Though you’ve probably been to Music Hall many times, have you ever wondered WHY it was built?
One night in 1875, Cincinnati business man and philanthropist, Reuben R. Springer sat in the audience at the Cincinnati Music Festival, waiting for a thunderstorm to pass so the music could resume. (It’s not like he was at Coachella!) He decided the city needed a proper venue for this world-renowned musical festival.
Thus the impetus to build the Music Hall can be traced directly to one of the earliest May Festivals, so you haven’t really experienced this Cincinnati landmark until you’ve been there for this choral event.
This year marks the joyful return of singers to the stage of Music Hall, along with celebrities including composer John Adams and actor Hugh Dancy, fresh from Downton Abbey: A New Era. The repertoire explores works from the Americas, with both established and new voices telling our stories, closing with the ultimate expression of joy, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, in its full glory with chorus, soloists, orchestra and audience together again at Music Hall.
Get tickets and find out more at mayfestival.com
2022 May Festival Schedule
Friday, May 20, 7:30 p.m.
John Adams conducts El Niño
American composer John Adams leads his Messiah for the modern age Interweaving biblical verse with poetry by Latin American writers, El Niño considers the Nativity story from a mother’s point of view. Described as “some of the most beautiful episodes I’ve ever heard in any of his music,” (BBC Radio), Adams’ work explores, in his words, “what is meant by a miracle.”
Sunday, May 22, 2 p.m.
Bernstein’s Candide
Part opera and part musical theater, Candide is Leonard Bernstein’s take on Voltaire’s satirical Enlightenment-era novella of the same name— rebellious, heartfelt and thoroughly entertaining. Austrian conductor Katharina Wincor makes her May Festival debut, leading the Chorus and the CSO in a concert version of Bernstein’s “wittiest and most thoroughly successful theater score,” (The New York Times). Hugh Dancy (Hannibal, Downton Abbey: A New Era) reads the part of the narrator.
Friday, May 27, 7:30 p.m.
Mena Conducts South American Epics
The romance of South America comes to life as Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena leads a program of South American epics. Ginastera’s playful ballet music depicts a magical nighttime story, while the rhythmic energies of Villa-Lobos’ Chôros recall the raw power of his native Brazil. Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez’s Cantata Criolla—sometimes called South America’s Carmina Burana—stars tenor and baritone soloists as a poet and the devil, in a singing contest.
Alberto Ginastra: Suite from Panambí
Heitor Villa-Lobos: Chôros no. 10, Rasga o Coração (Rend the Heart)
Antonio Estevez: Cantata criolla, Florentino el que cantó con el Diablo (“Creole Cantata, Florentino, who sang with the Devil”)
Saturday, May 28, 7:30 p.m.
Montgomery + Beethoven No. 9
In Jessie Montgomery’s I Have Something to Say, voices sing, “We were blessed to be born, when many doors had been torn open for us to be free.” Her new work, inspired by influential women past and present, gives young voices a prominent space. Celebrations of justice ring through Beethoven’s early (and only) opera. Later in life, and nearly deaf, Beethoven tore through the silence composing his ultimate celebration of life—the Ode to Joy.
Program
Ludwig van Beethoven: Overture and Heil se idem Tag (“Hail to the Day”) from Fidelio
Jessie Montgomery: I Have Something To Say [Premiere, May Festival Co-Commission]
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9