On His Way

Posted: Mar 22, 2017 - 3:36:00 PM in: commentary

John Humphrey

Tenor John Humphrey, 26, of Cincinnati, Ohio heads to Berlin this summer to pursue his career. A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, with a masters degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Humphrey calls art "human expression at its deepest level."
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Pops "Animals" a Delightful Bestiary

Posted: Feb 4, 2015 - 12:13:22 PM in: reviews_2015, commentary

The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra's 93rd release is a tribute to the animal kingdom featuring conductor John Morris Russell's new arrangement of Saint-Saëns' iconic "Carnival of the Animals." Also heard are animal-themed works by Percy Grainger, Leonard Bernstein, Anatoli Liadov, Modest Mussorgsky, Ottorino Respighi, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Edward Elgar, George Gershwin and Aaron Copland. Giving it added appeal -- for young and old -- are actual animals sounds interspersed throughout.
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21 for '14

Posted: Jan 3, 2015 - 5:32:27 PM in: commentary

LumenoCity, August, 2014

A year-end task, it seems, is to assemble one's favorite concerts and events from the season just past. Here, with an apology, are Music in Cincinnati's choices.
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Best of 2013 in Cincinnati

Posted: Dec 29, 2013 - 3:52:34 PM in: commentary_2013

Music Hall, "Lumenocity," Aug. 4, Washington Park

It's list time again, i.e. time to (try) to pick the best concerts of 2013 (from Music in Cincinnati's point of view, that is). Here they are, pared to 16, with everything from early music to improvisation.
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Something from Nothing

Posted: May 13, 2013 - 8:01:36 PM in: commentary_2013

Sandra Gross-Hutton, sculptor and owner/founder of the Brazee School of Glass in Cincinnati, was asked to deliver a commencement address May 12 to the 2013 graduates of the School of Creative Arts at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Here is what she said.
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Remembering the Blue Wisp

Posted: Mar 25, 2013 - 10:37:34 PM in: commentary_2013

Amy Culbertson, former entertainment editor at the Cincinnati Post, now a food and travel writer living in Forth Worth, Texas, remembers the Blue Wisp Jazz Club, from the days it was located in Obryonville, to its current, tenuous location at 700 Race Street downtown. She submits this affectionate essay about the club and what it means and has meant to Cincinnati.
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Langrée’s First CSO Season Inspired

Posted: Jan 30, 2013 - 3:13:52 PM in: news_2013, commentary_2013

Louis Langrée

Though he will be onstage for only six of the 20 concerts in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's 2013-2014 season -- his first as music director -- Louis Langrée has assembled a well-rounded and thoughtful lineup. There will be new music and familiar favorites, popular guests and new faces, some intriguing collaborations and continuing community outreach in the form of the orchestra's "One City, One Symphony" project inaugurated in November, 2012.
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A Fond Look at the Blue Wisp

Posted: Jan 25, 2013 - 9:42:02 AM in: commentary_2013

Amy Culbertson, former entertainment editor at the Cincinnati Post, has these observations about Cincinnati's Blue Wisp jazz club in the wake of news that it has fallen on hard times. "Let's raise a glass to what the Blue Wisp once meant to the city, to jazz musicians and to jazz lovers -- and then let's move on by vowing to support the musicians who still struggle to keep jazz alive, against discouraging odds and for little reward, wherever they may be playing around town." - [Read more]

Thirteen for Twenty-Twelve

Posted: Dec 27, 2012 - 2:58:51 PM in: commentary_2012

Louis Langrée conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

The year 2012 was saturated with music in Cincinnati, especially choral music. The World Choir Games were held here (for the first time in the U.S.). The May Festival was in bloom, as usual, and Cincinnati Opera had a very good year. Adding its voice, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra welcomed its 13th music director, Louis Langree, with a gala concert featuring Beethoven's Ninth Symphony -- coincident with which, a lot of "Ode to Joy" was heard on city streets, and the CSO produced a video with everyone in town singing or playing along. Here are Music in Cincinnati's "baker's dozen," i.e. 13 best musical events for 2012.

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Michael Gielen: Musical Visionary for Cincinnati

Posted: Nov 16, 2012 - 9:32:23 PM in: commentary_2013

Michael Gielen

Michael Gielen, music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1980-1986, wrote an introduction to his last subscription concert with the CSO March 14 and 15, 1986 at Music Hall. That program paired, perhaps for the first time anywhere, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Schoenberg's 1947 "A Survivor from Warsaw." During his six-year tenure with the CSO, Gielen programmed many such juxtapositions of old and new music, a visionary practice now commonplace everywhere.
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Operatic eloquence

Posted: Jul 28, 2012 - 12:53:52 PM in: commentary_2012

Evans Mirageas outside Music Hall in Cincinnati

Art matters and as "the confluence of theater, literature, ballet, visual art, costume design, instrumental music and singing," opera has a unique power to teach and inspire. No one has said it better that Cincinnati Opera artistic director Evans Mirageas.
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Reflecting on the World Choir Games

Posted: Jul 19, 2012 - 9:29:06 PM in: commentary_2012, reviews_2012

Closing Ceremony, 2012 World Choir Games, U.S. Bank Arena, Cincinnati, Ohio (Peace Bell in foreground)

The 2012 World Choir Games, held in Cincinnati, Ohio July 4-14, ended with the ringing of the Peace Bell, a presentation by the 2014 World Choir Games host city, Riga, Latvia and a concert by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra led by Pops conductor John Morris Russell and guest conductor Gabor Hollerung. Guest artists were Broadway star Idina Menzel, gospel great Marvin Winans and cast members from Cincinnati Opera's upcoming "La Traviata." The event was a kind of coming of age for Cincinnati, which showed itself eminently capable of hosting thousands of visitors speaking dozens of languages in an international competition known as the Olympics of choral music. There was even a Champion from Cincinnati, the Choraliers of Fairfield, Ohio, winners in the Show Choir event.
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Yes, Kentucky

Posted: Sep 29, 2010 - 10:36:54 AM in: commentary_2010

Gustavo Dudamel at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky (photo by Rich Copley)

Get off your high horse, you might say, but the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the very definition of "elite," came to the Bluegrass State this week. Apparently it was no problem for the picky Viennese. who, incidentally, have their pick of conductors, too, hiring only the world's best on a guest-conductor-only basis. The Vienna Phil's pick this time was Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel, today's hottest young conductor. While in Kentucky, Dudamel and the orchestra members rubbed shoulders with attendees of the World Equestrian Games, being held for the first time outside of Europe in, where else? Kentucky.
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The Tragedy of Music Hall

Posted: Jan 11, 2010 - 3:07:32 PM in: commentary_2010

Cincinnati Music Hall

Cincinnati's 132-year-old Music Hall is beautiful. It has enviable acoustics. It is a beloved icon for the Cincinnati community. However, as the performance home of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, it has a fatal flaw. It is too big. On Jan. 7, 2010, CSO music director Paavo Järvi announced that he will leave the orchestra at the end of the 2010-2011 season. Did Music Hall have anything to do with it? Would Dr. Demento have had something to say? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viTUhOT4d3I

Re-posted from Feb. 23, 2009.

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Thoughts from a Pops Pianist

Posted: May 7, 2009 - 2:12:06 PM in: commentary_2009

Many people paid tribute to Erich Kunzel as he was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame May 7 in Cincinnati. One of them was Charles Manning, Pops Pianist of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, who headed East over I-74 to join a festive crowd in Memorial Hall, home of the hall of fame in historic Over-the-Rhine. Manning's perceptive and eloquent remarks are those of someone who played under Kunzel from 1982-2002 while he served as ISO Pops Music Director.
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