Spotlight: May Festival Returns

May Festival Returns!

The recreation of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 1808 Akademie program on February 29 & March 1, 2020 was the last time the full May Festival Chorus was heard at Cincinnati Music Hall. The 2021 May Festival included performances by sections of the chorus, and members of the chorus sang alongside the May Festival Youth Chorus and Classical Roots Community Chorus for the 2021 Holiday Pops. But the full chorus has been missing—until now!

After two long years, the full May Festival Chorus returns to the stage for performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor. This large-scale work for antiphonal chorus, four soloists and large orchestra, inspired by the late-Baroque compositions of J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel, is a showcase of virtuosic demands for both chorus and orchestra and, according to Louis Langrée, “has this wonderful Baroque gesture while clearly projecting into what the music of the future would become.”

May Festival Chorus members expressed their excitement about the Mass:

“I find something new every time I sing it” —Steve Dauterman

“I am excited to be able to sing this piece because I have never sung the whole thing before. It is a privilege to be able to do this and I can’t wait!” —Gaynelle Hardwick

Mozart’s C Minor Mass is just the beginning of what the May Festival Chorus has to offer this season. The Chorus returns to the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption on Sunday, April 3 at 8 pm, along with the May Festival Youth Chorus, Xavier University Choir, and guest organist Michal Unger, for a program of choral gems, including the world premiere of Gwyneth Walker’s “When Music Sounds,” commissioned by the May Festival Youth Chorus.

The 2022 May Festival will present four concerts over the last two weekends in May (May 20, 22, 27 and 28) at Cincinnati Music Hall, with programs focusing on music and themes originating in the Americas and reinstating several major works that could not be performed when the 2020 Festival was cancelled. “Musical worlds have come together in the Americas, and it’s only fitting that we explore the origins, traditions and new sounds representing this diverse soundscape,” said May Festival Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena.

Highlights of the 2022 May Festival • Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John

Adams conducts El Niño, his interpretation of the Nativity story (May 20 at 7:30 pm) • Conductor Katharina Wincor leads a concert version of Leonard Bernstein’s

Candide (May 22 at 2 pm) • Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena conducts an evening of South American epics (May 27 at 7:30 pm) • The full musical forces take to the stage for the premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s

I Have Something to Say and Beethoven’s

Symphony No. 9

For more, visit mayfestival.com