Tag: University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

My November picks in classical music

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CSO on opening night/photo provided by Hannah Kenney

Since the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra officially opened its subscription season this weekend (here’s the review), I decided to look at the arts calendar to see what musical performances I want to get on my November calendar.

Wow! I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of our performing arts are ramping up. My November calendar looks almost normal, which in Cincinnati means that you can be out every night of the week. So here are some of my picks.

Nov. 4, 7:30 p.m. – At CCM, renowned Russian pianist and pedagogue Boris Berman performs a guest recital performance in Robert J. Werner Recital Hall. Admission: FREE.

Note: Find all CCM events and the calendar here.

Nov. 7, 4 p.m. — Linton Music Series “Pure Bach,” featuring violinist Jennifer Koh performing the solo violin works of Bach. First Unitarian Church. For tickets and program, click here.

Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m. – Ariel Quartet, CCM String-Quartet-in-Residence, continues its concert series with Lera Auerbach’s “Frozen Dreams,” which premiered in 2020, and Béla Bartók’s penultimate quartet, String Quartet No. 5.  Robert J. Werner Recital Hall
Tickets: Prices start at $29.50.

Daniil Trifonov in recital

Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m., Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov performs a recital at Music Hall, presented by the CSO. His program includes music by Karol Szymanowski, Debussy, Prokofiev and Brahms.

Note: For all CSO events and concerts, click here.

Nov. 11, 8 p.m. —Stephen Hough recital at Xavier. Hough is a longtime visitor to the Xavier Piano Series, and is something of a Renaissance man. This month, he graces the cover of BBC Music magazine. His program includes Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 and Hough’s own “Partitia.” It’s in Xavier’s Gallagher Center Theater on the XU campus. For tickets and info about the entire Xavier Music Series, click here.Read More »

Queen City Opera: Tchaikovky’s little known “Life” Symphony impresses

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Isaac Selya led the Queen City Opera Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s rarely-heard Symphony No. 7

Isaac Selya, artistic director and conductor of Queen City Opera, is known for inventive productions, usually of lesser-known operatic repertoire. He often pairs operas with social issues. Even Act I from Wagner’s Walkure featured a partnership with Women Helping Women and a discussion about domestic abuse.

As the arts begin to emerge from Covid-19, it was a good time for Selya to present a non-operatic project. On Sept. 5 in Finneytown Performing Arts Center, he led a rare performance (and possibly the Midwest premiere) of Tchaikovsky’s unfinished Symphony No. 7 in E-flat Major, “Life.” Two excellent young opera singers, tenor M. Andrew Jones and soprano Raquel González, performed arias and scenes from Tchaikovsky’s operas “Eugene Onegin” and “Iolanta.”

Selya dedicated this program to all those who have died of Covid-19.Read More »

Musica Sacra to return to live concerts

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Musica Sacra in a recording session for a livestream during Covid last season. The chorus will return to in-person performances.

As the nation reopens from a year of lockdowns, more choruses are announcing that they will be returning to live performances. Of course, during the pandemic, vocal music was considered the most deadly form of spreading the Covid-19 virus.

Musica Sacra, a 60-member chorus founded in 1965, joyfully returns for its 56th season, live and in person. This year, the chorus will also collaborate with the CCM Chorale in Patricia Corbett Theater on the UC campus.

After a year of virtual programming, this season will be emotional, said director Brett Scott.

“The selections across this season present a range of emotions that may echo what many experienced in the past year,” Scott said. “From the terrifying trumpets at the opening of our first selection, the Lord Nelson Mass, to the poignant chorales of the Christmas Oratorio that are contrasted with grand, exuberant chorus movements, to the exquisitely tender consolation that envelops you throughout the German Requiem, each of these masterworks speaks to the heart of the human experience. They are audience-pleasing works in the best sense of the word and we are thrilled that our audiences will be able to experience them with us this year.”Read More »

CCM welcomes new performing faculty members

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Kristin Lee; photo by Sophie Zhai

The College-Conservatory of Music at UC has been busy adding faculty members recently. Dean Stanley Romanstein announced these prominent new profs this week:

Kristin Lee has been appointed Assistant Professor of Violin beginning Aug. 15, 2021. She is a recipient of the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as a top prizewinner of the 2012 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists’ 2010 National Auditions.

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CCM podcast goes behind the scenes of the entertainment industry

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Brian Newman, a CCM alumnus, with Lady Gaga in Las Vegas, is podcast guest on June 14.

A new podcast created by UC College-Conservatory of Music alumni takes listeners inside the entertainment industry with stories and advice from Broadway performers, television actors, movie producers, make-up artists and more.

“School, Stage & Screen” is a revealing 11-episode podcast about success stories and fantastic failures from the entertainment industry — as experienced by graduates of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Producer Brian J. Leitten (BFA E-Media, ’02) and Broadway performer Dylan Mulvaney (BFA Musical Theatre, ’19) delve into the differences between college and the real world with other CCM alumni like Diana Maria Riva (actor from Netflix’s Dead To Me), Andrea Stilgenbauer (producer of Kidding and The Affair on Showtime) and Brian Newman (Jazz Musician and Bandleader/Arranger for Lady Gaga’s Vegas Residency “Jazz & Piano Show”).

The podcast will be available wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, TuneIn, Stitcher and the CCM website.

Episode 2, which dropped this week is a conversation about big breaks and national tours by original and current cast members of Hamilton on Broadway; Andrew Chappelle (BFA Musical Theatre, ’09) discusses the difficulties of finding his voice as an artist, while Raven Thomas (BFA Musical Theatre, ’16) dishes about losing hers mid-show.

Here’s the lineup looking ahead:

Read More »

Opera Fusion: New Works to host workshop for ‘The Hours’

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Kevin Puts

Opera Fusion: New Works, the forward-looking collaboration of Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music to develop new opera, is hosting a livestreamed workshop on Monday for a new opera that is to be premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in the 2022-23 season.

“The Hours” is written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts and librettist Greg Pierce, both of whose works have been performed by Cincinnati Opera in recent seasons. Puts is the composer of “Silent Night,” which was mounted here in 2014; Pierce was the librettist for “Fellow Travelers,” which premiered in 2016.

A free public livestream of excerpts can be viewed on Monday, March 15, 5 p.m.-6 p.m., at cincinnatiopera.org.

Greg Pierce

The composer and librettist will collaborate in real time with the artists to shape the work, which is receiving its first workshop in Music Hall’s Ballroom. Click here to see the cast.

Cincinnati Opera artistic director Evans Mirageas will also host a conversation with the creators during the hour.

“The Hours” is a commission of the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The opera, which tells the story of three women whose lives have a literary connection, is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Michael Cunningham, as well as the Paramount Pictures film. Click here to read about the film, which starred Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman.

Opera Fusion: New Works is funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

 

 

Organ festival returns to Covenant-First Presbyterian

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The historic Austin Pipe Organ at Covenant-First Presbyterian Church

Covenant-First Presbyterian Church downtown is hosting its third annual organ festival this Sunday and Monday, March 7 and 8.

Todd Wilson, organist at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, and head of the organ department at Cleveland Institute of Music, will be presenting a free recital at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 7. His program will include J.S. Bach’s Passacaglia in C minor, Three Cincinnati Impressions by Gerre Hancock, Soliloquy by David Conte; and Sonata on the 94th Psalm by Julius Reubke (1834-58).

Todd Wilson/photo by Sam Hubish

Wilson will conclude with his own “Improvisations on a submitted theme,” always a showstopper.

The church hasn’t been able to hold its series since exactly one year ago, when Alan Morrison was the guest artist one week before the nation shut down due to Covid-19.

I’m told they are ready with all the Covid safety protocols—masks, fresh air flowing, social distancing.  The historic and beautiful sanctuary is very large, so it works for live music at a safe distance.

On Monday, Wilson will stay in town for a master class at the church, and some of Michael Unger’s CCM students will be participating.

The concert is free and open to the public.

Details: Covenant-First Presbyterian Church, 717 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Information: (513) 621-4144; covfirstchurch.org

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 »

CCM’s Moveable Feast is virtual this year

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Students of CCM’s Musical Theatre Class of 2022 and alumni guest artists Noah J. Ricketts, John Riddle, Nikki René Daniels, Leslie Kritzer and Stephanie Jae Park. (Screen grab provided by CCM)

If you’ve ever attended a Moveable Feast, the imaginative fundraising event at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, you’ve probably never forgotten it. The idea is to stroll from theater to theater, classroom to classroom, and sample the amazing talent of students in every discipline — from ballet to jazz to scenic design and media arts. You do this while also sampling “dinner by the bite” in wonderful food stations throughout the building.

This year, with Covid, Moveable Feast is re-imagined as a virtual event on Jan. 22. Although there won’t be the thrill of rushing down hallways with dozens of other people to make it in time to a see some Broadway hits before you dash away to catch ballet students in a scene from “Swan Lake” — the event will be able to involve viewers around the country.

It’s presented by CCM Power, a volunteer group of friends, advocates and alumni. The event provides essential support for student scholarships, projects and travel opportunities.  This year, COVID-19 cancelled paid work that students rely on and drastically changed students’ family financial circumstances. Scholarship and emergency funds are needed now more than ever.

CCM has produced major stars of stage and screen — from Broadway and Carnegie Hall to Hollywood. Alumni guest artists for the show will include stars of Hamilton, Frozen, Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Netflix’s Dead to Me and much more.

Edward Nelson Highlight Screen – This image features CCM alumnus Edward Nelson performing “Someone to Watch Over Me” for CCM’s virtual Moveable Feast. He is Accompanied by San Francisco Opera guest artist Ronny Michael Greenberg, piano. (Screen grab provided by CCM)

Opera alumnus Edward Nelson (BM, ’11; MM, ‘13) wanted to participate because, he says, “At every step further into my career, I have found myself drawing on my experiences and education from CCM. When the opportunity arose this year to give back to the institution that has given me so much, I jumped on board without hesitation.”Read More »

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.