Filling Music Hall -- With More Than the Audience

(first published in The Cincinnati Post, Sept. 2003)

Music Hall was built for Erich Kunzel.

He can fill it like no one else and that doesn’t mean derrieres in those red velvet seats, though he and the Cincinnati Pops routinely draw large crowds.

Pops concerts have been augmented by brass bands, choruses, cloggers, jugglers, animals, gymnasts, a giant birthday cake and even an aerialist who soared over the audience’s heads.

The 2003-04 season is no exception, beginning with this weekend’s season opener "Oktoberfest Zinzinnati Pops." Concerts are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday at Music Hall.

Joining Kunzel and the orchestra will be Sonnenschein Express, a six-member German band from Disney World’s EPCOT Center toting Alpine horns, accordions, tuba, drums, harmonica, a singing saw ("Edelweiss") and an Alpine xylophone called "wooden laughter." Cincinnati German heritage groups the Kolping Sängerchor, Jack Frost Accordion Band (all 25 of them) and the Donauschwaben Schuhplattlers will get in their licks and slaps, and there’ll be an onstage yodeling contest and an audience sing-along (with the German printed in the program).

Kunzel demurred about the Chicken Dance and Lederhosen - he likes to keep some things up his sleeve - but there’ll probably be flapping room onstage, and Kunzel has never shied from dressing the part.

All in the name of spass (fun), said Kunzel. "That’s what it’s all about, you know, and if there’s any city in the United States that should have a program like this to begin the season, it’s Cincinnati."

Cincinnati’s Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati, the world’s second largest Oktoberfest after Munich (Cincinnati’s sister city), is Sept. 20 and 21.

In honor of Kunzel, Newport’s Hofbräuhaus has prepared a beer kin to Munich’s, the Hofbräu-Kunzel Brew, which will be available at the Hofbräuhaus through Sunday. German-born brewmaster Markus Lohner describes it as an "amber lager, a little bit stronger than normal (5.5 to 6 percent alcohol) with a little caramel flavor." Music Hall concessions will offer cream puffs by Servatis.

The Pops will perform music by the Strauss family and Franz Lehar on the first half of the concert.

The Pops is calling 2003-04 "the season of celebrations." Due for the Kunzel treatment are the Ohio Bicentennial, the holiday season, Cincinnati Ballet, music south of the border, epic films and New York City’s "singing policeman," tenor Daniel Rodriguez of post-9-11 fame.

Kunzel will be on the podium for seven of the eight concerts. Guest conductor Jeff Tyzik will lead a swing concert (Ellington, Goodman, Count Basie) with the Grammy-winning quartet New York Voices in April.

[]The Pops will "sort of kick off the Ohio/Cincinnati bicentennial celebration," said Kunzel. "The very next weekend is Tall Stacks." Concerts are Oct. 10-12 atMusic Hall.

Ohio’s First Lady, Hope Taft, will narrate a world premiere about the history of Ohio by Pops arranger/composer Joe Price. Joining the Pops will be the Anderson High School Chorus and Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church Choir. The text, by Joy Fowler, follows Ohio history "from the very beginnings, with all the people going westward," said Kunzel. "We’re using various Ohio pieces such as ‘Beautiful Ohio,’ riverboat songs, ‘Columbia, Gem of the Ocean’ and ‘Simple Gifts.’"

Guest artist will be Youngstown native Maureen McGovern. Gov. Taft and members of the Ohio legislature have been invited to attend Saturday’s concert.

[]The Pops is expanding its popular holiday concert to five performances Dec. 11-14, including a Sunday matinee. The stage will be as full as Santa’s bag, with the May Festival Chorus and Youth Chorus, School for Creative and Performing Arts Children’s Choir, Miami University Steel Band, Cincinnati Ballet Venture Dancers, Studio Cloggers and members of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music musical theater department. Madcap Productions Puppet Theater will be on hand, too, dropping giant marshmallows into a giant cup of hot chocolate, among other things.

Guest artist will be Covington native/CCM graduate Lee Roy Reams. "It’s all pizzazz stuff," said Kunzel. "Put this cast of 500 onstage and we’re going to have a happy holiday from the Pops."

[]The Pops’ annual Broadway night, Feb. 1 and 8, will salute Frank Loesser and Frederick Lowe ("Most Happy Fella," "Guys and Dolls," "Camelot," "My Fair Lady," etc.) with vocalists Kathleen Brett, Richard Troxell and Daniel Narducci and the May Festival Chorus.

[]The ballet concert, Feb. 27-29, is a first for the Pops and will be recorded by Telarc. "We’re saluting Cincinnati Ballet," said Kunzel. The program will comprise "the greatest hits from ballet," including excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s "Swan Lake" and "Sleeping Beauty" Adolphe Adam’s "Giselle," Prokofiev’s "Romeo and Juliet" and Offenbach’s "Gaîté Parisienne," plus works by Gershwin and Richard Rodgers.

[]In mid-March, "the doldrums of winter," the Pops plans a fiesta, said Kunzel. Lighting up Music Hall March 14 will be Mariachi Cobre from EPCOT’s Mexico Pavilion. Making their Cincinnati Pops debut, the 12-piece band (violins, trumpets, guitars) exemplifies mariachi, "the true classical music of Mexico," he said.

[]Kunzel’s season finale, May 14-16, promises to top it all. Also slated for a Telarc CD will be the epic music of film composer Miklos Rozsa.

"Notice I have a thousand people in the chorus it seems," said Kunzel. "Rozsa wrote for these gigantic movies ("Ben Hur," "Quo Vadis," "King of Kings"). It was discovered – and his son has been involved in this for us - that he wrote three suites from these three movies. He always used huge choruses, so we plan to release for the first time the three suites using a gigantic chorus in Surround Sound."

That will take some doing, said Kunzel. "We need as many voices as we can possibly, mathematically, fit onstage, plus some around the hall. I don’t know how we’re going to do this yet, but we’ll get there. The Telarc engineer is going to have to be here all week to figure it out."

Choruses taking part include the Cincinnati Men’s Chorus, MUSE Women’s Choir, College of Mount St. Joseph Chamber Choir, Xavier University Concert Choir, Northern Kentucky University Chamber Choir, Wilmington College Chorale, May Festival Youth Chorus, Winton Woods High School Chorus and the SCPA High School Choir (the May Festival Chorus will be busy preparing for the annual May Festival).

Guest artist on the second half will be tenor Rodriguez, whose stirring vocalism spoke to the country in the wake of 9-11. Now embarked on a singing career, with three CDs to date, Rodriguez will perform a variety of music, from popular hits to spirituals and patriotic favorites.

The Cincinnati Pops 2003-04 season.

Friday-Sunday. "Oktoberfest Zinzinnati Pops." Sonnenschein Express. Kolping Sängerchor. Jack Frost Accordion Band. Donauschwaben Schuhplattlers.

Oct. 10-12. Ohio Bicentennial Celebration. Vocalist Maureen McGovern. Hope Taft, narrator.

Dec. 11-14. Holiday concert. Vocalist Lee Roy Reams. Madcap Productions Puppet Theater. May Festival Chorus. SCPA Children’s Chorus. Miami University Steel Band. CCM musical theater department.

Feb. 1 and 8. "Broadway Night: The Music of Loesser and Loewe." Soprano Kathleen Brett. Tenor Richard Troxell. Baritone Daniel Narducci. May Festival Chorus.

Feb. 27-29. "Pops Salutes the Cincinnati Ballet." Cincinnati Ballet. Victoria Morgan, choreographer.

March 14. "South of the Border." Mariachi Cobre.

April 18 and 25. "Swing, Swing, Swing." New York Voices. Jeff Tyzik, guest conductor.

May 14-16. "Epic Film Music of Miklos Rozsa." Local choruses. Tenor Daniel Rodriguez.

Concerts are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays at Music Hall. There will be a 2 p.m. matinee Dec. 15.

Kunzel conducts all concerts except April 18 and 25, which will be led by guest conductor Jeff Tyzik.

Tickets are $17.50-$48.50. Call (513) 381-3300, or order online at www.cincinnatipops.org.