bird” – either for its chirping opening theme or the trilling duet of the violins in the second movement. 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.
The Fall concert season is fast approaching. One of the first concerts that caught my eye was CCM composer Mara Helmuth’s Faculty Artist Recital titled: SPARKLING STREAMS: Music for Instruments and Computer.
The concert is 7:30 p.m. Sept. 1 in Cohen Family Studio Theater at CCM.
Mara is a pioneer of computer music in Cincinnati, the director of CCM’s Center for Computer Music and a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow. When I was an undergrad at Stanford University, I’d sometimes catch a concert by John Chowning, who set up the first research center for computer-based technology as a means for artistic expression.
Technology has traveled light years since then. You don’t have to be a computer geek to enjoy the sounds that will be created in this concert of multichannel and multimedia works by Helmuth and collaborators.
You will hear two world premieres, multimedia and several environmentally-themed works: “Burren Wind” for tárogató (also known as Turkish pipe); video and 8-channel computer music; “All Alarms Sounding” for piano and electronics; “Night Shimmer” for vibraphone and electronics; “Water Birds” for clarinet and computer music; “Messages from a Hot Rotating Star” (live pulsar data sonification and visuals), and “Wind Blown Rain” for tárogató, video and computer music.
Guest artists are Patti Cudd, percussion; and Esther Lamneck, tarogato; and alumni artists Shiau-uen Ding, piano and Andrea Vos-Rochefort, clarinet.
Estimated run time: 90 minutes
Location: Cohen Family Studio Theater. CCM
Admission: FREE
Carmen (J’Nai Bridges) joins Escamillo (Ryan McKinny) in his celebration. Photos by Philip Groshong for Cincinnati Opera
Georges Bizet’s “Carmen” is possibly the most popular opera ever written. Besides its dramatic story, you are left humming its gorgeous, unforgettable tunes days later. Cincinnati Opera has mounted productions of “Carmen” since it’s second season,1921, in Cincinnati Zoo Pavilion.
On July 25 in Music Hall, I saw the 179th performance of “Carmen,” opening night of the final opera of its mainstage season, with a fine cast and an engagingly updated co-production. Although the performance was sometimes uneven, there were many standout moments. For me, the highlight was Bizet’s musical score, given a spirited reading by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the opera pit under the baton of Spanish conductor Ramón Tebar.
Tebar led the orchestra briskly through the Prelude’s bright opening themes. When the music arrived at the “Fate” theme, the lights dimmed theatrically (Thomas C. Hase). The curtain rose on 1950s Havana, where the cigarette girls had to be unlocked from cage-like doors in order to take their factory break, perhaps a nod to Havana just before Fidel Castro came to power. The set designs by Gary McCann, who also designed the wonderful midcentury costumes, were charmingly evocative of old Havana. The heat was almost palpable in the saturated red lighting that simmered in the background against a painterly blue sky. The smuggler’s mountaintop hideout was a gloomy, abandoned warehouse with looming windows and a large doorway, through which the smugglers loaded their loot.
The title character, Carmen, performed by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, is a free-spirited femme fatale who seduces Don José and then dumps him for the toreador, Escamillo. In 2021, Bridges provided a glimpse of her gifts in an abridged “Carmen” with Cincinnati Opera. It was performed outdoors at Summit Park in Blue Ash, amplified and with Covid protocols in place.
A desperate Don José (Matthew White) confronts Carmen (J’Nai Bridges).
In this production, originally staged by Paul Curran and locally directed by Anderson Nunnelly, Carmen was more defiant than flirty or sensual. Bridges’ rich mezzo-soprano was pleasing in the upper register, although her lower phrases did not project well in the “Habanera.” Her Carmen had an edge – the director brought the factory spat vividly outdoors, as Carmen slapped a woman and yanked her hair. It was clear that men were putty in her hands as she tore off her apron down to a red dress for her sizzling “Seguidilla.”Read More »
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.”
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.
CCM’s Opera Department mounted a double bill, including Poulenc’s “Les Mamelles de Tirésias,” shown above. Photos by Mark Lyons
In Poulenc’s surreal opera “Les Mamelles de Tirésias,” (The Breasts of Tirésias), Thérèse opened her blouse and two balloons popped out. As her “breasts” floated away, Thérèse, who decided to become a feminist, promptly popped them, grew a beard, changed her name to Tirésias and sang a ravishing waltz.
It was giggly, outrageous and in many ways, timeless.
Jose Maria Condemi, the new Associate Director of Opera at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, made his directorial debut over the weekend with an impressive double bill of Kurt Weill’s “Mahagonny Songspiel” and Francis Poulenc’s “Les Mamelles de Tirésias.”
Smartly staged and featuring a cast of fresh rising-stars and imaginative sets by students Luke Dufilho (Mahagonny) and EJ Goodman (Les Mamelles), it was an enchanting evening of theater. From the steamy, dissolute world of Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny to Poulenc’s surreal fantasy of Zanzibar — where a man could produce 40,049 babies in one day — the audience was alternately riveted and howling with laughter.
Condemi, who is an alumnus of CCM and has an extensive portfolio, joined the faculty in August of 2025. He’s familiar to Cincinnati Opera fans, who saw him stage “Ainadamar,” “Don Giovanni,” “La Traviata,” “Tosca” and “Lucia di Lammermoor.”
In the small orchestra pit, these two jazzy and bubbly scores received spirited readings by CCM musicians, conducted by William Langley, currently resident conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, among other titles. He’s a gifted and very busy maestro, and has returned several times to lead productions at his alma mater, CCM, where he earned a Master’s Degree with Mark Gibson.
The cast of Kurt Weill’s “Mahagonny Songspiel”
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s “Mahagonny Songspiel” of 1927 is a 30-minute precursor to the full-blown opera, “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.” It offers a grim, cynical picture of Germany between the wars. I saw the Friday (Feb. 27) performance in CCM’s intimate Cohen Family Studio Theater (CCM has alternate casts).Read More »
Brianna Matzke interviewed composer Dai Fujikura after the performance of his “Borrowed Landscape”
I witnessed an extraordinary work of “performance art” on Monday night (Sept. 29). The Cincinnati ensemble concert nova, now led by Brianna Matzke, presented the Cincinnati premiere of “Borrowed Landscape” by Dai Fujikura, to texts by the German playwright duo Tauchgold, at the Mercantile Library. Concert nova presented it as a memorial to the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in partnership with the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College.
“Borrowed Landscape” tells the stories of three remarkable instruments and their owners, all connected to the war. There was a famous Stradivarius violin, which had gone silent in Budapest, a double bass from Poland, which was being restored years after its former owner had fled the Holocaust, and a Baldwin upright piano, which had survived the bombing of Hiroshima, although its young owner, Akiko, had not. Fujikura orchestrated his piano trio for violin, bass and piano according to their stories.Read More »
A previous concert by Musica Sacra at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption/ photo provided
The choral ensemble Musica Sacra has commissioned a new work in honor of its 60th anniversary. Directed by Dr. L. Brett Scott, Musica Sacra will perform the world premiere of “Receiving” by award-winning composer Jessica French, 3 p.m. October, 26, 2025 at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, KY. The program also includes Haydn’s “Harmoniemesse.”
Musica Sacra is second only to the Cincincinnati May Festival as the oldest continually operating community choral group in Cincinnati. It was founded in 1965 by Helmut Roehrig, whose vision was to create an ensemble for performing sacred choral literature in the spaces for which they were intended, accompanied by an orchestra, and at no charge to the public. He led the group for 50 years.
The Seattle-based composer will attend the performance. During the week, she’ll work with students at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, where Scott is Professor of Ensembles and Conducting. French’s work has been commissioned by BBC Singers, the St. Olaf Cantorei and Orchestra; the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys (NYC), and the Choir of Trinity Church Wall Street (NYC) among others.Read More »
UC College-Conservatory of Music Dean Pete Jutras has been busy announcing new faculty members to fill many vacancies that have occurred this year at CCM. He’s just announced the appointment of KennethRenshaw as CCM’s new Assistant Professor of Violin.
In addition, the dean has announced Tyler Ehrlich, DMA, as CCM’s new assistant professor and Assistant Director of Wind Studies.
Both faculty appointments officially begin on Aug. 15, 2025.Read More »
