Cincinnati Fanfare - May Festival 2022 by Cincinnati Magazine

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Matinée Musicale Cincinnati 2022–2023—Our 109th Season

Rising Talents and Acclaimed Artists! Except where noted, all recitals are at Memorial Hall

CINCINNATI DEBUT

VIOLIN

Christina Nam

CLASSICAL SAXOPHONE

Steven Banks

Alexandre Kantorow

Rohan de Silva

Xak Bjerken

Sunday, February 19, 2023 3 PM

Sunday, October 2, 2022 7 PM

Friday, October 28, 2022 7:30 PM

Youngest competitor and Top Prize Winner, Cooper International Violin Competition

Winner of 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant—First time awarded to a Saxophonist

2019 Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medal and Grand Prix Winner

PIANO

USA DEBUT

Valerie Eickhoff

Silver-Garburg

Sunday, March 26, 2023 7 PM

Sunday, May 7, 2023 3 PM First Unitarian Church 536 Linton Street

MEZZO-SOPRANO

Winner of the 2022 German SWR Young Opera Stars Competition

PIANO DUO

Acclaimed international artists

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CINCINNATI MAY FESTIVAL Music Hall Geraldine V. Chavez Center for the Choral Arts 1241 Elm Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 Administrative Offices: 513.621.1919 contact@mayfestival.com

2022 CONTENTS 5 6 11

14 16 19

Greetings from the Board Chair and Executive Director Cover Story: Finally, a May Festival in Full Bloom Sidebars: Conversations with John Adams, composer and conductor, and Jessie Montgomery, composer Spotlight: Celebrating 35 Years of the May Festival Youth Chorus Spotlight: May Festival Chorus: The Experience Behind the Stage May Festival at Music Live at Lunch

ARTISTS: 21 22 23

27 28 34

Juanjo Mena, Principal Conductor May Festival Chorus Chorus Leadership: Robert Porco, Director of Choruses; Matthew Swanson, Associate Director of Choruses May Festival Youth Chorus, Matthew Swanson, director Guest Soloists Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

CONCERTS: 36

JOHN ADAMS CONDUCTS EL NIÑO: Friday, May 20

BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE: Sunday, May 22

JUANJO MENA CONDUCTS SOUTH AMERICAN EPICS: Friday, May 27 MONTGOMERY + BEETHOVEN NO. 9: Saturday, May 28

DEPARTMENTS: 57 58 58 60 62 64

Choral Student Fund, Special Thanks, Tribute Gifts Cincinnati Musical Festival Association ArtsWave Partners Annual Fund May Festival Subscribers Administration

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GREETINGS FROM THE BOARD CHAIR AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Dear Friends, After two years of limited engagements, we are overjoyed to be able to say: Welcome to May Festival 2022 with full chorus, full orchestra and a full house! The May Festival exists to engage, energize and connect our community with the highest quality performances of great choral music. In 2021, our efforts to fulﬁll this mission were recognized by BBC Music Magazine proclaiming the May Festival as, “One of the Best Classical Music Festivals in the USA and Canada.” And this year’s Festival will be no different, as we come together in full force to celebrate the magic of music that reunites and brings us joy. Our core artistic assets are the May Festival Chorus and the May Festival Youth Chorus, and we are thankful to our chorus members, who have remained committed to singing—and singing together—through the past two years in the face of signiﬁcant challenges. Each chorus has much to celebrate this year. The May Festival Chorus welcomed 30 new members, a record number of new singers, and the May Festival Youth Chorus turns 35 this season! Without the dedication, energy and incredible musicianship of our chorus membership, none of what we do would be possible. In this issue, David Lyman takes us behind the stage for a glimpse into the experience of a May Festival Chorus member (pp. 16–17) and David Lewellen’s story examines the past, present and future of the May Festival Youth Chorus (pp. 14–15). We are equally fortunate in our artistic leadership, who superbly prepare the choruses and orchestra for each performance. Juanjo Mena, Principal Conductor, returns with guest conductors John Adams and Katharina Wincor for this season. In his 33rd year with the May Festival, Director of Choruses Robert Porco leads Chorus rehearsal each week, and Matthew Swanson, Director of the May Festival Youth Chorus brings together and guides some of the most talented young singers in the region. Both led a sold-out Basilica concert in April. Hannah Edgar’s article, “Finally, a May Festival in Full Bloom,” dives into the stories behind May Festival 2022. Edgar speaks with Jessie

Christy Horan and Steven Sunderman

Montgomery about I Have Something to Say, which is a May Festival co-commission and premiere; uncovers the story of El Niño with composer John Adams; and addresses the idea of freedom with Juanjo Mena (pp. 6–13). The May Festival takes a village. From the Chorus, Orchestra, artistic leadership, crew, staff and soloists to you—our audience, sponsors and donors—all play an integral role in this beloved Festival. We are deeply grateful for each of you and thank you for attending and supporting the May Festival. Looking ahead to May 2023, the May Festival celebrates its 150th anniversary, and we are gearing up to discover the voice in everything! Details of the Festival will be announced very, very soon, but you don’t have to wait until then to hear the Chorus. We kick off our 150th anniversary season with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in September 2022, and throughout the season, the Chorus will also sing Gustav Holst’s The Planets and Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt with the CSO and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with Cincinnati Ballet. It’s a joy to present choral music in this annual tradition. Enjoy this year’s May Festival, and see you next year!

Christy Horan, Chair, Board of Directors Steven Sunderman, Executive Director

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MAY FESTIVAL COVER STORY

FINALLY, A MAY FESTIVAL IN FULL BLOOM by Hannah Edgar

It’s all too easy to brand 2020 and 2021 as the “Should Years.” In 2020, the May Festival should have featured John Adams’ epic opera-oratorio El Niño, with the composer himself on the podium. It also should have unveiled a new choral-orchestral co-commission by composer Jessie Montgomery—with a libretto by her mother, the writer and stage artist Robbie McCauley, who passed away last summer. Nor was it possible to revive those works in 2021, when low vaccination and steady positivity rates made it too risky to convene the full chorus with orchestra. Instead of preparing for its 150th anniversary in 2023, the May Festival faced arguably the greatest threat to its existence since its founding. But Robert Porco would like to offer a reframe. Director of Choruses of the May Festival since 1989, he says he’s never seen as many singers clamber to join the May Festival Chorus as he has this season, welcoming 30 new members out of its 120 volunteer singers. And he’s proud of what the May Festival was able to achieve in 2021, even as musicians contorted themselves under unfamiliar strictures: Choristers sang masked and in reduced numbers

in front of a widely spaced orchestra and Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena, whose gestures were livestreamed onto a monitor for singers to follow. So far this season, the choir has continued rehearsing and performing with mitigation protocols. “I’m on the side of caution, and we’ve done very well. No one got sick, and artistically it worked; singing masked doesn’t affect the sound nearly as much as people think,” Porco says, calling between rehearsal days from a hotel room in Cincinnati. Though unable to reunite with his beloved choir for much of the pandemic, Porco remained connected to the May Festival Chorus in other ways: He started Bob’s Kitchen (mayfestival.com/ bobs-kitchen), a series of beloved Porco family recipes he shared online with the May Festival community, and he called each Chorus member three times during the pandemic. During those phone conversations, Porco talked to many choristers at length about their own extra-musical passions, sometimes for the ﬁrst time. “In a chorus like this, there’s always somebody who’s an expert in something. I happen to specialize in music, but we might have someone

Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena led the treble voices of the May Festival Chorus and the CSO during May Festival 2021. Credit: Mark Lyons

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The treble voices of the May Festival Chorus perform during May Festival 2021. Credit: Mark Lyons

who specializes in liver transplants, or someone who’s a preacher,” he says. “I’ve always found it humbling. It sounds a little sentimental or corny, but it is a bit of a family thing. These people only see each other once a week, but there’s this sense of community. Sometimes it appears to me they enjoy music more than some professionals do.” Now, the programs once promised in 2020 will resound at last in Music Hall—a triumphant preamble to next year’s sesquicentennial celebrations. For one, Adams’ El Niño is back, with the composer at the helm as originally planned. Once called “a Messiah for the modern age” by the Los Angeles Times, El Niño tells the story of Jesus’ nativity through maximalist choral-orchestral forces and Peter Sellars’ freewheeling, bilingual libretto, which taps sources as far-ﬂung as Scripture, medieval mystery plays, and 20th-century Latin American poetry. “I think this piece will surprise the audience a lot, because it’s not normally programmed,” Mena says. “It’s very complex, with a lot of soloists.” You could say that again. El Niño calls for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone and three countertenor soloists, all on top of beefed-up ensemble forces: a mixed chorus, a children’s choir and an orchestra teeming with auxiliary percussion. Adams isn’t shy about making El Niño’s singers sweat, either. (The 75-year-old composer admitted as much to us in a written interview—see sidebar on p. 11.) Porco knows that all too well, having prepared the choir for John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls in 2009, Harmonium in

2014, and The Wound-Dresser last season. Luckily, he knows what Adams likes in his works—crisp, clear diction and a robust sound. That just leaves the hard parts. “John writes these things that are much more difficult than they sound because of where they happen in the bar. For example, he’ll take the same motive in a minimalistic style and put it after the ﬁrst beat, then after the second beat, and then on ``

Director of Choruses Robert Porco in his home kitchen in 2020.

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MAY FESTIVAL COVER STORY

Director of Choruses Robert Porco conducting the May Festival Chorus at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in April 2022. Credit: JP Leong

the third beat,” Porco says. “It’s very intricate, and I want to be sure to do exactly what’s written.” On top of those technical demands, much of El Niño’s text is in Spanish—a language underrepresented in classical choral repertoire, if not at this year’s Festival. The May 27 program, “South American Epics,” features the Festival premiere of Cantata Criolla (“Creole Cantata”), a searingly dramatic choral-orchestral epic that garnered wide acclaim for its late composer, Antonio Estévez (1916–1988), after it premiered in 1954. Cantata Criolla’s Faustian premise is a familiar one in classical repertoire; subtitled “Florentino, who sang with the Devil,” Estévez’s version imagines a sing-off between the verse-spinning herdsman Florentino (tenor Santiago Ballerini) and the Devil (baritone Gustavo Castillo), whom he passes on the open plain. 20th-century Brazilian composer Heitor VillaLobos (1887–1959) is much more of a household name than Estévez. Nonetheless, his Chôros No. 10,

“Rasga o Coração” (“Rend the Heart”)—sung in Portuguese and often programmed alongside Cantata Criolla—also marks a Festival ﬁrst. “We were thinking about diversity and the different cultures that we have also in Cincinnati. There are a lot of Latin people [here],” says Mena, himself a native Spanish speaker. “Why not move the programming a little in this area?” North America gets in on the fun, too. On May 22, soloists, chorus and orchestra perform a concert version of the rapier-witted operetta Candide by Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990), the United States’ eternal wunderkind. Leading the performance is Austrian conductor Katharina Wincor (pronounced VIEN-sor), a 27-year-old phenom who’s cinched podium engagements at the Salzburg Festival, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, and Brevard Music Center this season. She was named assistant conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2019, when she was just 24. Part of her winning Dallas audition? The Overture to Candide. But Wincor says the May Festival performance marks her first time conducting Bernstein’s music professionally. To prepare, she’s hitting the books—including Voltaire’s original satire, which she read cover to cover. “I didn’t grow up in America, where [Bernstein’s music] is just an everyday thing,” Wincor says. “One of the big parts for me is listening to the music and talking to musicians that have played it a lot. That’s how I would expect it the other way around: What if someone has to learn something very Austrian?” Wincor’s thoroughness and podium manner caught Juanjo Mena’s eye early on when he served on the jury for the 2020 Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg, Germany. Wincor

May Festival Chorus at Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in April 2022. Credit: JP Leong

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placed third in that competition, which helped launch the careers of Gustavo Dudamel, Benjamin Shwartz, David Danzmayr, and many more. “It was a surprise: ‘Wow, this is a very high level,’” Mena remembers of her competition performance. “I had a good feeling about her from the beginning.” It’s fitting that this year’s May Festival brings together two very different guest conductors: one a towering figure in the classical music establishment (Adams), the other a fresh-faced rising star (Wincor). Commissioned to commemorate 100 years of women’s suffrage in the United States, Jessie Montgomery’s I Have Something to Say—which, along with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and excerpts from Fidelio, concludes the Festival— hosts a similar communion between past and future by imagining a meeting between the august abolitionist Sojourner Truth and contemporary climate activist Greta Thunberg. Like El Niño, I Have Something to Say weaves a narrative tapestry from many sonic strands: mixed chorus, children’s chorus and orchestra, who are tasked with some light stage direction (see sidebar on p. 13). (Think Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony, but set in an unspecified tribunal chamber.) It’s not every day a premiere is nestled next to Beethoven’s towering choral-orchestral master-

Katharina Wincor. Credit: Lawrence Jenkins

piece, which is often content to occupy an entire program. But Mena can’t imagine a better ﬁt than Montgomery’s piece, nor a more timely message. “There are many years between [Truth and Thunberg], but for me, their message is potent, especially alongside Beethoven 9 and Fidelio,” he says. “They talk about freedom; they talk about rights. This work really celebrates the elder and younger generations of women who have fought and continue to ﬁght the ongoing struggle for us and all people to be free.” In that struggle, and all others, may the last two years be our guide: Less fretting about the “should,” more seizing upon the “could.” And “did.”

ANNOUNCING…

MAY FESTIVAL MiNiS May Festival MiNiS is an exciting new program for our youngest singers! Each year we will celebrate singing, rhythm, movement, and joy with teachers and musicians. The 45-minute lessons align with Ohio State Education Standards and are a lot of fun! Our 2022 MiNiS is IN PERSON at Music Hall on May 21. This year, “We Care” about plants growing and healthy living! Registration starts May 1 for ages 0–12. Visit our website for more information and videos of last year’s event: bit.ly/2022MFMiNiS.

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MAY FESTIVAL COVER STORY

John Adams, composer and conductor, discusses his El Niño by Hannah Edgar

The last time John Adams conducted the May Festival Chorus was on a CSO concert in 2008, for his own 2008 John Adams. Credit: Musacchio Ianniello Pasqualini On the Transmigration of Souls, composed in memory of those who died on Have you sung in a chorus yourself? September 11. The work won the 2003 Pulitzer This will probably come as no surprise to singers Prize for Music and immediately secured a vaunted who struggle with my choral writing, but I’ve place in the 21st-century canon. Even so, Adams never sung in a chorus or taken voice lessons. found himself frustrated by live performances of Nonetheless, I love the sound of massed voices. Transmigration, feeling they rarely cohered the My ﬁrst commission as a young composer was work’s acoustic and prerecorded elements. from the San Francisco Symphony, for a work That May Festival performance helped confor chorus and orchestra. If they’d known how vince him otherwise. “The pure American quality little experience I’d had with chorus, I’m sure of their enunciation and their perfectly balanced they wouldn’t have proposed that. But they did, sonorities lifted the matter-of-fact plainness of the and the piece that resulted was Harmonium, a words to a transcendental level, and for once the work which after 30 years continues to get a lot piece did not seem as compromised and uneven of performances. as I had previously thought,” Adams later wrote So…what can I say? Beginner’s luck? All of my in his memoir. operas and oratorios have large choral forces Adams returns to conduct his bilingual operainvolved. In fact, Nixon in China, The Death of oratorio El Niño (2000)—“one of my favorite Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic all start with pieces,” he admits. Hard at work on Antony choruses. and Cleopatra, his latest opera debuting in San Francisco this fall, Adams answered questions What works do you gravitate towards via email. conducting? I consider it a privilege to be able to make You started conducting very young, while you programs around my music. When I did my were still a teenager. Did you formally study Absolute Jest in Vienna a few years ago, a piece conducting with anyone? for string quartet and orchestra based on fragThe only “lessons” I had were during one summer ments of Beethoven, they asked me to pair it at a music festival; my teacher had been a pupil with a Beethoven symphony. So, there I was, of the great Nadia Boulanger. Other than that, I doing something I’d never in my life imagined: learned a lot about conducting from playing in conducting my favorite Beethoven, the Fourth orchestras. I was often called to substitute in the Symphony, in Vienna! clarinet section of the Boston Symphony when Likewise, I do 20th-century music that speaks to I was in college, so early in my career I learned me on a very deep level: Sibelius, Ravel, Debussy, ﬁrsthand what orchestra players appreciate (a Bartók, Stravinsky, Copland and, of course, the good upbeat, helpful cues, efficient rehearsing, music of my colleagues Steve Reich and Philip don’t waste their time) and what they dislike Glass. And all through my 40-plus years of per(conductors who haven’t prepared, who talk too forming I have done many premieres by young much, or who keep stopping). composers, several of whom are now making real waves.

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MAY FESTIVAL COVER STORY

In Conversation with Jessie Montgomery, composer of I Have Something to Say by Hannah Edgar

Greta Thunberg’s impassioned speech at the 2018 UN Climate Change Conference was still ringing in Jessie Montgomery’s ears when the May Festival and Cathedral Choral Society (Washington, D.C.) commissioned her to write a work commemorating the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed some women the vote. Montgomery decided to place Thunberg in conversation with another trailblazing orator who put her audience in the hot seat: Sojourner Truth, using words from her oft-quoted (and likely misquoted) appeal to attendees of the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Montgomery’s I Have Something to Say imagines an encounter between the two women and culminates with a children’s choir protesting in an imagined courtroom or assembly hall. Montgomery spoke to us about the work—her ﬁrst for full orchestra and chorus—and about collaborating on the libretto with her mother, the late writer and performance artist Robbie McCauley. Your mom wrote the text for “I Have Something to Say.” Had you worked together on projects before? No, we hadn’t. She was getting older, and I wondered, “Wait, why haven’t we done this?” She was the perfect person for creating a fictional conversation between these two women. I came up with the idea, and she was totally on board; she wrote the poem in, like, a day. That’s how my family is—you do your thing over there, I’ll do my thing over here. And when we come together, it’s gonna be great. As a composer, I never considered making political music. Because my mom was so grounded Robbie McCauley in politics and her own personal history, I think I saw that as her “thing.” I was the classical violinist that does my classical music stuff that has nothing to do with anything

except how well I play—you know, all the annoying, superficial things that we think about as musicians. But with this piece, I really got into the messaging and embraced it a bit more. You mentioned the children’s chorus being a voice for justice in this piece. Something I didn’t know about you is that you Composer Jessie Montgomery. Credit: sang in a youth Jiyang Chen choir yourself, in the Young People’s Chorus in New York. One hundred percent! I started singing in Young People’s Chorus when Francisco Núñez started the organization. He taught choir at my music school and my after-school thing. When he started the organization officially, I jumped in as one of the ﬁrst chorus members. I just loved chorus—I loved the resonance of everyone singing, I loved the warm-up games. Around the same time, I was getting really good at violin, and I had to decide if I was going to focus on violin instead. Ultimately, I didn’t have aspirations of being a singer, but I did have aspirations of being a violinist. But later, when I went to summer camps and stuff, I was always excited to revisit singing. I actually did write a piece for Young People’s Chorus several years ago based on Langston Hughes’s Danse Africaine. That was huge for me, because I know how it feels to sing in those groups. When I hear children singing, I cry instantly—it’s just an involuntary response. It doesn’t matter whose piece it is, whether mine or someone else’s. So was your staff paper smudged with tears by the end of it? Well, I was crying for other reasons. [Laughs] When you’re in the thing working on it, it’s the grueling things that move you, like the deadline. Ah, stress crying. Yes, stress crying, exactly! But I’m pretty sure I’ll cry during the concert, and probably in the dress rehearsal.

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MAY FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF THE MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS by David Lewellen The May Festival Youth Chorus straddles two worlds. For one, its existence is artistically necessary: to supply the sound of young voices for concerts when the repertoire requires it. It also provides those same young voices with an invaluable music Matthew Swanson leads the May Festival Youth Chorus in their October 2021 open rehearsal, For education. the Fans. Credit: JP Leong “It offers students the same opportunity that adults receive, to perform choral only in the ﬁnal movement of the evening-long repertoire at a very high level,” said Matthew work, and “it brings a whole new perspective and Swanson, the director of the Youth Chorus, which is energy to the piece,” Swanson said. “The students celebrating its 35th anniversary this season. Singing have fallen in love with it. We’ve talked about what with the adults and with the Cincinnati Symphony it will feel like to enter the stage of Music Hall “requires the same things we hope to instill in them late at night and change the emotional and aural every week in our rehearsals: self-confidence, picture of the entire room. I’m thrilled for them.” musical independence and a love of singing.” The Youth Chorus sings a program of its own “I love the fact that we have a youth chorus,” during the May Festival’s annual spring concert said Robert Porco, the May Festival’s Director in the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in of Choruses. “It’s experience they can’t get anyCovington, KY, and it joins the adult chorus for where else.” some works that would not overtax their developThis spring, the teens will perform the part writing voices. And it also sings in works for which the ten for children’s choir in John Adams’ oratorio El composer speciﬁed a children’s chorus, such as El Niño, with the composer conducting. They appear Niño and I Have Something to Say. May Festival Youth Chorus and Xavier University Chorus, conducted by Matthew Swanson, perform together at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in April 2022.

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For the last 200 years or so, the word “chorus” has usually meant four parts with adult voices. Many composers have written specifically for the pure, prepubescent sound of a children’s chorus. But teenagers whose voices and bodies are changing require special consideration. “They’re all going through a voice change,” Swanson said. “The vocal folds are growing, the body is growing, the head is growing, all at different rates. And their perception of their own singing can be confusing. Familiar actions suddenly feel unfamiliar.” Porco said, “It’s a very delicate age, and they’re lucky to have someone like Matthew,” who can be sensitive to the state of their voices without trying to make them sound like adults. Every director who leads a symphony chorus has to be flexible. Swanson doesn’t know exactly what Porco will want when he rehearses the teens along with the adults, and Porco in turn doesn’t know exactly what John Adams will want. “We build the flexibility in,” Porco said, although when the conductor finally arrives, “I am seldom shocked.” When Porco works with the teens, “the musical goals are the same, but it’s a slightly different method of communication,” he said. “They won’t get some of the jokes I might tell the adult choir. That’s a gift Matthew has and I’m not sure I have.” “I try to communicate like they’re professional musicians,” Swanson said, “but I am interested in what’s going on in their lives. I do keep in touch with what’s on top of the charts. It’s more difficult to be a teen these days than it was when I was a teen, but their affection for art certainly binds generations together.” The Youth Chorus is smaller now than in past decades—partly due to the pandemic, partly to more demands on teenagers’ time—and Swanson is trying to cast a wider net for recruiting. “At this age, lack of skill often means lack of opportunity,” he said. “If they have a clear voice and a good ear, I’m enthusiastic to take them on.” Students can learn to read music and get ear training as part of their MFYC experience. The program is free to all participants, including parking and tickets to Cincinnati Symphony concerts. Those free concerts, along with the vocal and musical experience, “guided me to the path that

I’m on today,” said Daniel Moody, who is now a professional countertenor. “I can’t say enough about the program.” Relatively few alumni become professional singers, of course, but “a lot of us eventually wound up doing something in music, whether in education or as Daniel Moody a hobby,” said Moody, who grew up in New Richmond and whose parents still live there. His brother and sister also performed with the group and have gone on to other careers, but still enjoy concerts. As a countertenor, Moody had an extra helping of vocal uncertainties to navigate as a teenager. James Bagwell, the director at the time, put him in the alto section, and “he took good care to warm us up. He took 15 or 20 minutes to do different exercises, which helped with our own learning.” That kind of training also helps the current generation of singers. Private voice lessons and weekly musicianship exercises have been “super beneﬁcial for me,” said Anna Varisco, a home-schooled senior from Anderson Township. “I deﬁnitely grew as a musician.” She hopes to go on to a career in organ and church Anna Varisco, member of the May Youth Chorus, in a 2021 music, for which Festival recording session. her singing experience would be valuable background. As a senior in her third year with the group, Varisco is now one of the leaders, and she notices the younger students emulating the older ones. “Everyone is trying to be the best musician they can be,” she said. “It’s not really competitive, but we’re encouraging each other to be better.”

CHORUSES AUDITIONING THIS SUMMER The May Festival Youth Chorus (for singers in grades 8–12) is always eager to welcome new members. Auditions for the 2022–23 season will be held this summer. Email Kathryn at kalbertson@mayfestival.com or visit our website to learn more: mayfestival.com/youth-chorus. There are no costs associated with singing in the May Festival Youth Chorus. MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 15

MAY FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS: The Experience Behind the Stage by David Lyman Karolyn Johnsen will sing in her 50th May Festival this year. It’s remarkable. Inspiring, really. The moment she starts reﬂecting on some of her more memorable performances, you understand precisely what has kept her coming back year after year. She speaks of the “emotionally overwhelming” experience of singing the Verdi Requiem. Or how “exhilarating” it is to sing Carmina Burana. Then she stops herself. Is she being too effusive? After a long silence, she adds that “it seems to have gone by in a blur.” Life-changing? For some, certainly. But as you speak with one May Festival Chorus member after another, there is a common theme that is revealed; for nearly every member, joining Cincinnati’s oldest chorus was a turning point, a defining moment in the singer’s musical life. Every Chorus member is eager to share stories about the Chorus experience. There’s the hard work, of course. The three-hour rehearsals. And the demanding schedule during the May Festival itself. But quickly, conversations turn to unforgettable musical memories and the extraordinary camaraderie that happens when you make music with friends. Steve Dauterman, with his wife, Donna, and granddaughter, celebrates 40 years with the Chorus this year.

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“I still remember the first time singing with the Chorus at Music Hall,” says Lawrence E. Coleman Sr. “I walked off that stage and thought to myself ‘I have found heaven.’ I’ve been there ever since.” Steve Dauterman recalls feeling more than a little daunted when he walked into his first Chorus rehearsal, 40 years ago. “I was one of the youngest people in the room,” says Dauterman. “Now, with a couple of exceptions, I’ve been around longer than almost anyone. I don’t know when that happened.” Looking back, he chronicles various events in his life by how they related to various Chorus performances. “I remember singing with the Chorus at Carnegie Hall in 2014,” he says. “I got up the next morning at 5 a.m., was at LaGuardia by 6:30 and flew to Chicago. My daughter was a senior in Musical Theatre at Northwestern. One weekend, two cities, two peak life moments. I wouldn’t change a thing.” He’s on a roll now, ruminating on a string of particularly notable performances: singing Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, performing Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah at a Chorus America conference, and singing Mahler’s mammoth Symphony No. 8 with conductor Robert Shaw and a chorus of more than 600. “I swear, the Mahler shook the rafters,” he says. “There have been so many great experiences.” In the course of his 40 years, Dauterman has seen the Chorus become more select and more demanding. And, in his opinion, much, much better. “I love the fact that we’re always welcoming new and younger members,” he says. “Natural turnover like this is how the Chorus stays vibrant and fresh. It’s such a diverse group of people.” Take Sara Hook, for instance. She is just 28 and about to perform in her very first May Festival. By day, she’s a nurse anesthetist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. She’s been singing most of her life. But during grad school, she’d had to give it up. “There just wasn’t time,” she says. But once she got settled into her new job, that longing to sing with other people became more compelling. She knew the Chorus, but had never auditioned. Now it was time. She spent most of

MAY FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

last summer working with her old voice teacher to get ready for her August audition. “I prepared two pieces,” she says. “One was in Latin, the other in German. It was difficult, but it was time to get back to singing. I missed it too much. And my ﬁancée was on board with it.” Her wedding, incidentally, is scheduled for 2023. In May. “The date was already set,” she says sheepishly. “But I gave Bob Porco a year’s notice. And I’ll only have to miss one week of performances.” Clearly, singing with the May Festival Chorus is about more than standing on the risers and singing the right notes at the right time. It’s about exploring the music, immersing yourself in it. It’s about going on musical journeys surrounded by friends, whether music is familiar—the Mozart Requiem, for instance—or something completely new and complex, like John Adams’ El Niño, which the Chorus adds to its repertoire this year. Few new members’ stories are more compelling than that of Fansheng Kong. He’s a biomedical researcher at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. His route to the Chorus has been a lengthy and convoluted one. “I went to the audition and I failed,” says Kong. That was three years ago. Now, for most of us, that one disappointment would be quite enough. But Kong is tenacious in

26-year Chorus member Lauren Hess waits for rehearsal to begin.

a way that few of us can match. He came to the United States from his native China at the age of 34 to study for a PhD. That was in 1990. He’d been part of choirs back in China. So when he came to Cincinnati and heard about a Chinese choir in Mason—the Sound of Joy Choir—he decided to join. Emboldened by the experience, he auditioned for the May Festival Chorus a second time. And, once again, he “failed.” That’s his word, incidentally, not ours. Undaunted, he signed up for another audition late last summer. “I know I was denied two times,” says Kong. “But the one good thing about the Covid shutdown is that it gave me a lot of time to practice. When I auditioned this time, I went just to enjoy myself.” Several days later, he received a letter welcoming him to the Chorus. The memory of his ﬁrst Chorus performance is still vivid in his memory. It was December’s Holiday Pops concert. “You stand on the riser with the audience and orchestra in front of you. It was wonderful and amazing. And then we sang ‘Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.’ You feel that everything has ﬁnally paid off.”

The newest May Festival Chorus members strike a silly pose before rehearsal.

CHORUSES AUDITIONING THIS SUMMER The May Festival Chorus is always eager to welcome new members. Auditions for the 2022–23 season will be held this summer. Email Kathryn at kalbertson@mayfestival.com or visit our website to learn more: mayfestival.com/join. There are no costs associated with singing in the May Festival Chorus.

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THE POWER OF THE ARTS IS IN OUR HANDS

Whatever happens in our world, the arts give us a place to recharge, connect and awaken. We need the arts — and they need us too. It takes a community to build the arts. One + one equals so much more. Are you in?

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MAY FESTIVAL EVENTS

MAY FESTIVAL AT ‘MUSIC LIVE AT LUNCH’ Discover the voice in everything—at lunchtime! Join the May Festival and artists from across our community as they celebrate singing in Cincinnati, all month long, as part of Music Live at Lunch. This marks the 50th anniversary of downtown’s favorite lunchtime concert series at Christ Church Cathedral. Each performance is free and open to the public, and the perfect way to add singing to your day at 12:10 pm. Listen, relax and recharge—with song! May 3 Members of the May Festival Chorus Matthew Swope, May Festival Conducting Fellow Heather MacPhail and David Kirkendall, piano Brahms, Liebeslieder Waltzer Brahms, Op. 92

May 24 Alexandra Schoeny, soprano Ellen Graham, mezzo-soprano Matthew Umphreys, piano Music by Fanny Hensel, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, Alma Mahler, and more

May 10 Members of the May Festival Chorus Matthew Swanson, Associate Director of Choruses Five Centuries of Music for Low Voices Music by T. L. Victoria, Alice Parker, and more May 17 Tyler Johnson, tenor Avery Bargasse, tenor David Kirkendall, piano Music by John Duke, Joaquín Turina, Lori Laitman, and more

For more information visit mayfestival.com/lunch-program or point your phone’s camera at the QR code.

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 19

OUR SINCERE APPRECIATION TO THE FOLLOWING FOUNDATIONS FOR THEIR GENEROUS OPERATING SUPPORT Cincinnati International Wine Festival The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation John C. Griswold Foundation The H. B., E. W., F. R. Luther Charitable Foundation Matinee Musicale Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation The Saenger Family Foundation Ladislas and Vilma Segoe Family Foundation Louise Taft Semple Foundation Nellie Leaman Taft Foundation The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation

Photo: Michal Novak

JUANJO MENA Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena began his conducting career in his native Spain as Artistic Director of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in 1999. His uncommon talent was soon recognized internationally with appointments as Principal Guest Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic and Chief Guest Conductor of the Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. In 2011 he was named Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. During his tenure as Principal Conductor of the Cincinnati May Festival, he has been expanding the scope of the legendary institution with new commissions and community engagement. A sought-after guest conductor, Juanjo Mena has led Europe’s top ensembles, including regular appearances with all the major orchestras in his native Spain. Following his North American debut in 2004, he has conducted most of the continent’s leading orchestras. In Asia, he is a regular guest conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. In the 2021–22 season, Juanjo Mena returns to conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony, National Sym-

phony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., Montreal Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic and the Bergen Philharmonic, and he debuts with the Atlanta Symphony, Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne and the Japan Philharmonic. In the 2020–21 season, heavily affected by the pandemic, he returned to conduct the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and the NHK Symphony, among others. In June 2022 at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Mena will lead performances of Arthur Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake paired with Debussy’s La damoiselle élue. Juanjo Mena’s latest recordings with the BBC Philharmonic (Chandos) include the most recent, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6, as well as an acclaimed Gabriel Pierné release selected as a Gramophone Editor’s Choice, Weber symphonies, Ginastera’s orchestral works, and new reference recordings of largely overlooked Spanish repertoire. In 2012, Juanjo Mena recorded Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with the Bergen Philharmonic (Hyperion). Juanjo Mena studied conducting with Sergiu Celibidache following his musical education at the Madrid Royal Conservatory, where he was mentored by Carmelo Bernaola and Enrique García Asensio. In 2016, he was awarded the Spanish National Music Award. He lives with his family in his native Basque Country.

expresses special thanks to

THE CORBETT M AY F E S T I VA L F U N D for generous support of the May Festival Chorus

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 21

MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS & CHORUS LEADERSHIP MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS ROBERT PORCO, Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson, Associate Director of Choruses Heather MacPhail, Accompanist Matthew Swope, Conducting Fellow Kathryn Zajac Albertson, Chorus Manager Bryce Newcomer, Chorus Librarian

The May Festival Chorus has earned acclaim locally, nationally and internationally for its musicality, vast range of repertoire and sheer power of sound. The Chorus of 125 professionally trained singers is the core artistic element of the Cincinnati May Festival as well as the official chorus of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops. Throughout a typical season the chorus members collectively devote more than 40,000 hours in rehearsals and performances. Founded in 1873, the annual May Festival is the oldest, and one of the most prestigious, choral festivals in the Western Hemisphere. The annual Festival, now under the artistic leadership of Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena, boasts the May Festival Chorus—with choral preparation by Robert Porco—and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as anchors, hosts an international array of guest

artists and presents two spectacular weekends of dynamic programming. James Conlon, who in 2016 brought to a close an unprecedented 37-year tenure as May Festival Music Director, was named Music Director Laureate upon his retirement. Many important choral works have received their World and American premieres at the May Festival, including Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magniﬁcat, Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana, Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi and Robert Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses.

THE MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair Soprano Natalie Badinghaus, 1 Tracy Bailey, 21 Karen Bastress, 23 A. Maris Bernard, 18 Laurel Boisclair Ellsworth, 17 Dawn Bruestle, 17 Renee Cifuentes, 5 Ally Clifton, 1 Kathy Dietrich, 8 Jennifer Dobson, 5 Rachel Dummermuth, 3 Sarah Evans, 7 Anita Marie Greer, 33 Melissa Haas, 4 Gaynelle Hardwick, 6 Dana Harms, 14 Mary Wynn Haupt, 20 Lauren Steiger Hess, 26 Carolyn Hill, 11 Sara Hook, 1 Hyejung Jun, 4 Alexandra Kesman, 7 Lisa Koressel, 22 Judith C. LaChance, 44 Hilary Landwehr, 33 Julia Lawrence, 2 Julia Marchese, 1 Audrey Markovich, 1 Alison Peeno, 3 Zohar Perla, 3 Lauren Peter, 18

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Kristi C. Reed, 11 Beth Roberts, 16 Justine Samuel, 4 Julia H. Schieve, 27 Yvon F. Shore, 10 Sam Walker, 1 Patricia Wilkens, 1 Rosie Wilkinson, 1 Samantha Zeiger, 1 Alto Alaina Diane Arwood, 3 Robin Bierschenk, 11 Erika Emody, 15 Kathy Falcon, 18 Sarah Fall, 1 Amanda Gast, 1 Jean Graves, 12 Sally Vickery Harper, 51 Beth Huntley, 3 Spence B. Ingerson, 32 Karolyn L. Johnsen, 50 Jenifer Klostermeier, 3 Sue Kozlowski, 1 Julie Laskey, 18 Megan Lawson, 7 Tiffany Lin, 1 Katherine Loomis, 2 Elaine P. Lustig, 12 Kathy Mank, 17 Teri McKibben, 14 Ashlinn Meechan, 1 Jennifer Moak, 8

Amy M. Perry, 10 Amanda Schwarz Rosenzweig, 1 Karen Scott-Vosseberg, 5 Sarah Stoutamire, 5 Megan Weaver, 9 Tenor Lawrence Adams, 1 Avery Bargasse, 4 David Bower, 1 Douglas Easterling, 7 David Gillespie, 1 Robert Henderson, 3 Tyler Johnson, 4 Fansheng Kong, 1 Kevin Leahy, 4 Robert Lomax, 4 Andrew Miller, 1 Jason Ramler, 20 Larry Reiring, 13 Adam Shoaff, 9 Jeffrey Stivers, 12 Matthew Swanson, 10 Matthew Swope, 1 Stephen West, 1 Barry Zaslow, 38 Bass Mark Barnes, 5 Jim Baxter, 31 Nathan Bettenhausen, 1 Andrew L. Bowers, 6

Scott Brody, 7 Douglas J. Bruestle, 13 Darren Bryant, 1 Christopher Canarie, 28 Lawrence Coleman, 20 Steven L. Dauterman, 40 Steve France, 17 Mark Hockenberry, 1 Takuya Konishi, 1 Jim Laskey, 12 DeRon McDaniel, 1 John McKibben, 4 Daniel Parsley, 5 Justin Peter, 18 James V. Racster, 40 Mitch Radakovich, 1 Brian Reilly, 1 Joseph Taff, 3 Joshua Wallace, 15 Mark Weaver, 16 Paul Wessendarp, 2 Tommy Wessendarp, 1 Numbers behind chorus members’ names signify their years of service. Those celebrating anniversaries of ﬁve-year increments are honored with lapel pins they proudly wear with their May Festival uniforms.

MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS & CHORUS LEADERSHIP

ROBERT PORCO, Director of Choruses

Robert Porco has been recognized as one of the leading choral musicians in the U.S., and throughout his career he has been an active preparer and conductor of choral and orchestral works, including most of the major choral repertoire, as well as of opera. A highlight of his career was leading an Indiana University student choral and orchestral ensemble of 250 in a highly acclaimed performance of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS as part of the Tanglewood Music Festival’s celebration of the composer’s 70th birthday. In 2011 Porco received Chorus America’s “Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art.” In 2016 he led the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah for Chorus America’s National Conference. Porco’s conducting career has spanned geographic venues and has included performances in the Edinburgh Festival; Taipei, Taiwan; Lucerne, Switzerland; Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel; and

Photo: Roger Mastroianni

Reykjavik, Iceland; and at the May Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Berkshire Music Festival, Blossom Festival and Grant Park Festival. He has been a guest conductor at the May Festival and with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra, among others. The 2021–22 season is Robert Porco’s 33rd as Director of Choruses. MATTHEW SWANSON, Associate Director of Choruses

Matthew Swanson is the Associate Director of Choruses and the Director of the May Festival Youth Chorus. He annually prepares the May Festival Chorus and Youth Chorus for performances with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, and for their featured appearances at the May Festival. Under his leadership, the May Festival has instituted an annual Youth Chorus commissioning project; the May Festival Community Chorus; the presentation of community choral concerts at MuMatthew Swanson, © AJ Waltz

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MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 23

The Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund provides new levels of collaboration between Cincinnati’s 4 major performing arts groups The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Ballet, the Cincinnati Opera and the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus. These grants reflect Louise Dieterle Nippert’s love and support of the performing arts in Greater Cincinnati.

Learn more at www.green-acres.org

MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS & CHORUS LEADERSHIP

sic Hall during the May Festival; a robust program of professional voice instruction, free to Chorus and Youth Chorus members; the Festival’s community choral podcast “Sing the Queen City”; and free in-school choral clinics for area high schools. Additional affiliations have included the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center (New York), Schola Antiqua (Chicago), and the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain. He was previously an instructor in the Early Music Lab and the Division of Music Education at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), as well as the chorus master of CCM Opera. He currently leads the choral program at Xavier University. A native of southeast Iowa, Swanson earned an undergraduate degree in trumpet performance and American Studies at the University of Notre Dame; master’s degrees in choral conducting and choral studies from CCM and King’s College, Cambridge, respectively; and a doctorate of musical arts in conducting from CCM. He was awarded the May Festival Choral Conducting Fellowship in 2015. HEATHER MacPHAIL, accompanist

Heather MacPhail has been the accompanist for the May Festival Chorus since 1990. In addition, she currently serves as Music Assistant to Robert Porco, Director of Choruses. She is a frequent keyboardist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, performing on all keyboard instruments and has been organ soloist for the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony in several performances. MacPhail has been Staff Accompanist at Miami University since 1997. There, she supervises and coaches students in accompanying, teaches organ, and performs with faculty and guest artists. MacPhail has performed as piano soloist with the Oxford String Quartet, Miami University Orchestra and Central Ohio Symphony Orchestra. She performs regularly on local concert series, such

as Christ Church Glendale Music at Noon, Holy Trinity Episcopal Noon Series and Westwood First Concert Series. Heather MacPhail is Organist/Director of Music Ministries at Westwood First Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. She maintains a private teaching studio for piano and organ, with students active in competitions and recitals. She holds a Master of Music degree in Accompanying and a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. MATTHEW SWOPE May Festival Conducting Fellow

Matthew Swope is a doctoral student in choral conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Swope received his M.M. in Voice Performance and Pedagogy and B.A. degrees in Music and in Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies from The Pennsylvania State University. In 2021, he was awarded second place in the high school chorus division of the American Prize Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting. Ensembles under Swope’s direction have performed for regional and state American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) conferences, the Florida Music Education Association (FMEA), National A Cappella Convention, and the International Championship of High School A Cappella Finals. He has presented sessions for ACDA, FMEA, and the National Association for Music Education (NAfME). He currently serves on the music staff at Knox Presbyterian Church and on the Board of Directors for the A Cappella Education Association. The May Festival is grateful to Ginger Warner for her generous support of the Conducting Fellowship.

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 25

SATURDAY 6:30PM CET SUNDAY 8:30PM CET ARTS Join Barbara Kellar as she showcases artists and cultural leaders from the Greater Cincinnati community.

Em mmy Award Win nner www.CETconnect.org

26 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

Regional - In Re nterrview ew/D /Discu cussio i n Program m

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS MATTHEW SWANSON, Director David Kirkendall, Accompanist and Assistant Director Dr. Eva Floyd, Musicianship Instructor Kathryn Zajac Albertson, Chorus Manager Bryce Newcomer, Chorus Librarian

The May Festival Youth Chorus connects, inspires and educates young people through the study and performance of choral music. Since its founding in 1987, the Youth Chorus has appeared annually at the May Festival to perform choral-orchestral works with the May Festival Chorus, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and internationally renowned conductors and soloists. In addition, the Youth Chorus presents its own concert series and collaborates with cultural institutions and organizations throughout greater Cincinnati. Highlights of the Youth Chorus experience include a broad range of repertoire; annual commissions and world premieres; free professional voice instruction; access to free and discounted tickets to the May Festival, CSO and Pops concerts; frequent concert appearances with the CSO and Pops at Music Hall and Riverbend Music Center; and a community of enthusiastic and skilled peer musicians from across the tri-state. Notably, the Youth Chorus is tuition-free; acceptance is based solely on ability. THE MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS Ava Altenau Calia Burdette Angelina Bush Maya Chavez Ella Clark Julia Devadason Gabrielle Dodd Lucas Dodd Oscar Dreith Rachael Dronsfield Gwyneth Gaunt Abigail Guinigundo Isabella Harris Ellie Haynes Natalie Hoover Katie Kear Julia Lankisch

Claire Long Cecelia McDaniel Daniel McDowell Julia McManus Lydia Naberhaus Kennedy Ranford Jen Siler Anya Sperber Trent Stricker Sarah Turner Rhea Umrani Ellison Van Scoy Anna Varisco Ansley Varisco Olivia Wetzel Andrea Wolins

DAVID KIRKENDALL, Accompanist and Assistant Director

David Kirkendall has served as assistant director and accompanist for the May Festival Youth Chorus since 2006. He was choral director at Princeton High School in Cincinnati from 1980 to 2013, and for three years he served as choral director at Mount Saint Joseph University. After earning his undergraduate degree, Kirkendall continued at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), receiving a master’s degree in Choral Conducting. He received a fellowship to attend the Choral Conducting Institute at the Aspen Music Festival, and has also completed studies for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting at the University of Illinois. His keyboard reductions and continuo realizations appear in the Roger Dean edition of the Vivaldi Gloria, and he has had an SSA arrangement published with Alfred Music Publishing. EVA FLOYD, Musicianship Instructor

Eva Floyd is an associate professor of choral music education at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where she teaches Choral Methods, Literature for School Choir, History and Philosophy of Music Education, and Kodály Musicianship classes for music education graduate students. Floyd is also the founder and conductor of the CCM Community Women’s Choir. The Organization of American Kodály Educators published a DVD documentary of Soul-fege: A Journey from Soulful Genres to the Classics, which chronicles Eva Floyd’s collaboration with the Voices of Unity Gospel Youth Choir to prepare for an honor choir festival in Budapest using Kodályinspired teaching techniques.

Schools Represented by MFYC Members Highlands Middle School The School for Creative and Performing Arts Princeton High School Clark Montessori Walnut Hills High School The Summit Country Day School Saint Antoninus School Scott High School Finneytown High School Dixie Heights High School Covington Latin School

Williamstown Senior High School Archbishop McNicholas Lakota East Notre Dame Academy Mason High School Homeschool Bally Shannon Middle School St. Ursula Academy Mariemont High School Xavier University

The May Festival Youth Chorus is ﬁnancially assisted by the ongoing support of ArtsWave and the Ohio Arts Council.

The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 27

Photo: Vern Evans

GUEST UEST ES S S SOLOISTS OLO TS AND CONDUCTORS MAY 20 EL NIÑO

LAUREN SNOUFFER, soprano

JOHN ADAMS, conductor

(May Festival debut) Recognized for her unique artistic curiosity in world-class performances spanning the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Johann Adolph Hasse to Missy Mazzoli and George Benjamin, American soprano Lauren Snouffer is celebrated as one of the most versatile and respected sopranos on the international stage. During the 2021–22 season, Lauren Snouffer makes her debut at the Opéra national du Rhin in the lead role of The Snow Queen by Hans Abrahamsen, under the baton of Robert Houssart. She returns to Houston Grand Opera for a production by Francesca Zambello of Dialogues des Carmélites conducted by Patrick Summers, and sings two new productions with Opernhaus Zürich: the title role in the world premiere of Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and Argene in Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade under Ottavio Dantone. The soprano joins Dallas Opera for Opera Galas and concertizes with Patrick Dupré Quigley and Seraphic Fire in tour performances of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. She returns to Mercury Chamber Orchestra for a program of Vivaldi and Handel and appears with Ars Lyrica Houston in fully staged performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. A Grammy-nominated artist, Lauren Snouffer’s discography includes Hasse’s Siroe and Handel’s Ottone with George Petrou for Decca, Gottschalk’s Requiem for the Living with Vladimir Lande on Novona Records, Grantham’s La cancíon desesperada conducted by Craig Hella Johnson on Harmonia Mundi, and Feldman’s The Rothko Chapel with Steven Schick for ECM. An alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Lauren Snouffer was graduated from Rice University and The Juilliard School.

(May Festival debut) Composer, conductor and creative thinker, John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of music. His works stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes; his stage compositions, many in collaboration with director Peter Sellars, have transformed the genre of contemporary music theatre. Spanning more than three decades, works such as Harmonielehre, Shaker Loops, El Niño and Nixon in China are among the most performed of all contemporary classical music. As a conductor Adams has led the world’s major orchestras, programming his own works with a wide variety of repertoire ranging from Beethoven, Mozart and Debussy to Sibelius, Ives, Carter and Ellington. A provocative writer, he is the author of the highly acclaimed autobiography Hallelujah Junction and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review. Since 2009 Adams has been Creative Chair of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Born and raised in New England, Adams learned the clarinet from his father and played in marching bands and community orchestras during his formative years. He began composing at age 10 and his ﬁrst orchestral pieces were performed while he was still a teenager. In 2017 Adams celebrated his 70th birthday with festivals of his music in Europe and the U.S., including special retrospectives at London’s Barbican, Cité de la Musique in Paris, and in Amsterdam, New York and Geneva, among other cities. Adams is currently at work on his ﬁfth opera. Conducting engagements in 2021–22 include return visits to The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Seattle and St. Louis symphony orchestras. In Europe, Adams will appear with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra—reuniting with Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson for performances of Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?—as well as the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival in 2021, its 75th anniversary year, he also takes part in the 2022 Colorado Music Festival. earbox.com

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JOSEFINA MALDONADO, mezzo-soprano

(May Festival debut) Emerging Dallas-born artist Joseﬁna Maldonado has been critically acclaimed by The Texas Classical Review and Theater Jones as “vocally superb” with a “remarkably rich timbre.” She is a young artist with The Dallas Opera Outreach Program, where she appeared as Véronique in Dr. Miracle and Dorabella in The Bremen Town Musicians. In her recent European debut, Maldonado was a principal

GUEST SOLOISTS AND CONDUCTORS

Photo: Cyrill Matter

ELLIOT MADORE, baritone

Canadian Grammy Awardwinning baritone Elliot Madore has established himself as one of the most sought after, accomplished singers of his generation. At just 34, Madore’s career spans the past decade, singing in major opera companies and orchestras throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada. The 2021–22 season sees Madore’s Teatro dell’Opera di Roma debut in the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’s new opera Julius Caesar, directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by Daniele Gatti. Madore will also make his role debut as Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus with the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Japan. Orchestral work includes Handel’s Messiah with the U.S. Naval Academy Orchestra and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Santa Cruz Symphony, conducted by music director Daniel Stewart. Madore will also join the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music faculty this season, in a newly created position as a performing Associate Professor of Voice. In addition to winning The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Madore was the recipient of the 2010 George London Award for a Canadian Singer from the George London Foundation, a ﬁnalist in the 2010 Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers in Houston and the recipient of the ARIAS Emerging Young Artist Award from Opera Canada. He was also the winner of the 2009 Palm Beach Vocal Competition. Elliot Madore is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Marlena Malas.

DANIEL BUBECK, countertenor

(May Festival debut)

Photo: Kelly Kruse

artist in two modern world premieres of serenatas by Johannes Schmelzer, performing Schmelzer’s Le veglie ossequiose and Die sieben Alter stimmen zusammen for the Olomouc Baroque Festival held in the Czech Republic. Maldonado holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of North Texas, where she was a frequently featured soloist alongside the UNT Symphony Orchestra. Her major roles with UNT Opera included Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Ruggiero in Alcina, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Siébel in Faust and Mother Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites.

Daniel Bubeck has earned an international reputation on both opera and concert stages in repertoire ranging from Bach and Handel to John Adams. He has performed in major halls throughout the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, English National Opera, Barbican Centre, Konzerthaus-Berlin, Théâtre Musical de Paris-Châtelet, English National Opera, Avery Fischer Hall, Walt Disney Hall, and festivals in Lucerne, Adelaide and Beijing. He has sung with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Moscow National Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Orchestra, Estonian National Philharmonic, Concerto Köln, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Bach Soloists, Carmel Bach Festival and Haymarket Baroque, under such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski, Kent Nagano, David Robertson, Robert Spano, Christopher Hogwood and Nicholas McGegan. Career highlights include the premieres, recordings and more than 40 performances of John Adams’ El Niño and The Gospel According to the Other Mary; the American premiere of Lost Objects by David Lang, Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon; Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hawaii Opera Theater); Vivaldi cantatas recorded for Sony Classical; Frammenti di un’opera barocca perduta by Robert Moran; the premiere of Inﬁnite Movement, a multi-media oratorio by Shara Nova and Matthew Ritchie; and the soundtrack of the Warner Brothers thriller, I am Legend. Daniel Bubeck is on the vocal faculty of the University of North Texas, Denton. BRIAN CUMMINGS, countertenor

(May Festival debut) Brian Cummings made his professional debut in the premiere of John Adams’ El Niño in Paris and sang the premiere of John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary in 2012 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel. He has appeared in subsequent performances of these pieces throughout the world, including Carnegie Hall, English National Opera, the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Estonian National MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 29

GUEST SOLOISTS AND CONDUCTORS

Photo: Bernard Gordillo

NATHAN MEDLEY, countertenor

(May Festival debut) Nathan Medley has emerged as one of the leading newgeneration countertenors, with notable success internationally. He has sung at English National Opera, Barbican Centre, Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Kölner Philharmonie, La Salle Pleyel, Palais de Musique Strasbourg, the Concertgebouw, the Lucerne Festival, Avery Fisher Hall, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Recent performances have brought him to the Boston Early Music Festival, Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony, the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, Opera Omaha, Paciﬁc MusicWorks, Mercury Baroque, Seraphic Fire, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Collegium Cincinnati, Miami Bach Society, Dayton Bach Society and Dallas Bach Society. He made his professional debut in 2012 in John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and recorded

30 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

again by the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. He returned to Los Angeles for Peter Sellars’ staging of this work, which toured to Switzerland and Lincoln Center, and again in 2015 for the U.S. premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Hommage á Klaus Nomi, conducted by John Adams. He made his English National Opera debut in Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, staged by Peter Sellars. In 2016 he premiered a song cycle, The Cross of Snow by John Harbison, for countertenor and gamba consort with Chicago’s Second City Musick. He is a founding member the ensemble Echoing Air. Forthcoming engagements include John Adams’ El Niño with the Houston Symphony, and The Gospel According to the Other Mary with the BBC Proms. MAY 22 CANDIDE

KATHARINA WINCOR, conductor

Photo: Dallas Symphony

Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Orchestra (in Amsterdam, Strasbourg and Cologne), Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, the Adelaide Festival, the Tokyo Symphony and the Spoleto Festival USA. He has worked under such conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, David Robertson, John Adams, Tõnu Kaljuste and Kent Nagano. He sang the title role of Handel’s Giulio Cesare with Opera Fuoco under David Stern and has collaborated with director Timothy Nelson in the roles of David in Charpentier’s David et Jonathas, Hamor in Handel’s Jephtha, and Iarbo/ Corebo in Cavalli’s Didone. He has appeared as a soloist at the Washington and Bloomington Early Music Festivals. He has sung with Paul Hillier in Theatre of Voices and the Pro Arte Singers and can be heard on their recordings for Harmonia Mundi, as well as the recording and DVD of El Niño and two recordings of The Gospel According to the Other Mary. He sings regularly with ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants, Opera Fuoco, Ensemble Entheos and Les Muses Galantes. Cummings studied Early Music Vocal Performance at Indiana University with Paul Elliott, Paul Hillier and Nigel North. Forthcoming engagements include John Adams’ El Niño with the Houston Symphony, and The Gospel According to the Other Mary with the BBC Proms.

(May Festival debut) Austrian conductor Katharina Wincor is a rising, charismatic talent who made her critically acclaimed Dallas Symphony Orchestra subscription debut in 2021, performing works by Mendelssohn, Schubert and Anna Clyne. Recent and upcoming appearances include the Grafenegg and Gstaad festivals, as well as debuts with Bruckner Orchester Linz, Phoenix Symphony and the Amarillo Symphony. At the invitation of Laurence Equilbey, Wincor will serve as the chorus master for two performances of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the orchestra of the Opéra de Rouen Normandie. Wincor received third prize at the 2020 Mahler Competition. Her participation in masterclasses and competitions has allowed her to work with world renowned orchestras such as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphony, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She was one of just four conductors invited by Iván Fischer for a masterclass with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and subsequently was engaged as his assistant conductor for special projects with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Other mentors include Fabio Luisi, Riccardo Muti and David Zinman. At the 2017 Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Wincor received the prestigious Neeme Järvi Prize. CANDIDE CAST

Cast members for Candide are listed on p. 38. Their photos and bios will be published in a supplement that will be available at the auditorium entrances on May 22.

GUEST SOLOISTS AND CONDUCTORS

SANTIAGO BALLERINI, tenor

(May Festival debut) Santiago Ballerini is recognized in the Americas as one of the leading tenors of the Bel Canto repertoire and is a celebrated performer in opera houses around the world. In 2022 Ballerini sings the role of Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto at the San Antonio Opera and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance with Atlanta Opera. In 2021 Ballerini sang Tonio in La ﬁlle du régiment with the Norwegian Opera Company. He was a featured soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Porto Symphony Orchestra in Portugal. In January of 2020, Ballerini debuted with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto singing Il barbiere di Siviglia. In late 2019, he was the tenor soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda singing Carmina Burana at The Kennedy Center. In November 2017, Ballerini made his European debut with the Bordeaux National Opera singing the role of Gualtiero from Bellini’s Il Pirata, the same role he sang at the Caramoor Festival for his United States debut in 2015. Other notable recent roles in Europe include his Italian debut at the Teatro Regio di Torino as Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, which he also sang at Opera Toulon and at Teatro Solís in Uruguay. Before starting his career as a singer, Ballerini spent nine years as a pianist and also graduated from university as a music therapist. GUSTAVO CASTILLO, baritone

Photo: Luciano Romano

(May Festival debut) Born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Gustavo Castillo started his studies at “El Sistema,” a revolutionary music education program in his home country, under the guidance of the tenor Ídwer Álvarez. After his debut at the age of 25 with the role of Schaunard in La bohème, he has appeared as Sharpless in Madama Butterﬂy, Sacristan in Tosca and Belcore in L’elisir d’amore. Other roles include Valentin in Diana Danielle’s Ópera Fausto, and Dandini in La Cenerentola for Children, an adaptation by Alexander Krampe of Rossini’s work.

His extensive international concert work includes the Requiems of Mozart, Faist, Duruﬂé and Fauré; Mozart’s Coronation Mass; Bach’s Magniﬁcat; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9; Orff’s Carmina Burana; and Antonio Estévez’s Cantata Criolla, among others. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he has recently appeared as Peter in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel and Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia for children. MAY 28 MONTGOMERY + BEETHOVEN 9

NICOLE CABELL, soprano

Nicole Cabell, the 2005 Winner of the BBC Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff and a Decca recording artist, is one of the most sought-after lyric sopranos of today. Her solo debut album, Soprano, was named and Editor’s Choice by Gramophone and has received critical acclaim and several prestigious awards, including the 2007 Georg Solti Orphée d’Or from the French Académie du Disque Lyrique. Nicole Cabell’s current season includes a return to San Francisco Opera in her role debut as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte; performances in London and on tour in the U.S. with the London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle performing George Walker’s Lilacs; a solo recital with Cincinnati’s Matinee Musicale; and concerts of Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Tucson Symphony; Handel’s Messiah with The Philadelphia Orchestra and with the Apollo Chorus of Chicago on the occasion of their 150th anniversary; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Rochester Philharmonic; and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Buffalo Philharmonic. Awards include first place in both the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition and the Women’s Board of Chicago Vocal Competition. Nicole Cabell was a semi-finalist in the 2005 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and earned first place in the American Opera Society competition in Chicago. She is the 2002 winner of the Union League’s Rose M. Grundman Scholarship, and the 2002 Farwell Award with the Woman’s Board of Chicago. Nicole Cabell holds a bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from the Eastman School of Music.

Photo: Devon Cass

MAY 27 SOUTH AMERICAN EPICS

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 31

GUEST SOLOISTS AND CONDUCTORS

TAMARA MUMFORD, mezzo-soprano

JI-MIN PARK, tenor

(May Festival debut) In addition to making his Cincinnati May Festival debut, Korean tenor Ji-Min Park returns to Cincinnati Opera in June as Rodolfo in La bohème. Previous role highlights include Rodolfo in La bohème, Alfredo in La traviata, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore,

32 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Romeo in Roméo et Juliette, and Ernesto in Don Pasquale in major houses throughout the world. His concert appearances have included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the Covent Garden Orchestra, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ with the Brabant Orchestra, Beppe in Pagliacci for the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rossini’s Otello with the Aalbourg Opera Festival, and gala performances with Opera North, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and Scottish Opera. Ji-Min Park was a Jette Parker Young Artist (2007–09) and a Jette Parker Principal (2009–10) for The Royal Opera Covent Garden. He trained at Seoul National University and the Vienna Conservatory. He represented Korea in the 2009 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and won international competitions including Belvedere, Viotti, Toulouse, Bidu Sayão, Klaudia Taev and Stella Maris. REGINALD SMITH, JR., baritone

Photo: Jiyang Chen

(May Festival debut) A graduate of The Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford made her debut there as Laura in Luisa Miller and has since appeared in more than 140 performances with the company. Among her many recent opera engagements are the world premiere of The Thirteenth Child at Santa Fe Opera, her debut as the title role in Tancredi with Teatro Nuovo, the ﬁrst American performances of Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira at the Caramoor Festival, L’Amour de loin at Festival d’opéra de Québec, Iolante with Dallas Opera, title roles in the American premiere of Henze’s Phaedra and in The Rape of Lucretia, and the world premiere of Daniel Schnyder’s Yardbird at Opera Philadelphia. Also an active concert performer and recitalist, Mumford appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in U.S. and European tours of the world premiere of John Adams’ oratorio The Gospel According to the Other Mary and in performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3; engagements with major orchestras throughout the U.S., the Berlin Philharmonic and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic; and several U.S. music festivals. Mumford has appeared in a number of Metropolitan Opera Met: Live in HD series broadcasts, and her recordings include Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II, and John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary. She was one of 16 singers invited to work with Naxos Records and Yale University in a project to record the complete songs of Charles Ives. A native of Sandy, Utah, Mumford holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Utah State University and has received awards from the Opera Index Competition, Palm Beach Opera Competition, Sullivan Foundation, Connecticut Opera Guild Competition, Joyce Dutka Foundation Competition and the MacAllister Awards.

(May Festival debut) The 2021–22 season for baritone Reginald Smith, Jr., this year’s U.S. representative at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, includes debuts with Lyric Opera of Chicago as Uncle Paul in Terrence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, with the San Diego Opera as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte and with Charleston’s Holy City Arts and Lyric Opera as Germont in La traviata. In concert he returns to the Dallas Symphony for holiday concerts, debuts with the Oregon Symphony in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, sings Amonasro in Act 3 of Aida with the Atlanta Symphony, and performs Messiah with the Nashville Symphony. Smith also appears in solo recital at Kennesaw State University. Future engagements include a debut with the Santa Fe Opera and returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago and Houston Grand Opera, all in leading roles. Smith, a native of Atlanta, is a Grand Finals winner of the 2015 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a graduate of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. He received recognition from the Dallas Opera Guild Competition, the Mildred Miller International Vocal Competition, and the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Vocal Competition, and he has won ﬁrst place in the National Opera Association Competition: Scholarship Divi-

GUEST SOLOISTS AND CONDUCTORS

sion, Orpheus Vocal Competition: Young Artist Division, George London Vocal Competition (George London Award) and Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition. He also received a 2015 Sara Tucker Study Grant and a 2016 Career Grant from the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation. JESSIE MONTGOMERY, composer

Photo: Jiyang Chen

(May Festival commissioned composer) Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Coincident

Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and Banner (2014)—written to mark the 200th anniversary of The Star-Spangled Banner—for The Sphinx Organization (with which she has been affiliated since 1999) and the Joyce Foundation, which was presented in its U.K. premiere at the BBC Proms on August 7, 2021. Summer 2021 brought a varied slate of premiere performances, including Five Freedom Songs, a song cycle conceived with and written for soprano Julia Bullock, for Sun Valley and Grand Teton music festivals, San Francisco and Kansas City symphonies, Boston and New Haven symphony orchestras, and the Virginia Arts Festival; I was waiting for the echo of a better day, a site-speciﬁc collaboration with Bard SummerScape Festival and Pam Tanowitz Dance; and Passacaglia, a ﬂute quartet for The National Flute Association’s 49th annual convention. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Montgomery holds degrees from The Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a PhD candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University. She is professor of violin and composition at The New School. In May 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 33

CINCINNATI C NCIN CIN NNATI SY SYMPHONY PHO Y ORCHESTRA, PH O CH Music Director Louis Langrée With a legacy dating back 127 years, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is considered one of America’s ﬁnest and most versatile ensembles. Led by Louis Langrée since 2013, the CSO’s distinguished roster of past music directors includes Leopold Stokowski, Eugène Ysaÿe, Fritz Reiner, Max Rudolf, Jesús López Cobos and Paavo Järvi. Matthias Pintscher is the Orchestra’s Creative Partner, and previous artistic partners have included Lang Lang, Philip Glass, Branford Marsalis and Jennifer Higdon. The Orchestra also performs as the Cincinnati Pops, founded by Erich Kunzel in 1977 and currently led by John Morris Russell with Damon Gupton serving as Principal Guest Conductor. The CSO further elevates the city’s vibrant arts scene by serving as the official orchestra for the Cincinnati May Festival, Cincinnati Opera and Cincinnati Ballet. The CSO has long championed the composers and music of its time and has given historic American premieres by Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel, Béla Bartók, William Grant Still and other prominent composers. It has also commissioned many works that ultimately became mainstays of the classical repertoire, including Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. The Orchestra continues to actively commission new work, amplifying new

voices from a diverse array of backgrounds, most recently with the Fanfare Project, a series of solo instrument works written for CSO musicians to mark a moment in time during the Covid pandemic. Deeply committed to inclusion, relevance, and enhancing and expanding opportunities for the children of Greater Cincinnati, the Orchestra works to bring music education, in its many different forms, to as broad a public as possible. In 2020, the CSO was one of the ﬁrst American orchestras to create a Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer position to ensure the absorption of best DE&I practices into every facet of the organization. The CSO/ CCM Diversity Fellowship, a nationally recognized program in partnership with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, provides a graduate degree-level education with performance and professional development opportunities for extraordinary young string players from populations historically underrepresented in American orchestras. The CSO is also an incubator for and partner to NIMAN, a consortium of American orchestras, professional musicians and educators established to address the lack of racial equity in the classical music ﬁeld by aligning resources and collaborating to strengthen the trajectory of classical instrumentalists of color at all stages of their pre-careers.

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Announcing the 2022—23 Season Soon. Visit LintonMusic.org 34 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

LOUIS LANGRÉE, CSO Music Director Louise Dieterle Nippert & Louis Nippert Chair

JOHN MORRIS RUSSELL, Pops Conductor Louise Dieterle Nippert & Louis Nippert Chair

Matthias Pintscher, CSO Creative Partner Damon Gupton, Pops Principal Guest Conductor François López-Ferrer, CSO Associate Conductor Ashley and Barbara Ford Chair

Wilbur Lin, Pops Assistant Conductor Ashley and Barbara Ford Chair

FIRST VIOLINS Stefani Matsuo

CELLOS Ilya Finkelshteyn

CLARINETS Christopher Pell

TIMPANI Patrick Schleker

Concertmaster Anna Sinton Taft Chair

Principal Irene & John J. Emery Chair

Daniel Culnan*

Principal Emma Margaret & Irving D. Goldman Chair

Principal Matthew & Peg Woodside Chair

Charles Morey

Joseph Morris*

Acting Associate Principal

Associate Principal and E-ﬂat Clarinet Robert E. & Fay Boeh Chair++

[OPEN]

Acting Associate Concertmaster Tom & Dee Stegman Chair

Philip Marten First Assistant Concertmaster James M. Ewell Chair++

Eric Bates

Ona Hixson Dater Chair

Norman Johns** Karl & Roberta Schlachter Family Chair

Matthew Lad§ Marvin Kolodzik Chair

Second Assistant Concertmaster Serge Shababian Chair

Susan Marshall-Petersen

Kathryn Woolley

Hiro Matsuo Theodore Nelson

Nicholas Tsimaras– Peter G. Courlas Chair++

Anna Reider Dianne & J. David Rosenberg Chair

Mauricio Aguiar§ Minyoung Baik James Braid Marc Bohlke Chair given by Katrin & Manfred Bohlke

Michelle Edgar Dugan Rebecca Kruger Fryxell Gerald Itzkoff Jean Ten Have Chair

Lois Reid Johnson Anne G. & Robert W. Dorsey Chair++

Sylvia Mitchell Jo Ann & Paul Ward Chair

Luo-Jia Wu SECOND VIOLINS Gabriel Pegis Principal Al Levinson Chair

Yang Liu* Harold B. & Betty Justice Chair

Scott Mozlin** Henry Meyer Chair

Kun Dong Cheryl Benedict Evin Blomberg§ Rachel Charbel Ida Ringling North Chair

Elizabeth Furuta† Chika Kinderman Hyesun Park Paul Patterson Charles Gausmann Chair++

Stacey Woolley Brenda & Ralph Taylor Chair++

VIOLAS Christian Colberg Principal Louise D. & Louis Nippert Chair

Paul Frankenfeld* Grace M. Allen Chair

Julian Wilkison** Rebecca Barnes§ Christopher Fischer Stephen Fryxell Melinda & Irwin Simon Chair

Caterina Longhi Denisse Rodriguez-Rivera Joanne Wojtowicz

Laura Kimble McLellan Chair++

Peter G. Courlas– Nicholas Tsimaras Chair++

Alan Rafferty Ruth F. Rosevear Chair

BASSES Owen Lee Principal Mary Alice Heekin Burke Chair++

James Lambert* Thomas Vanden Eynden Chair

Matthew Zory, Jr.**+ Trish & Rick Bryan Chair

Boris Astaﬁev§ Ronald Bozicevich Donald & Margaret Robinson Chair

Rick Vizachero HARP Gillian Benet Sella Principal Cynthia & Frank Stewart Chair

Vicky & Rick Reynolds Chair in Honor of William A. Friedlander

BASS CLARINET Ronald Aufmann BASSOONS Christopher Sales

CONTRABASSOON Jennifer Monroe

Julie Spangler+

FRENCH HORNS Elizabeth Freimuth

CSO/CCM DIVERSITY FELLOWS~ Maalik Glover, violin Mwakudua waNgure, violin Tyler McKisson, viola Javier Otalora, viola Max Oppeltz-Carroz, cello Luis Parra, cello Samantha Powell, cello Luis Arturo Celis Avila, bass Amy Nickler, bass

James P. Thornton Chair

Principal Mary M. & Charles F. Yeiser Chair

[OPEN]* Ellen A. & Richard C. Berghamer Chair

Molly Norcross** Acting Associate Principal Sweeney Family Chair in memory of Donald C. Sweeney

Lisa Conway Susanne & Philip O. Geier, Jr. Chair

TRUMPETS Robert Sullivan

Mary & Joseph S. Stern, Jr. Chair

Principal Rawson Chair

Douglas Lindsay* Jackie & Roy Sweeney Family Chair

Steven Pride

Lon Bussell* Stephen P. McKean Chair

Emily Beare ENGLISH HORN Christopher Philpotts Principal Alberta & Dr. Maurice Marsh Chair++

Morleen & Jack Rouse Chair

KEYBOARDS Michael Chertock

Henrik Heide*† Haley Bangs

Principal Josephine I. & David J. Joseph, Jr. Chair

Michael Culligan* [OPEN]*

Martin Garcia* Hugh Michie

Charles Bell

OBOES Dwight Parry

Principal Susan S. & William A. Friedlander Chair

Marc Wolﬂey+

Principal Charles Frederic Goss Chair

Patricia Gross Linnemann Chair

PERCUSSION David Fishlock

Principal Emalee Schavel Chair++

Duane Dugger

PICCOLO [OPEN]

Morleen & Jack Rouse Chair

Ixi Chen

FLUTES Randolph Bowman

Jane & David Ellis Chair

Michael Culligan

Otto M. Budig Family Foundation Chair++

James P. Thornton Chair

LIBRARIANS Christina Eaton Acting Principal Librarian Lois Klein Jolson Chair

Elizabeth Dunning Acting Associate Principal Librarian

Adam Paxson Interim Assistant Librarian

STAGE MANAGERS Brian P. Schott Phillip T. Sheridan Daniel Schultz Andrew Sheridan

Christopher Kiradjieff TROMBONES Cristian Ganicenco Principal Dorothy & John Hermanies Chair

Joseph Rodriguez** Second/Assistant Principal

BASS TROMBONE Peter Norton

§ Begins the alphabetical listing of players who participate in a system of rotated seating within the string section. * Associate Principal ** Assistant Principal † One-year appointment ‡ Leave of absence + Cincinnati Pops rhythm section ++ CSO endowment only ~ Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

TUBA Christopher Olka Principal Ashley & Barbara Ford Chair

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 35

JOHN ADAMS CONDUCTS EL NIÑO FRI MAY 20, 7:30 pm | Music Hall

JOHN ADAMS, conductor LAUREN SNOUFFER, soprano JOSEFINA MALDONADO, mezzo-soprano ELLIOT MADORE, baritone DANIEL BUBECK, countertenor BRIAN CUMMINGS, countertenor NATHAN MEDLEY, countertenor MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS Robert Porco, director The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS, Matthew Swanson, director CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Louis Langrée, Music Director JOHN ADAMS (b. 1947)

El Niño, A Nativity Oratorio for Chorus and Orchestra PART I I Sing of a Maiden Hail Mary, Gracious! La anunciación For with God No Thing Shall Be Impossible The Babe Leaped in Her Womb Magniﬁcat

Now She Was Sixteen Years Old Joseph’s Dream Shake the Heavens Se habla de Gabriel The Christmas Star

INTERMISSION PART II Pues mi dios ha nacido When Herod Heard Woe Unto Them that Call Evil Good And the Star Went Before Them The Three Kings And When They Were Departed Dawn Air

Tonight’s concert will end at approximately 9:45 pm.

And He Slew All the Children Memorial de Tlatelolco In the Day of the Great Slaughter Pues está tritando Jesus and the Dragons A Palm Tree

By arrangement with Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes company, publisher and copyright owner.

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation. The 2022 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors. The 2022 May Festival is sponsored by Chavez Properties. The appearance of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is generously supported by the Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation. The appearance of Lauren Snouffer is made possible in part by a generous endowment gift from Mary and Joe Stern. The appearance of Josefina Maldonado is made possible in part by a generous endowment gift from Mr. and Mrs. S. Charles Straus. The appearance of Elliot Madore in this evening’s performance is made possible in part by generous endowment gift from Dr. Thomas Lesher. The appearances of Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley in this evening’s performance are made possible in part by generous support from the Cincinnati International Wine Festival. Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival. This concert will be broadcast on 90.9 WGUC on October 2, 2022 at 8 pm. The use of photographic and recording devices at these concerts is prohibited. 36 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

JOHN ADAMS

El Niño Born: February 15, 1947 in Worcester, Massachusetts Work Composed: 1999–2000 as a co-commission from the Châtelet Theater in Paris, San Francisco Symphony, Lincoln Center in New York, Barbican Center in London, and Deutsches Symphonie in Berlin Premiere: December 15, 2000 at the Châtelet Theater in Paris, with soloists Dawn Upshaw, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson and Willard White, Theatre of Voices (countertenors: Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Steven Rickards), London Voices, La Maîtresse de Paris and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, conducted by Kent Nagano Instrumentation: soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, male ensemble (3 countertenors), mixed chorus, children’s choir, 2 ﬂutes (incl. 2 piccolos), 2 oboes (incl. 2 English horns), 2 clarinets (incl. bass clarinet), 2 bassoons (incl. contrabassoon), 3 horns, 3 trombones, almglocken, chimes, claves, cowbell, crotale, glockenspiel, gong, guiro, maracas, tamtam, temple blocks, temple bowl, triangles, harp, celeste, piano, sampler, 2 guitars, strings May Festival Notable Performances: This is the ﬁrst May Festival performance of the work. Duration: approx. 111 minutes

“I love Messiah,” declared John Adams. “I always wanted to write my own Messiah. I loved Handel’s music but not only that, the story itself. I have a somewhat checkered religious background and I wasn’t someone who studied the Bible, but I certainly knew the Nativity and Passion stories. When I was asked to celebrate the millennium, the year 2000 seemed like an appropriate date to write a Messiah-type piece. I went to my long-term friend, director Peter Sellars, and said, ‘Let’s put together a libretto about the roughness and the toughness and the difficulty of life,’ and El Niño came into being.” Though Messiah (especially the Hallelujah Chorus) is inextricably associated with Christmas, its text, drawn, unusually for Handel’s oratorios, entirely from scripture, concerns three fundamental events in the Christian liturgical year—The Advent of the Messiah, The Passion of Christ, and His Resurrection. Adams’ choice to write speciﬁcally a “Nativity Oratorio” arose not from just his love of Handel, but also from the profound experience of the miracle of own his daughter’s birth in 1984. So The QR code at the right or mayfestival.com/ adams-program will lead you to more information about this concert on our website, including artist bios and full program notes.

in addition to its biblical associations, El Niño was also motivated by what Adams termed “the story of birth—not just the birth of Jesus, but the archetypical experience of a woman giving birth.” (“El Niño” in the context of this work refers specifically to the Christ Child, but Adams and Sellars were both keenly aware, even in the year 2000, that the phrase “El Niño” also refers to the phenomenon of Pacific Ocean warming that has had increasingly disruptive effects on climate around the world.) The one movement that stands apart from the Christmas story is Memorial for Tlatelolco, set to a poem by Rosario Castellanos, which Adams and Sellars used to draw a modern parallel to Herod’s massacre. Tlatelolco is a neighborhood of Mexico City that was the site of a protest on October 2, 1968 by thousands of Mexican students against repressive policies of the Mexican government. Though the demonstrators were peaceful and unarmed, they were surrounded by armored vehicles, jeeps and 5,000 soldiers. Shots, probably from the government forces, rang out, chaos ensued, and as many as 400 demonstrators were killed; 1,345 were arrested. Castellanos captured the essence of the tragedy not just in the angry, stupefied lines that comprise most of her poem, but, perhaps most poignantly, in its mundane references: Dawn broke on the plaza cleanly swept;/the newspapers spoke of the weather as their main story./And on the television, on the radio,/and in the cinema there was no change of program,/no interrupting news bulletin nor even/a minute of silence…. I remember. We remember. The text for El Niño will be published in a program supplement that will be available at the entrances to the auditorium on May 20.

2022 YOUTH CHORUS AWARD WINNERS John Hauck Foundation Scholarship The May Festival Youth Chorus is pleased to award the John Hauck Foundation Scholarship to ANNA VARISCO and ABIGAIL GUINIGUNDO. The scholarship annually supports graduating Youth Chorus members who will pursue university studies in music or a related arts ﬁeld. James Bagwell Award The Youth Chorus is pleased to honor CALIA BURDETTE with the James Bagwell Award. Named for Dr. James Bagwell, conductor of the Youth Chorus 1997–2018, the award recognizes exemplary commitment to the Youth Chorus, intellectual curiosity and musical potential.

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 37

SUN MAY 22, 2 pm | Music Hall

CANDIDE

A Comic Operetta in Two Acts (concert version) Music by Leonard Bernstein Lyrics by Richard Wilbur with additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Leonard Bernstein Concert Narration by Leonard Bernstein and John Wells, Adapted from the satire by Voltaire and the book by Hugh Wheeler; edited and supplemented by Erik Haagensen

Orchestrations by Leonard Bernstein and Hershy Kay Musical continuity and additional orchestrations by John Mauceri

Katharina Wincor, conductor May Festival Chorus Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Hugh Dancy, Narrator Aaron Crouch, Candide Meghan Picerno, Cunegonde Leann Sandel-Pantaleo, The Old Lady David Garrison, Dr. Pangloss/Martin Timothy McDevitt, Maximillian/Captain/Stanislaus Simone McIntosh, Paquette Alex Mansoori, Governor/Vanderdendur/Croupier May Festival Chorus, Robert Porco, director The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Louis Langrée, Music Director Stephanie Klapper CSA, casting director Lacey Davies, casting associate Mark Grey, sound design Matthew Swanson, dramaturgy Additional cast members will be listed in a printed program supplement available on May 22.

Today’s concert will end at approximately 4:30 pm.

By arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., Sole Agent for Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, publisher and copyright owner.

This afternoon’s concert is sponsored by Trish and Rick Bryan. The 2022 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors. The 2022 May Festival is sponsored by Chavez Properties. The appearance of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is generously supported by the Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation. The appearance of Katharina Wincor in this afternoon’s performance is made possible in part by Jack and Barbara Hahn and Shelby Wood. Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival. This concert will be broadcast on 90.9 WGUC on October 9, 2022 at 8 pm. The use of photographic and recording devices at these concerts is prohibited. 38 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Candide Born: August 25, 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts Died: October 14, 1990 in New York City Work Composed: 1956 Premiere: Pre-Broadway tryout at Boston’s Colonial Theatre beginning on October 29, 1956 before the show opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York City on December 1, 1956 Instrumentation: narrator, 2 sopranos, mezzosoprano, 3 tenors, 3 baritones, mixed chorus, 2 flutes (incl. piccolo), oboe (incl. English horn), 2 clarinets (incl. E-flat clarinet and Bass clarinet), bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets (incl. cornet), 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, bongo drums, castanets, chimes, cowbell, cymbals, glockenspiel, gong, gourd, hand drum, maracas, ratchet, snare drum, steel drum, suspended cymbals, tambour de Basque, tenor drum, triangle, whip, wood block, xylophone, harp, strings May Festival Notable Performances: This is the first May Festival performance of the work. Duration: approx. 110 minutes

François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694–1778) was the leading figure of the French Enlightenment and one of the 18th century’s most vitriolic intellectual iconoclasts. He railed throughout his long career against absolutism and persecution and dogmatism, extolling rationalism and skepticism as the proper foundations for human society. Among the best-known of his vast number of writings is the “philosophical novel” Candide of 1759, a swift and pointed satirical finger in the eye of unthinking convention that flattens the notion that “this” (whenever and wherever “this” is) is “the best of all possible worlds.” One such less-than-best world was created in the United States in the early 1950s by Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose ideological witch-hunt targeted some of the country’s most creative and independent personalities. Among those who became ensnared in McCarthy’s machinations was the writer Lillian Hellman. In 1951, her lover, mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, was called before the congressional committee, refused to answer its questions, and was sentenced to prison.

The QR code at the right or mayfestival.com/ candide-program will lead you to more information about this concert on our website, including artist bios and program notes.

Hellman was subpoenaed, wrote to the committee that she would testify about her politics but no one else’s, and was allowed to remain silent, though she was blacklisted for a time by Hollywood. She vented her rage in an anti-establishment adaptation of The Lark by Jean Anouilh, based on the story of Joan of Arc, for which the young composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein supplied some incidental music. Hellman’s next artistic reaction to her political harassment was a theatrical rendering of Voltaire’s Candide. Hellman conceived a contemporary stage version of Candide as early as 1950, but it was not until 1956 that the project materialized. She originally intended the piece to be a play with incidental music, which she asked Bernstein to compose, but his enthusiasm for the subject was so great after re-reading Voltaire’s novel that the venture swelled into a full-blown comic operetta; Tyrone Guthrie was enlisted as director and Richard Wilbur wrote most of the song lyrics (after that task had passed through several other hands). Reviews of the ﬁrst productions were mixed. All agreed that the production was opulent and attractive, but that the show itself was disjointed and clumsy. Bernstein’s music, however, received nothing but praise. Director Harold Prince took the piece in hand in 1973, stripping it of Hellman’s proselytizing text, and gave it a riotous new book by Hugh Wheeler based more faithfully on Voltaire’s novel. In 1982, conductor John Mauceri, a Bernstein protégé, revised Candide for performance at the New York City Opera, restoring several cuts, enlarging the orchestration and reworking Wheeler’s book into the conventional two acts. For a Scottish Opera production in 1988, Mauceri prepared with John Wells yet another version of Candide, which included virtually all the music Bernstein had written for the show over the years and reassigned numbers to their original intended characters and situations. In the concert version of the score, the following editor’s note is printed: The contemporary references in the narration should be updated as the passage of time dictates. This is easily done by “plugging in” the current fascist, current action movie star, etc. Local references may be substituted if appropriate; U.S.-speciﬁc references in the narration may be changed for performances outside the U.S. Changes, however, should not be made to soften the political commentary.

The text for Candide will be projected above the stage and viewable throughout the auditorium. A synopsis will be printed in a program supplement that will be available at the entrances to the auditorium on May 22.

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 39

SOUTH AMERICAN EPICS

FRI MAY 27, 7:30 pm | Music Hall JUANJO MENA, conductor SANTIAGO BALLERINI, tenor GUSTAVO CASTILLO, baritone MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS Robert Porco, director The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Louis Langrée, Music Director Alberto GINASTERA (1916–1983)

Heitor VILLA-LOBOS

Suite from Panambí, Op. 1a Claro de luna sobre el Paraná (“Moonlight on the Paraná”)— Los rumores de la selva (“Forest Murmurs”) Invocación a los espíritus poderosos (“Invocation of the Powerful Spirits”) Lamento de las doncellas (“The Girls’ Lament”) Fiesta indígena (“Native Feast”) Ronda de las doncellas (“Girls’ Round Dance”)/ Danza de los guerreros (“Warriors’ Dance”) El amanecer (“Dawn”)— Coro de las deidades del agua (“Chorus of the Water Sprites”)

Chôros No. 10, Rasga o coração (“Rend the Heart”)

(1887–1959)

INTERMISSION Antonio ESTÉVEZ (1916–1988)

Cantata Criolla: Florentino el que cantó con el Diablo (“Creole Cantata: Florentino, Who Sang with the Devil”)

Tonight’s concert will end at approximately 9:15 pm. Tonight’s concert is sponsored by HORAN. The 2022 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors. The 2022 May Festival is sponsored by Chavez Properties. The appearance of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is generously supported by the Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation. The appearance of Santiago Ballerini in this evening’s performance is made possible in part by a generous endowment gift from Dr. and Mrs. Morton Harshman. The appearance of Gustavo Castillo in this evening’s performance is made possible by in part by Hixson Architecture Engineering Services. Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival. This concert will be broadcast on 90.9 WGUC on October 16, 2022 at 8 pm. The use of photographic and recording devices at these concerts is prohibited. 40 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

ALBERTO GINASTERA

Suite from Panambí, Op. 1a Born: April 11, 1916 in Buenos Aires Died: June 25, 1983 in Geneva Work Composed: 1937 Premiere: November 27, 1937 by the Teatro Colón Orchestra in Buenos Aires, conducted by Juan José Castro; complete ballet premiered on July 12, 1940 at the Colón, also conducted by Mr. Castro. Instrumentation: treble voice chorus, 4 flutes (incl. 2 piccolos), 3 oboes, English horn, 4 clarinets (incl. E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet), 4 bassoons (incl. contrabassoon), 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, claves, cymbals, small bass drum, small drum, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, tambour de Basque, tenor drum, triangle, xylophone, celeste, piano, strings May Festival Notable Performances: This is the first May Festival performance of the work. Duration: approx. 15 minutes

Alberto Ginastera was the outstanding creative figure in South American music following the death of Villa-Lobos in 1959. Ginastera’s career was divided between composition and education, and in the latter capacity he held posts at leading

conservatories and universities in Argentina and at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Ginastera, of Catalan and Italian descent, showed musical talent early and began studying formally when he was seven. Five years later he was admitted to the music school established in Buenos Aires in 1893 by the pioneering Paris Conservatoiretrained Brazilian composer Alberto Williams (1862-1952), among the first to incorporate indigenous influences in his works; Ginastera graduated in 1935 with a Gold Medal in composition. He composed prolifically after entering the National Conservatory of Music the following year, and got his big break on November 27, 1937, while he was still a student, when Juan José Castro, principal conductor of the Teatro Colón, performed a suite from the ballet based on Argentinean legend he had just completed—Panambí. The young composer became a musical celebrity in Argentina when Castro led the premiere of the complete ballet at the Colón on July 12, 1940, and he gained international notice when Lincoln Kirstein, director of the American Ballet Caravan of New York, became familiar with Panambí during the company’s South American tour the following year and commissioned him to write his next ballet, Estancia, with a scenario depicting Argentinean country life. Please turn page quietly

expresses special thanks to

HORAN for generous sponsorship of the South American Epics concert

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 41

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Panambí is based on a legend of the Guaraní people, the indigenous culture of the region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet; the Guaraní language and Spanish are the two official languages of Paraguay. Ginastera captured the setting, the romance, the violence and the supernatural elements of the timeless tale in his music (in Guaraní, Panambí means “butterﬂy,” thought by them to be the reincarnated spirits of certain individuals), which is outlined in the score: “According to the legend, Panambí was the beautiful daughter of the chieftain of an Indian tribe on the banks of the Paraná River. She was betrothed to Guirahú, the most valiant warrior of the tribe, who, shortly before the wedding day, is kidnapped by the maiden spirits of the river. The tribe sorcerer, who is also in love with Panambí but has been rejected by her, tries to take advantage of the situation by claiming that the almighty spirits decreed that she should descend into the river in quest of her lover. Panambí is ready to carry out the supposedly divine orders when Tupá, the good god, appears from above and stops her. Tupá punishes the sorcerer by turning him into a strange black bird and restores Guirahú, who rises from the waters of the river to throw himself into the arms of his loved one.” HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS

Chôros No. 10, Rasga o coração (“Rend the Heart”) Born: March 5, 1887 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Died: November 17, 1959 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Work Composed: 1926 Premiere: November 26, 1926 at the Teatro Lirico in Rio de Janeiro, conducted by the composer Instrumentation: mixed chorus, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, alto saxophone, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, bass drums, chocalho, field drum, friction drum, gong, reco-reco, snare drum, tam tam, tenor drum, tom tom, wood drum, harp, piano, strings May Festival Notable Performances: This is the first May Festival performance of the work. Duration: approx. 20 minutes

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazil’s foremost composer, had little formal training. From his earliest years, Villa-Lobos was enthralled with the indigenous songs and dances of his native land, and he made several trips into the Brazilian interior to study the native music and ceremonies. Beginning with his earliest works, around 1910, his music shows the The QR code at the right or mayfestival.com/ south-american-program will lead you to more information about this concert on our website, including artist bios and full program notes.

inﬂuence of the melodies, rhythms and sonorities that he discovered. Villa-Lobos summarized his creative philosophy in an interview with New York Times critic Olin Downes by saying that he did not think of music as “culture, or education, or even as a device for quieting the nerves, but as something more potent, mystical and profound in its effect. Music has the power to communicate, to heal, to ennoble, when it is made part of man’s life and consciousness.” The Chôros No. 10 is from a series of 16 works by Villa-Lobos bearing that title and scored for a varied instrumentation ranging from solo guitar to full orchestra combined with mixed chorus. The term derived from the popular bands of Rio de Janeiro that originated in the mid-19th century that freely mixed winds, guitars and simple percussion instruments. Villa-Lobos believed that these bands epitomized Brazilian native music, and he attempted to capture their essence in his series of Chôros, as he explained in a note in the score: “The Chôros represents a new form of musical composition in which are synthesized the different modalities of Brazilian, Indian and popular music, having for principal elements Rhythm, and any typical Melody of popular character.” The Chôros No. 10 of 1926 is in four sections, the ﬁrst three of which are for orchestra alone. The opening section depicts the groves and Brazilian forests, with mock birdcalls piercing the insistent rhythmic motion. The second portion explores the coloristic possibilities of solo winds set against string glissandos in the highest register. The brief third section climaxes in a giant wave of sound led by the brass. A solo bassoon establishes the rhythmic ostinato that permeates the concluding section. Soon, the entire orchestra, reinforced by a large variety of percussion instruments, joins in with overlapping patterns that generate a primal energy. The chorus enters singing an untranslatable text derived from the Indian ceremonial chants that Villa-Lobos collected on his journeys into Brazil’s forests. This text is used for the sonority of its words rather than for their meaning, a compositional device that lends the work much of its incantatory power. As the chanting continues, a wordless song moving evenly and majestically rises from the chorus. This melody is known in Brazil as Rasga o coração (“Rend Your Heart”) after the poem in Portuguese by Catullo Cearense which it uses as its text. This theme stands in sharp relief to the visceral rhythmic background of aboriginal vocalization as an almost desperate cry for lost innocence.

Please turn page quietly MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 43

PROGRAM NOTES: MAY 27

TEXT AND TRANSLATION

Se tu queres ver a immensidão do çéo e mar reﬂectindóa prismatisaçao da luz solar, rasga o coração, vem te debruçar sobre a vastidão do meu penar.

If you want to see the immensity of the sky and sea reﬂected like a prism of sunlight, rend your heart, come and bow yourself to the vastness of my pain.

Sorve todo o olor que anda a recender pelas espinhosas ﬂoranções do meu soffrer. Vêse podes ler nas suas pulsações as brancas illuzões e o que elle diz no seu gemer; e que nao.

Especially above all, be aware of the odor that accompanies the thorny ﬂowers of my suffering. See if you can read in your pulsations the white, pure illusions and that which they say to you in your soft groaning; and that now.

Pode a ti dizer nas palpitações! Ou veo brandamenta docemente palpitar. Casto e purpural n’um threno vesperal mais puro que uma candida vestal!

Can it say it to you, your heartbeat! Or I see softly, sweetly, my heart beating. Chaste and purple in a twilight thought more pure than a heavenly picture.

Rasga o que has de ver la: dentro a dôr a soluçar: sob o peso deuma cruz de lagrimas, chorar; anjos a cantar préces divinaes. Deos a rythimar seus pobres, ais!

Open up to see what you have to see: inside the pain is the solution: under the weight of a cross of tears, weeping; angels singing little divine songs. God has given rhythm to his poor ones, alas!

Rasga que has de ver.

Open up to what you must see.

ANTONIO ESTÉVEZ

Orchestra, teaching at the Caracas Conservatory, helping to found Orfeón University, directing the National Radio Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, and appearing as guest conductor with the Belgian Radio-Television Orchestra, Paris Opéra, French Radio Orchestra, Municipal Orchestra of Rio de Janeiro and other leading ensembles. The Cantata Criolla: Florentino, el que cantó con el Diablo (“Creole Cantata: Florentino, Who Sang with the Devil”), premiered in July 1954 in Caracas, won First Prize in the Vicente Emilio Sojo Competition and received praise from Heitor Villa-Lobos, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and other important musical figures when it was heard at a festival of Latin-American music later that year. The Cantata is a setting of a poem by the Venezuelan writer, educator and statesman Alberto Arvelo Torrealba based on the legend of a singing contest between a Plainsman and the Devil. Estévez chose tenor and bass soloists to represent the characters, with a chorus setting the scenes and commenting on the unfolding drama. Though cast in a modern idiom, with daring harmonic and orchestral effects, the Cantata Criolla incorporates two ancient Gregorian chants: the Marian hymn Ave maris stella (“Hail, Star of the Sea”) is identified with Florentino, the Plainsman; the venerable Sequence from the Requiem Mass, Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”), also used by Berlioz, Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninoff and others, is associated with the Devil. In his Cantata Criolla, Antonio Estévez created a significant work of nationalistic art that fuses elements of popular and cultivated music into an authentic and elegant Venezuelan atmosphere.

Cantata Criolla: Florentino el que cantó con el Diablo (“Creole Cantata: Florentino, Who Sang with the Devil”) Born: January 3, 1916 in Calabozo, Venezuela Died: November 26, 1988 in Caracas, Venezuela Work Composed: 1954 Premiere: July 25, 1954 at the Vicente Emilio Sojo Competition in Caracas’ Municipal Theater, conducted by the composer with soloists Teo Capriles and Antonio Lauro Instrumentation: tenor, baritone, mixed chorus, piccolo, 2 ﬂutes, 3 oboes (incl. English horn), 3 clarinets (incl. bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (incl. contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, glockenspiel, maracas, military drum, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, temple blocks, triangles, whip, xylophone, piano, strings May Festival Notable Performances: This is the ﬁrst May Festival performance of the work. Duration: approx. 40 minutes

Composer and conductor Antonio Estévez was one of Venezuela’s leading musicians. Estévez began studying music at age ten as a clarinetist in the Guárico state band. In 1934, he entered the Music Conservatory in Caracas to study composition (with Vicente Emilio Sojo) and oboe, completing his performance studies in 1942 and receiving his master’s degree in composition two years later. His study in Europe and the United States from 1944 to 1948 on a scholarship from the Venezuelan government was highlighted by a course in orchestral conducting at Tanglewood directed by Aaron Copland and Serge Koussevitzky. Estévez came to prominence after returning to his homeland, serving as an oboist with the Caracas Symphony

44 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

PROGRAM NOTES: MAY 27

TEXT AND TRANSLATION Text: Alberto Arvelo Torrealba EL RETO (“THE CHALLENGE”) El coplero Florentino por el ancho terraplén caminos del Desamparo desanda a golpe de seis.

The singer-poet1 Florentino by the wide terraplein towards El Desamparo travels round about six.

El coplero Florentino...

The singer-poet Florentino...

Puntero en la soledad que enlutan llamas de ayer, macolla de tierra errante le nace bajo el corcel. Ojo ciego el lagunazo sin garza, junco ni grey, dura cuenca enterronada donde el casco de traspié. Los escuálidos espinos desnudan su amarillez, las chicharras atolondran el cenizo anochecer. Parece que para el mundo la palma sin un vaivén.

Riding in the loneliness blackened by yesterday’s flames, clusters of flying dust rise under the horse. Like a blind eye the pond without stork, rush or flock, hard lumped basin where the hoof stumbles. The squalid cactus bares its yellowness, the harvest fly rattles the ashy sunset. It seems to stop the world the palm tree without its sway.

El coplero solitario vive su grave altivez de ir caminando el erial como quien pisa vergel. En el caño de Las Animas se para muerto de sed y en las patas del castaño ve lo claro del jagüey.

The lonely poet-singer carries his deep pride of walking on unplowed land as if it were a ﬂower garden. In the Las Animas ditch he stops dying of thirst and by the trunk of the chestnut tree he sees the glitter of a pond.

El cacho de beber tira, en agua lo oye caer; cuando lo va levantando se le salpican los pies pero del cuemo vacío ni gota pudo beber. Vuelve a tirarlo y salpica el agua clara otra vez, mas sólo arena sus ojos en el turbio fondo ven.

He throws the water bottle and on water he hears it fall; as he lifts it back towards him water wets his feet but from the empty bottle not one drop could he drink. He throws it again and splashes the clear water again, but only sand his eyes in the turbid bottom can see.

Soplo de quema el suspiro, paso llano el palafrén, mirada y rumbo el coplero pone para su caney, cuando con trote sombrío oye un jinete tras él.

The breath like a burning gust, the palfrey at slow pace, look and bearing the singer-poet sets toward his cabin, when with a somber trot he hears a rider behind him.

Negra se le ve la manta, negro el caballo también; bajo el negro pelo-e-guama la cara no se le ve. Pasa cantando una copla sin la mirada volver:

Black is his poncho, black is also his horse; under his black high-hat the face cannot be seen. Rides by singing a couplet without turning his head:

—Amigo, por si se atreve, aguárdeme en Santa Inés, que yo lo voy a buscar para cantar con usté.

—Friend, if you dare, wait for me in Santa Inés, where I will be looking for you to sing with you.

Mala sombra del espanto cruza por el terraplén. Vaqueros de lejanía la acompañan en tropel; la encobijan y la borran pajas del anochecer.

Evil shadow of horror crosses the terraplein. Remote cowboys accompany him in a bustle; he is covered and obscured by the grass of sunset.

Florentino taciturno coge el banco de través. Puntero en la soledad que enlutan llamas de ayer parece que va soñando

Florentino taciturn cuts across the plains. Riding in the loneliness blackened by yesterday’s ﬂames he seems to be dreaming

1 A “coplero” is a singer capable of improvising “coplas,” or rhymed verses. The ﬁrst line of the “copla” must be the last one of the other “coplero,” which this way forces the rhyme on his opponent. This type of musical competition is called “contrapunteo” (roughly “counterpointing”) in the Venezuelan plains. The ﬁrst singer that cannot improvise at once on the cue of the opponent loses.

Please turn page quietly MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 45

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PROGRAM NOTES: MAY 27

con la sabana en la sien. En un verso largo y hondo se le estira el tono ﬁel:

with the savanna at his temple. In a long and deep verse his faithful tune stretches:

—Sabana, sabana, tierra que hace sudar y querer, parada con tanto rumbo con agua y muerta de sed, una con mi alma en lo sola, una con Dios en la fe; sobre tu pecho desnudo yo me paro a responder: sepa el cantador sombrío que yo cumplo con mi ley y como canté con todos tengo que cantar con él.

—Savanna, savanna, land that makes you sweat and love, a place with many routes with water and dying of thirst, one with my soul in its solitude, one with God in the Faith; over your bare chest I stop to answer: let the somber singer know that I abide by my law and as I have sung with all I have to sing with him.

LA PORFÍA (“THE DUEL”) Noche de ﬁero chubasco por la enlutada llanura, y de encendidas chipolas que el rancho de peón alumbran. Adentro suena el capacho, afuera bate la lluvia; vena en corazón de cedro el bordón mana ternura; no lejos asoma el río pecho de sabana sucia; más allá coros errantes, ventarrón de negra furia; y mientras teje el joropo bandoleras amarguras el rayo a la palmasola le tira señeras puntas. Súbito un hombre en la puerta: indio de grave postura, ojos negros, pelo negro, frente de cálida arruga. Pelo de guama luciente que con el candil relumbra.

Night of fiery squall all over the mourning plain, and of aroused “cipolas”2 that light up the laborer’s hut. Inside the “capacho”3 sounds, outside the rain pours; vein in the heart of cedar the bass string oozes tenderness; not far the river appears breast of dirty savanna; further away wandering choirs, wind of black fury; and while the rhythm weaves sadness with “bandola”4 the lightning to the palm tree fires solitary rays. Suddenly a man at the door: Indian of grave attitude, black eyes, black hair, forehead of fiery wrinkle. Shiny high hat that glitters under the oil lamp.

Un golpe de viento guapo le pone a volar la blusa, y se le ve jeme y medio de puñal en la cintura. Entra callado y se pone para el lado de la música. Oiga vale, ese es el Diablo, —la voz por la sala cruza—.

A gust of daring wind blows his shirt open, and one inch can be seen of a knife under his belt. Comes in quietly and goes to where the music is. Listen friend, it is the Devil, —the rumor spreads across the room—.

Mírelo como llegó, con tanto barrial y lluvia, planchada y seca la ropa sin cobija ni montura. Dicen que pasó temprano como quien viene de Nutrias, con un oscuro bonquero por el paso Las Brujas. Florentino está silbando sones de añeja bravura y su diestra echa a volar ansias que pisa la zurda cuando el indio pico de oro con su canto lo saluda.

See how he arrived, with all the mud and rain, ironed and dry his clothes without poncho or mount. They say he went by earlier like someone coming from Nutrias, with a dark boatman by the Las Brujas pass. Florentino is whistling tunes of past bravery and his right hand sets ﬂying longing pressed down by his left when the Indian silver-tonged with his song salutes him.

EL DIABLO (“THE DEVIL”) Catire quita pesares contéstame esta pregunta: ¿quién es el que bebe arena en la noche más oscura?

“Catire quita pesares”5 answer me this question: who is he who drinks sand in the darkest night?

“Chipolas” are one of the forms of the “joropo,” which is a folk rhythm in fast and syncopated 3/4–6/8 time. “Joropo” is the basic rhythm pattern for the “contrapunteo,” the kind illustrated in this poem. 3 “Capacho”: maracas 4 The word “bandoleras” is derived from “bandola,” a stringed instrument of the guitar family used in combination with the harp, the “cuatro” (a small member of the guitar family, with four strings) and the “capacho” to play the “joropo.” 5 “Catire” is the name given to the people of white or light-brown skin, usually with light-brown hair. “Quita pesares” refers to a person who makes one forget his sorrows (“pesares”).

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FLORENTINO En la noche más oscura lo malo no es el lanzazo sino quien no lo retruca. Tiene que beber arena el que no bebe agua nunca.

In the darkest night the bad thing is not the attack of the spear but not to return it. It must drink sand he who never drinks water.

THE DEVIL El que no bebe agua nunca. Así cualquiera responde barajando la pregunta. ¿Quién mata la sed sin agua en jagüey de arena pura?

He who never drinks water. Anybody can answer avoiding the question. Who satiates the thirst without water in a pond of pure sand?

FLORENTINO En jagüey de arena pura, el médano solitario, el ánima que lo cruza, la noche que lo encobija, el lucero que lo alumbra. ¡Qué culpa tengo señores si me encuentra el que me busca!

In a pond of pure sand, the solitary dune, the soul that crosses it, the night that shelters it, the star that lights it. It is not my fault, gentlemen, if he who looks for me ﬁnds me!

THE DEVIL Ya que tienes tantas artes déjeme que se las vea. Falta un cuarto pa la una cuando el candil parpadea, cuando el espanto sin rumbo con su dolor sabanea, cuando Florentino calla y así perdió la pelea, cuando canta la pavita, cuando el gallo menudea.

Since you have so many skills allow me to see them. It is now quarter to one when the oil lamp quivers, when the ghost without direction with its pain scours the plain, when Florentino stops singing and so he lost his ﬁght, when the “pavita”6 sings, when the rooster crows.

FLORENTINO Cuando el gallo menudea la garganta se me aﬁna y se me aciarala idea. Yo soy como el espinito que en la sabana ﬂorea: le doy aroma al que pasa y espino al que me menea.

When the rooster crows my throat gets in tune and my ideas become clear. I am like the cactus that ﬂowers in the plain: I give perfume to the passer-by and thorn to the one that shakes me.

THE DEVIL Espino al que me menea: ¡Ah caramba! yo en quedarme y usted Catire me arrea. Mire que estoy relón con esta noche tan fea. Vaya poniéndose alante pa’que en lo oscuro me vea.

Thorn to the one that shakes me: Well, then! I am wanting to stay and you drive me on. Can’t you see I am undecided with this ugly night. Put yourself ahead so you can see me in the dark.

FLORENTINO Pa’que en lo oscuro me vea. Amigo no arrime tanto que el bicho se le chacea. Atrás y alante es lo mismo pa’el que no carga manea: el que va atrás ve p’alante y el que va alante voltea.

So you can see me in the dark. My friend don’t get so close or your beast will go out of control. Behind and ahead is the same if one doesn’t carry a hobble: the one behind looks ahead and the one ahead turns his head.

THE DEVIL El que va alante voltea. Catire, usté canta mucho pero quítese esa idea de que me puede enseñar como se canta un corrío. Los perros está aullando escúcheles los aullíos, los gallos están cantando, recuerde lo convenía.

The one ahead turns his head. “My man, you sing quite well but forget the idea that you can teach me how to sing a “corrío.”7 The dogs are howling listen to their howls, the roosters are crowing, remember our deal.8

“Zamuros de la barrosa del Alcornocal del frío albricias pido señores que ya Florentino es mío.”

“Vultures of ‘La Barrosa’ from ‘Alcornocal del frío,’9 congratulations I ask, gentlemen, for already Florentino is mine.”

“Pavita”: ﬁctional bird whose song predicts misfortunes; full name is pavita de tierra “Corrío”: the musical form for the “contrapunteo” The deal, according to this type of legend, as in Faust, is that Florentino will go to Hell if he loses to the Devil. 9 invented places 7

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FLORENTINO Que ya Florentino es mío. Si usté dice que soy suyo será que me le he vendío, si me le vendí me paga porue yo a nadie le fío. Yo no soy pájaro bobo pa’estar calentando nío.

For already Florentino is mine. If you say that I am yours it must be because I sold myself to you, if I sold myself pay me because I give credit to no one. I am not a silly bird to be warming up the nest.

THE DEVIL Pa’estar calentando nío. No sé si es pájaro bobo pero va por un tendío... Con el adiós de los gallos yo cargo con los rendíos en el anca e’mi caballo que sabe un trote sombrío. Y vuelvo a cambiarle el pie a ver si topa atajo.

To be warming up the nest. I don’t know if you are a silly bird but you got into a long journey... With the farewell of the roosters I take with me the defeated on the back of my horse that knows a somber trot. And I change again the cue to see if you ﬁnd the shortcut.

FLORENTINO A ver si topa el atajo. Cuando se fajan me gusta porque yo también me fajo.

To see if you ﬁnd the shortcut. When they get involved I like it for I also get involved.

“Zamuros de la barrosa del Alcornocal de abajo: ahora verán señores, al Diablo pasar trabajo.”

“Vultures of ‘La Barrosa’ from ‘Alcornocal de abajo’9: now you will see, gentlemen, the Devil having a hard time.”

Déjenlo que barajuste que yo en mi rucio lo atajo déjenlo que pare suertes, yo sabré si le barajo, alante el caballo ﬁno, atrás el burro marrajo. Antes que toquien la una se lo lleva quien lo trajo. ¡Quién ha visto doro-doro cantando con arrendajo! Si me cambio el consonante yo se lo puedo cambiar.

Let him try to confuse me I will catch him with my horse let him try his luck, I will see if I deal to him, ahead the ﬁne horse, behind the cunning donkey. Before the clock strikes one he will leave as he came. Who has seen a “doro-doro”10 singing with a mocking-bird! If he changed the cue for me I can change it back for him.

THE DEVIL Yo se lo puedo cambiar. Los graves y los agudos a mí lo mismo me dan. ¡Ay! catire Florentino arrendajo y turupial, qué largo y solo el camino que nunca desandará, con esta noche tan negra chaparral y chaparral. No le valió su baquía, ni lo salvó su cantar. Catire quita pesares, arrendajo y turupial.

I can change it back for him. The bass and the treble are the same to me. “Ay! My Florentino” mocking-bird and troupial, what a long and lonely road that you will never retrace, in this night so black chaparral and chaparral. Your skill didn’t help you nor did your singing save you. “You who makes others forget sorrows,” mocking-bird and troupial.

FLORENTINO Arrendajo y turupial. Zamuros de la Barrosa salgan del Alcornocal pa’que miren a Mandinga el brinco que va a pegar: Sácame de aquí con Dios Virgen de la Soledá, Virgen del Carmen bendita, piadosa Virgen del Real, tierna Virgen del Socorro, dulce Virgen de la Paz. Virgen de la Coromoto, Virgen de Chiquinquirá, piadosa Virgen del Valle, Niño de Atocha bendito, Santísima Trinidá, Virgen del Carmen bendita, Santísima Trinidá.

Mocking-bird and troupial. Vultures of “La Barrosa” come out of “Alcornocal” so you can see the Devil the leap he is going to take: Get me out of here with God Virgin of la Soledá, blessed Virgin del Carmen, pious Virgin del Real, tender Virgin del Socorro sweet Virgin de la Paz. Virgin de la Coromoto, Virgin de Chiquinquirá, pious Virgin del Valle, blessed Niño de Atocha, Holy Trinity, blessed Virgin del Carmen, Holy Trinity.11

“Doro-doro”: a common black bird To beat the Devil by holding him until sunrise, Florentino embarks on a long litany of all the saints and sacred names he can remember.

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MONTGOMERY + BEETHOVEN NO. 9 SAT MAY 28, 7:30 pm | Music Hall

JUANJO MENA, conductor NICOLE CABELL, soprano TAMARA MUMFORD, mezzo-soprano JI-MIN PARK, tenor REGINALD SMITH, JR., baritone MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS Robert Porco, director The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS, Matthew Swanson, director CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Louis Langrée, Music Director Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)

Jessie MONTGOMERY

Excerpts from Fidelio Overture, Op. 72 O Welche Lust (“O What Joy”) Heil sei dem Tag! (“Hail to the Day!”)

I Have Something to Say

(b. 1981)

INTERMISSION Ludwig van BEETHOVEN

Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125, Choral Allegro ma non troppo; un poco maestoso Molto vivace Adagio molto e cantabile Presto—Allegro assai—Allegro assai vivace

Tonight’s concert will end at approximately 9:40 pm. Tonight’s concert is sponsored by Kathy and Craig Rambo. The 2022 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors. The 2022 May Festival is sponsored by Chavez Properties. The appearance of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is generously supported by the Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation. The appearance of Nicole Cabell in this evening’s performance is made possible in part by David and Elaine Billmire. The appearance of Tamara Mumford in this evening’s performance is made possible in part by generous endowment gifts from the friends and family of the Joan P. and Oliver L. Baily Fund. The appearance of Ji-Min Park in this evening’s performance is made possible in part by Sherie Lynch Marek and Family. The appearance of Reginald Smith, Jr. is made possible in part by a generous endowment gift in memory of Mr. and Mrs. LeRoy R. Brooks. Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival. The encore performance of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah is given in memory of Betty Wohlgemuth, with funds generously provided by The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation. This concert will be broadcast on 90.9 WGUC on October 23, 2022 at 8 pm. The use of photographic and recording devices at these concerts is prohibited. 50 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN

Excerpts from Fidelio

Born: Baptized December 17, 1770 in Bonn, Germany Died: March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria Work Composed: 1804-1805; revised in 1806 and 1814 Premiere: Original version premiered on November 20, 1805 in Vienna, conducted by Ignaz von Seyfried under the composer’s supervision. The final version of the opera was premiered on May 25, 1814 at Vienna’s Kärntnertor Theater, conducted by Michael Umlauf, though the Fidelio Overture was not finished in time for that performance and was first heard two days later. Instrumentation: mixed chorus, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones (incl. bass trombone), timpani, strings May Festival Notable Performances: • Overture: First Performance: May 1892, Theodore Thomas Orchestra, Theodore Thomas conducting. Most Recent: May 1989, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, James Conlon conducting. • O welche Lust: First Performance: May 1927, Frank Van der Stucken conducting, May Festival Chorus. Most Recent: May 1948, Fritz Busch conducting, May Festival Chorus. • Heil sei dem Tag: First Performance: May 1927, Frank Van der Stucken conducting, May Festival Chorus. Most Recent: May 2002, James Conlon conducting, May Festival Chorus. Duration: approx. 14 minutes

Beethoven devoted a decade (1804–1814) to his only opera, Fidelio, and the most evident remnants of his extensive revisions are the quartet of overtures he composed for work. The first version of the opera, written between January 1804 and early autumn 1805, was initially titled Leonore after the heroine, who courageously rescues her husband from his wrongful incarceration. For that production, Beethoven wrote the Leonore Overture No. 1, utilizing themes from the opera. Beethoven then composed a second overture, Leonore No. 2, and that piece was used at the first performance, on November 20, 1805. (The management of Vienna’s Theater-an-der-Wien, site of the premiere, insisted on changing the title from Leonore to Fidelio to avoid confusion with Ferdinand Paër’s Leonore.) The opera foundered. Not only was the audience, largely populated by French officers of Napoleon’s army, which had invaded Vienna exactly one week earlier, unsympathetic, but there were also problems with Fidelio’s dramatic structure. Beethoven was encouraged by his aristocratic supporters to rework the opera and present it again. That second version, for which the magnificent Leonore Overture No. 3 was written, was presented in Vienna on March 29, 1806, but met with only slightly more acclaim than its forerunner. Please turn page quietly

expresses special thanks to

K AT H Y A N D C R A I G R A M B O for their generous sponsorship of the Montgomery + Beethoven No. 9 concert

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PROGRAM NOTES: MAY 28

In 1814, some members of the Court Theater approached Beethoven, by then Europe’s most famous composer, about reviving Fidelio. The idealistic subject of the opera had never been far from his thoughts, and he agreed to the project. The libretto was revised yet again, and Beethoven rewrote all the numbers in the opera and changed their order to enhance the work’s dramatic impact. The new Fidelio Overture, the fourth he composed for his opera, was among the revisions. * * * In the opera, Florestan, a fighter against despotism, has been imprisoned by his enemy Don Pizarro, governor of the castle prison. Hoping to save Florestan, his wife, Leonora, disguises herself as a young man under the name “Fidelio,” and becomes an assistant to Rocco, the chief jailer of the prison. Marcellina, Rocco’s daughter, falls in love with the disguised Leonore. Under Pizarro’s orders, Rocco and Leonore enter Florestan’s cell

to dig his grave and offer him a little food. Pizarro rushes in, intent on killing Florestan. Dagger in hand, he rushes toward Florestan but Leonore, brandishing a pistol, throws herself between them. Just at that moment, a trumpet sounds to announce the arrival of Don Fernando, Prime Minister of Spain, who has come to question Pizarro about his suspected abuse of power. Florestan and Leonore rejoice at their reunion, and fall into each other’s arms. In the opera’s closing scene, set in the parade ground of the castle, Don Fernando arrives and orders the prisoners freed. They are led into the courtyard by Leonore and Florestan, whom Fernando recognizes as an old friend he thought dead. Leonore is allowed to remove her husband’s chains herself, while Pizarro is taken away to answer for his treachery. Florestan sings a tribute to his devoted wife, and all join in a jubilant hymn to love and brotherhood—Heil sei dem Tag: All Hail the Day.

TEXT AND TRANSLATION CHORUS OF PRISONERS O welche Lust, in freier Luft Den Atem leicht zu heben! Nur hier, nur hier ist Leben! Der Kerker eine Gruft.

Oh what joy, in the open air Freely to breathe again! Up here alone is life! The dungeon is a grave.

FIRST PRISONER Wir wollen mit Vertrauen Auf Gottes Hilfe bauen! Die Hoffnung ﬂüstert sanft mir zu: Wir werden frei, wir ﬁnden Ruh.

We shall with all our faith Trust in the help of God! Hope whispers softly in my ears! We shall be free, we shall ﬁnd peace.

ALL THE OTHERS O Himmel! Rettung! Welch ein Glück! O Freiheit! Kehrst du zurück?

Oh Heaven! Salvation! Happiness! Oh Freedom! Will you be given us?

SECOND PRISONER Sprecht leise! Haltet euch zurück! Wir sind belauscht mit Ohr und Blick.

Speak softly! Be on your guard! We are watched with eye and ear.

ALL Sprecht leise! Haltet euch zurück! Wir sind belauscht mit Ohr und Blick. O welche Lust, in freier Luft Den Atem leicht zu heben! Nur hier, nur hier ist Leben. Sprecht leise! Haltet euch zurück! Wir sind belauscht mit Ohr und Blick.

Speak softly! Be on your guard! We are watched with eye and ear. Oh what joy, in the open air Freely to breathe again! Up here alone is life. Speak softly! Be on your guard! We are watched with eye and ear.

CHORUS OF PRISONERS AND TOWNSPEOPLE Heil sei dem Tag, Heil sei der Stunde, Die lang ersehnt, doch unvermeint; Gerechtigkeit mit Huld im Bunde Vor unsres Grabes Tor erscheint!

All hail the day, all hail the hour, So long desired, and so long denied; When justice joins forces with mercy, To come and open up the prison gates!

The QR code at the right or mayfestival.com/ beethoven-program will lead you to more information about this concert on our website, including artist bios and full program notes.

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JESSIE MONTGOMERY

I Have Something to Say Born: December 8, 1981 in New York City Work Composed: 2020, co-commissioned by the May Festival and Cathedral Choral Society Premiere: March 13, 2022 at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. by the Cathedral Choral Society, conducted by Steven Fox Instrumentation: mixed chorus, children’s chorus (incl. child soloist), 2 ﬂutes (incl. piccolo), 2 oboes (incl. English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, bongo drums, chimes, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, triangle, celeste, strings May Festival Notable Performances: This is the ﬁrst May Festival performance of the work. Duration: approx. 8 minutes

Violinist, composer and music educator Jessie Montgomery started studying violin at age four at the Third Street Music School Settlement in her native New York City. She was composing and improvising by 11, and while still in high school twice received the Composer’s Apprentice Award from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Montgomery has created works for concert, theater and ﬁlm (one of which was in collaboration with her father, Ed Montgomery, also a composer and an independent ﬁlm producer), and held residencies with the Deer Valley Music Festival, New York Youth Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and Sphinx Virtuosi. Among her rapidly accumulating distinctions are the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence. Jessie Montgomery is currently working on a commission for Project 19, the New York Philharmonic’s multi-year celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. The Philharmonic began premiering these new compositions by 19 women composers in February 2020. In September 2021, Montgomery was commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera along with two other Black composers—Valerie Coleman and Joel Thompson—to develop new works in collaboration with the Lincoln Center Theater. Jessie Montgomery wrote that I Have Something To Say, “portrays an imagined interaction between Sojourner Truth and Greta Thunberg during a timeless public forum. The text is inspired by quotes from their historic speeches: Truth’s famed Ain’t I a Woman speech during the First National Women’s Convention in 1850, and Thunberg’s gripping speech about climate justice during the UN Climate Change summit in 2018. Robbie McCauley, playwright, performer and activist (and mother to yours truly), wove sentiments from each speech together to create the lyrics. Special features include a musical depiction of a courtroom gathering and a

children’s protest rising to the final chorus. We created this work together to highlight and celebrate the efforts of the elder and younger generations of women who have fought and continue to fight ‘the ongoing struggle for us and all people to be free.’” For more about Ms. Montgomery, please read “In Conversation with Jessie Montgomery” on p. 13. TEXT: I have something to say Said Sojourner Truth Before the Civil War I’m women’s rights I can’t read but I can hear Do not be afraid of us for fear If you have a quart We’ll take no more than our pint’ll hold I have something to say Said Greta Thunberg In the year twenty and nineteen While she is only age fifteen I speak for Climate Justice Now What will you tell your children how You did nothing while there was time? We were blessed to be born When many doors had been torn Open for us to be free And from now on We women and we girls All over the world Know we must carry on The ongoing struggle For us and all people to be free

LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN

Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125, Choral Work Composed: 1822–1824 Premiere: May 7, 1824 in Vienna, conducted by Michael Umlauf under the composer’s supervision Instrumentation: soprano, alto, tenor, bass, mixed chorus, piccolo, 2 ﬂutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, strings May Festival Notable Performances: First Performance: May 1873 at Saengerhalle, Theodore Thomas Orchestra conducted by Theodore Thomas, soloists: Helen Smith, soprano; Anne Louise Cary, contralto; Nelson Varley, tenor; J. F. Rudolphsen, bass; May Festival Chorus. Most Recent: May 2017 at Taft Theatre, Markus Stenz conducting, soloists: Carolyn Sampson, soprano; Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Thomas Cooley, tenor; Eric Owens, bass-baritone; May Festival Chorus. Commercial Recording with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 2013 as part of the One City, One Symphony project. Duration: approx. 65 minutes

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Let us sing the song of the immortal Schiller!” shouted Beethoven to Anton Schindler, his companion and eventual biographer, as he burst from his workroom one afternoon in October 1823. This joyful announcement meant that the path to the completion of the Ninth Please turn page quietly MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 53

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Symphony—after a gestation of more than three decades—was finally clear. Friedrich Schiller published his poem An die Freude (“Ode to Joy”) in 1785. By 1790 Beethoven knew the poem, and as early as 1793 he considered making a musical setting of it. Schiller’s poem appears in his notes in 1798, but the earliest musical ideas for its setting are found among the sketches for the Seventh and Eighth symphonies, composed simultaneously in 1811–1812. Though these sketches are unrelated to the finished Ode to Joy theme—that went through more than 200 revisions (!) before Beethoven was satisfied with it—they do show the composer’s continuing interest in the text and the gestating idea of setting it for chorus and orchestra. It was to be another dozen years before he could bring this vague vision to fulfillment. The first evidence of the musical material that was to figure in the finished Ninth Symphony appeared in 1815, when a sketch for the theme of the Scherzo emerged among Beethoven’s notes. Beethoven was forced to lay aside the Scherzo in 1818 because of ill health, the distressing court battle to secure custody of his nephew, and other composing projects, notably the monumental Missa Solemnis. The awesome Missa dominated Beethoven’s life for over four years. The chronology of these compositions—the great Mass preceding the Symphony—was vital to the creation of the Symphony, and is indispensable to understanding the last years of Beethoven’s creative life. The critic

Irving Kolodin wrote, “The Ninth owes to the Missa Solemnis the philosophical framework, the ideological atmosphere, the psychological climate in which it breathes and has its existence.... Unlike the Missa, however, it is a celebration of life, of man’s earthly possibilities rather than his heavenly speculations.” The 1822 sketches show considerable progress on the Symphony’s first movement, little on the Scherzo, and, for the first time, some tentative ideas for a choral finale based on Schiller’s poem. Beethoven had one major obstacle to overcome before he could complete the Symphony: how to join together the instrumental and vocal movements. He pondered the matter during his summer stay in Baden in 1823, but had not resolved the problem when he returned to Vienna in October. It was only after more intense work that he finally hit upon the idea of a recitative as the connecting tissue. A recitative—the technique that had been used for generations to bridge from one operatic number to the next—that would be perfect, he decided. And the recitative could include fragments of themes from earlier movements—to unify the structure. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” he shouted triumphantly. Beethoven still had much work to do, as the sketches from the autumn of 1823 show, but he at last knew his goal. The composition was completed by the end of the year. When the final scoring was finished in February 1824, it had been nearly 35 years since Beethoven first considered setting Schiller’s poem.

TEXT AND TRANSLATION: Fourth Movement BARITONE O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere.

O friends, not these sounds! Rather let us sing more pleasing songs, full of joy.

BARITONE AND CHORUS Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum. Deine Zauber binden wieder was die Mode streng geteilt; alle Menschen werden Brüder wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

QUARTET AND CHORUS Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen, eines Freundes Freund zu sein, wer ein holdes Weib errungen, mische seine Jubel ein! Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund! Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehle weinend sich aus diesem Bund! Freude trinken alle Wesen an den Brüsten der Natur, alle Guten, alle Bösen folgen ihre Rosenspur.

Whoever has won in that great gamble of being friend to a friend, whoever has won a gracious wife, let him join in our rejoicing! Yes, even if there is only one other soul he can call his own on the whole earth! And he who never accomplished this, let him steal away weeping from this company! All creatures drink of joy at Nature’s breast, All men, good and evil, follow her rose-strewn path.

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Küsse gab sie uns und Reben, einen Freund, geprüft im Tod; Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben, und der Cherub steht vor Gott!

Kisses she gave us and vines, a friend, faithful to death; desire was even given to the worm, and the cherub stands before God!

TENOR AND CHORUS Froh, wie seine Sonnen ﬂiegen durch des Himmels prächt’gen Plan, laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn, freudig wie ein Held zum Siegen.

Joyously, just as His suns ﬂy through the splendid arena of heaven, run, brothers, your course gladly, like a hero to victory.

CHORUS Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum. Deine Zauber binden wieder was die Mode streng geteilt; alle Menschen werden Brüder wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt! Brüder, über’m Sternenzelt muss ein lieber Vater wohnen. Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen? Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt? Such’ ihn über’m Sternenzelt! Über Sternen muss er wohnen. Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum. Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt! Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen? Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt? Such’ ihn über’m Sternenzelt! Brüder! Brüder! Über’m Sternenzelt muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.

Joy, brilliant spark of the gods, daughter of Elysium, drunk with ﬁre, we enter, Divinity, your sacred shrine. Your magic again unites all that custom harshly tore apart; all men become brothers beneath your gentle hovering wing. Be embraced, ye millions! This kiss is for the entire world! Brothers, above the canopy of stars surely a loving Father dwells. Do you bow down, ye millions? Do you sense the Creator, World? Seek Him above the canopy of stars! Above the stars must He dwell. Joy, brilliant spark of the gods, daughter of Elysium, drunk with ﬁre, we enter, Divinity, your sacred shrine. Be embraced, ye millions! This kiss is for the entire world! Do you bow down, ye millions? Do you sense the Creator, World? Seek Him above the canopy of stars! Brothers! Brothers! Above the canopy of stars surely a loving Father dwells.

QUARTET AND CHORUS Freude, Tochter aus Elysium, deine Zauber binden wieder was die Mode streng geteilt; alle Menschen werden Brüder wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt! Brüder, über’m Sternenzelt muss ein lieber Vater wohnen. Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium!

Joy, daughter of Elysium, Your magic again unites all that custom harshly tore apart; all men become brothers beneath your gentle hovering wing. Be embraced, ye millions! This kiss is for the entire world! Brothers, above the canopy of stars surely a loving Father dwells. Joy, brilliant spark of the gods, daughter of Elysium!

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 55

JULY 4 • RIVERBEND

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

At the movies

WITH THE

Tickets on sale JULY 4, 2022

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast SEP 10, 2022 SAT 2 pm SEP 11, 2022 SUN 2 pm

Kids’ Tickets

Star Wars: The Force Awakens DEC 29, 2022 THU 7:30 pm DEC 30, 2022 FRI 7:30 pm

OFF Kids’ Tickets

Marvel’s Black Panther MAR 10, 2023 FRI 7:30 pm MAR 11, 2023 SAT 7:30 pm MAR 12, 2023 SUN 2 pm

cincinnatipops.org • 513.381.3300 John Morris Russell Pops Conductor 56 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

OFF Kids’ Tickets

SPECIAL THANKS

GIVE THE GIFT OF MAY FESTIVAL MUSIC MAY FESTIVAL CHORAL STUDENT FUND

The May Festival Choral Student Fund has been established to provide local high school and college students who are enrolled in their school choirs the opportunity to experience the thrill of May Festival performances. This year, contributions to the student ticket fund were given by: Mr. and Mrs. Randolph L. Krumm Dr. Melvyn and Mrs. Lois Nizny Mr. Charles A. Wilkinson

TO GIVE THE GIFT OF MUSIC…

Please make your check payable to Cincinnati Musical Festival Association and mail to Gift Ticket Funds—May Festival, 1241 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202. A gift acknowledgement will be sent on your behalf. Donations are tax deductible. For information please call the May Festival office at 513.621.1919.

The May Festival thanks the following for their generous support: Christina Miller Christine Wands Cincinnati Ballet Cincinnati Opera Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Choral Studies— Joe Miller Covington Latin School First Unitarian Church Friends of Music Hall Jane Gavin Katherine Jennings Knox Presbyterian Church Hilary Landwehr Liz McGahey Earl Rivers Dr. Jen Smith, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Kirsten Smith TriHealth

TRIBUTE GIFTS The May Festival is honored to recognize the following individuals whose choral music work and legacy have inspired others to contribute to our community of singers between January 1, 2021 and April 1, 2022. In memory of Charles Bretz Mr. Gary Mitchner In honor of Scott Brody Marsha and Alan Brody In memory of Michele L. Catinna Kirk Catinna In memory of Leland M. Cole Carol C. Cole In honor of Sara Couden Mrs. Toby Risman In memory of Angie Eynon Dr. and Mrs. Calvin C. Linneman In memory of Wayne Fisher Kathy and Craig Rambo In honor of H. Jane Gavin Mr. and Mrs. Randolph L. Krumm Mr. and Mrs. Scott Q. Nesbitt In memory of Jerry L. Greer Mr. Mark Carney and Mrs. Janet Greer-Carney Anita Marie Greer In memory of James H. Johnsen Mr. and Mrs. G. Dennis Acomb Mrs. Mary Amend Richard Baker Mrs. Carolyn J. Bretz Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Burdin Jeanette Byrne Letitia Gemmill and Alan M. Gemmill James F. and Dinah M. Gemmill

John Gemmill Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church Brian, Elizabeth, and Daniel Gorrell Robert Greenawalt Ms. Shari Hammel Mr. and Mrs. C. Kent Hutchinson Ms. Lynn N. Matson Mrs. Gloria A. Metz Michael and Stacy Nelson Chris and Angie Philpott Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Rothwell

In memory of David R. Schieve The Schieve Family

In memory of Mary Ann Meanwell Rhoda and John Brooks Mr. and Mrs. John. J. Sullivan

In honor of Steven Sunderman Ginger and David Warner

In memory of Nancye Moncrief Phillips Mr. and Mrs. Michael E. Phillips In honor of Robert Porco Lauren and Richard Hess Robert Jenkins Mr. James Stark, Jr. Dr. Matthew Swanson Carmen-Helena Tellez Allen White Rosanne Wetzel In honor of Linda P. Ross Dr. and Mrs. Joseph B. Ross In memory of Cynthia P. Scanio Milt and Berdie Blersch Anita L. Freeman Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Goldman Mrs. Gloria A. Metz James E. & Mary Russell Mr. and Mrs. Charles Scanio Dr. Joseph J. Scanio Jane A. Walker

In memory of Sue Ann Seevers Jenifer Lynn Klostermeier In honor of Kathleen A. Schubert Anonymous James P. Schubert In memory of Ethan B. Stanley, II Mrs. Oliver L. Baily

In honor of Matthew Swanson David and Elaine Billmire Dawn and Doug Bruestle Mr. John Krug In honor of Rosanne Wetzel Rozelia Park and Christopher Dendy In honor of Joe White Caroline H. Davidson In honor of Dr. James Arthur Willliams Prof. William Henry Caldwell In memory of Dean Wochner Amie Taylor Ann Packard In memory of Dale T. Zeiger Todd and Jill Zeiger

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 57

CINCINNATI MUSICAL FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS Officers Christy Horan, Chair Mike Curran, Vice-Chair Anthony Lazzeri, Treasurer Mary Stucky, Secretary Eric Combs, Immediate Past Chair Directors Helene Bentley David Boyles William Henry Caldwell Chris Canarie Melanie M. Chavez Teresa F. Ernst, PharmD Barbara Feldmann

Mary Monahan Gimpel J. Mark Holcomb Dr. David A. Huelsman Isaiah Hyman, Jr. Thomas Kirkpatrick Robert K. Lomax Rene McPhedran Patricia Misrach Manisha Patel, MD Kathleen Rambo Ruthann Sammarco Eileen Stanisic Kelly Willbrandt Jeannine Winkelmann Shelby O. Wood

Directors Emeriti Susan S. Laffoon Geraldine B. Warner Honorary Director Steven Monder Advisory Committee (Past Chairs) Rhoda A. Brooks Melanie M. Chavez Eric K. Combs Nancy Heffner Donovan Kelley J. Downing Gregory L. Ebel

Jerold A. Fink J. Mark Holcomb Susan S. Laffoon Sherie Lynch Marek Charles S. Mechem Thomas L. Neyer, Jr. Charles Powers Carole Tyler Rigaud J. Shane Starkey Robert E. Stautberg Timothy E. Stautberg Gust Totlis Ronald H. Yocum

Cincinnati Musical Festival Association Mission, Vision and Values MISSION We exist to engage, energize and connect our community with the highest quality performances of great choral music.

VISION We are the most exciting force in the choral world. We are a leader and catalyst in the production, presentation and promotion of choral activities in our region and around the globe.

VALUES We believe in fostering choral music of the highest artistic standards; preserving the history, enhancing the present and embracing the future of choral music; cultivating diverse audiences, choirs and singers who are passionate about choral music; operating in a ﬁnancially sound manner.

2022 ARTSWAVE PARTNERS The May Festival acknowledges the following Partner Companies, Foundations and their employees who generously participate in the Annual ArtsWave Community Campaign at the $100,000+ level. Your support helps make our community vibrant and connects people all across our region through the arts. Thank you! *includes in-kind support

STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE For over 120 years, Willis Music and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra have been serving the Greater Cincinnati area with music, culture and music education.

STEINWAY.CINCINNATI.COM Willis Music Kenwood Galleria 8118 Montgomery Road Cincinnati, OH 45236 (513) 252-0445

58 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

P&G Fifth Third Bank and the Fifth Third Foundation GE Aviation Cincinnati Bell Western & Southern Financial Group Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center The Cincinnati Insurance Companies City of Cincinnati Enquirer Media Great American Insurance Group Ohio National Financial Services U.S. Bank The H.B., E.W. and F. R. Luther Charitable Foundation, Fifth Third Bank and Narley L. Haley, Co-Trustees Macy’s Cincinnati Business Courier The Kroger Co. PNC The E.W. Scripps Company and Scripps Howard Foundation Duke Energy HORAN Cincinnati Reds

Year after year, ever since its founding, the May Festival presents the greatest choral music ever written. You may play a part in this unique tradition and help to ensure our mission—for the next 150 years—by including the May Festival in your estate plans. Supporters and friends who have made a gift to the May Festival through their estate plans are eligible to join The Festival Society. If you are already a member, we thank you; if not, we hope you’ll consider taking this step. You will assure that the May Festival continues to maintain its reputation for excellence as the “Best Classical Music Festival in the U.S. and Canada” (BBC Music Magazine, May 2021). Mr. & Mrs. Oliver Baily Ms. Henrietta Barlag Mr. & Mrs. Alexander Brockmeier Barbara Ann Feldmann H. Jane Gavin Mary & Jack Gimpel Margaret E. Hagar Morton & Barbara Harshman Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius W. Hauck Christy & Terry Horan William J. & Miriam B. Hyde Winifred Beam Kessler

Susan S. Laffoon Thomas & Adele Lippert Anne M. Pohl Susan G. Stanton Nancy Steman Bill and Lee Steenken Brett A. Stover Steven Sunderman Christine Wands Allen P. Weirick Jeannine & John C. Winkelmann, MD Anonymous (21)

For more information about including the May Festival in your estate plans, please contact Steven Sunderman at 513.744.3248. If you have already remembered the May Festival with a planned gift, please let us know so we can recognize you as you wish.

SOMEONE is sitting in the shade today because SOMEONE planted a tree a long time ago. —Warren Buffett

ANNUAL FUND Founded in 1873 from the proud German choral traditions of singing societies, May Festival’s extraordinary artistic excellence has earned us the reputation over the past 150 years as one of the most prestigious choral festivals in the Western Hemisphere. In May 2021, BBC Music Magazine recognized us as one of the “Best Classical Music Festivals in the U.S. and Canada.” This uniquely Cincinnati experience is made possible each year with support from people like you, whom we proudly welcome to the May Festival family. Your investments ensure that Cincinnati’s Chorus (made up of more than 120 volunteer singers) continues to engage, energize and connect our community with unparalleled performances of great choral music for another 150 years. Gifts to the Annual Fund also support the May Festival Youth Chorus and the Cincinnati Choral Academy—two initiatives that use the power of music to inspire young singers. Each year the May Festival directs over 80% of its budget toward artistic and educational programming through the contributions of donors like you. Join the May Festival family today and support these passionate, beautiful and inspiring performances by making a gift: • Send a check made out to the May Festival to 1241 Elm Street, Cincinnati OH 45202 • Contact Cat Dixon, Director of Advancement and Engagement, at 513.744.3321 or cdixon@mayfestival.com • Make your gift securely online at www.mayfestival.com The Cincinnati Musical Festival Association is a 501(c)3 charitable organization, and contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by the law. Thank you to the following donors for sharing their love of choral music, and the power of the May Festival, with your community, and for making our region a better, more vibrant, exciting and inspiring place to live! CHORUS LEVEL

Gifts of $10,000 and above ArtsWave Trish and Rick Bryan The Thomas W. Busse Charitable Trust Chavez Properties The Corbett May Festival Fund Barbara Ann Feldmann Fort Washington Investment Advisors The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation Christy and Terry Horan Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation The H.B., E.W. and F. R. Luther Charitable Foundation National Endowment for the Arts Ohio Arts Council Louise Taft Semple Foundation Ginger and David Warner The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation

ENSEMBLE LEVEL

Gifts of $7,500–$9,999 Patrons Robert A. Atterton Gifts of $5,000–$7,499 John G. Avril Mrs. Oliver L. Baily Chris and Beth Canarie Drs. Manisha Patel and Michael Curran Ann Ellison John C. Griswold Foundation M. Drue Lehmann Kathy and Craig Rambo The Ladislas & Vilma Segoe Family Foundation

CHORALE LEVEL

Gifts of $4,000–$4,999 Patrons Cincinnati International Wine Festival Mrs. Karolyn L. Johnsen Gifts of $2,500–$3,999 David and Elaine Billmire Eric and Jane Combs Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ernst 60 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

Mary and Jack Gimpel Laskey Charitable Fund Sherie Lynch Marek Christine E. Neyer Irwin and Melinda Simon Mr. and Mrs. Slobodan Stanisic Margaret and Michael Valentine Joe White Shelby O. Wood

SOLOIST LEVEL

Gifts of $2,000–$2,499 Patrons Karen and David Huelsman Tom and Sue Kirkpatrick Mr. & Mrs. Richard I. Lauf Matinee Musicale Club Karen and William McKim David and Vicky Motch Motch Family Foundation Dr. Melvyn and Mrs. Lois Nizny Dr. and Mrs. G. James Sammarco Sally and Jerry Skidmore Gifts of $1,000–$1,999 Anonymous Jeff and Keiko Alexander Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Bierer Prof. William Henry Caldwell Melanie Chavez Ashley and Barbara Ford Dr. and Mrs. Jack Hahn Sherry and Mark Holcomb Isaiah Hyman Linda Busken and Andrew MacAoidh Jergens Susan Laffoon Mr. Anthony Lazzeri Mary Ann Meanwell Patricia Misrach Poul D. and JoAnne Pedersen Ellen Rieveschl Bill and Lee Steenken Steven R. Sunderman and Mark C. Adams St. Rose Church Jeannine and John C. Winkelmann, MD

DUO LEVEL

Gifts of $750–$999 Patrons Rhoda and John Brooks Hixson Architecture Engineering Interiors Rev. Anne Warrington Wilson Gifts of $500–$749 Anonymous (4) Milt and Berdie Blersch Mr. & Mrs. Tom Bosse William L. Budde, PhD Kirk Catinna Michael L. Cioffi & Rachael Rowe Mark Dauner Caroline H. Davidson Rozelia Park and Christopher Dendy Cat and Stan Dixon Nancy and Steve Donovan Susan Friedlander Ms. Jane Garvey and Mr. John Lanier Charles and Barbara Glueck Drew Gores and George Warrington Spence Ingerson Kathleen B. and Michael C. Krug* Elizabeth Lilly* Thomas J. and Adele G. Lippert* Edmund Lyon Dr. Janet P. McDaniel Mrs. Rene McPhedran Mrs. Gloria A. Metz Dan and Jennifer Moak Christine and Richard Monteﬁore Linda Mueller The Saenger Family Foundation The Schieve Family James P. Schubert Mrs. Elizabeth B. Schulenberg Jane A. Walker

TRIO LEVEL

Gifts of $400–$499 Patrons Anonymous Helene Sullivan Bentley Margaret E. Hagar Barry Zaslow

ANNUAL FUND

Gifts of $300–$399 Mr. and Mrs. Prescott Bigelow David Brashear Shelley and Steven Goldstein Dr. and Mrs. Calvin C. Linneman Daniel and Irene Randolph Carol J. Schroeder Mr. Jeffrey Slattery Stegman Family Fund*

QUARTET LEVEL

Gifts of $200–$299 Patrons Anonymous (3) Christine O. Adams Pete and Melanie Boylan Mr. David R. Boyles and Mr. David Castillo Marsha and Alan Brody Mr. Mark Carney and Mrs. Janet Greer-Carney Carol C. Cole Thomas and Sondra Copanas Steven and Donna Dauterman Jean Hope Davison Stephen and Cynthia DeHoff Edy and David Dreith Barbara Erskine Barbara Esposito-Ilacqua Mr. and Mrs. Carl R. Fiora Robert and Anne Judd Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Kilfoil Scott and Carol Kosarko Mitchel and Carol Livingston Network for Good Judge Mark and Sue Ann Painter Dr. and Mrs. Richard E. Park Stephen Phillips Mr. and Mrs. Charles Scanio Ms. Barbara Seiver John M. Shepherd Kenneth and Alice Skirtz Marian P. Stapleton Mrs. Cynthia M. Starr Bob and Nancy Stautberg Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Stucky Amie Taylor David and Christine Thornbury Dean and Mary Watkins Mark and Jennifer Weaver Mr. and Mrs. Gary West Robert and Judy Wilson Karen Wiltsie Gordon Yasinow Todd and Jill Zeiger Gifts of $100–$199 Anonymous (4) Mr. and Mrs. G. Dennis Acomb Drs. Frank and Mary Albers Kathryn and Kevin Albertson Mr. and Mrs. Todd Bailey Gerard Baillely Henrietta Barlag Ms. Valerie Bell Dr. Allen W. Bernard Ms. Laurie Boisclair Rev. James A. Bramlage Donald and Kathleen Field Burns Ms. Renee Cifuentes Dr. George I. Colombel Mr. and Mrs. Ken Comer Mr. and Mrs. Gene F. Conway Lynne Curtiss Keith and Penni Dale Mr. and Mrs. Vito Damiano Mr. and Mrs. William O. DeWitt, Jr. Ms. Jennifer Drydyk Roger and Mary Jo Duvall Ren and Christina Egbert Turney Berry and Kendra Foster Anita L. Freeman Letitia Gemmill and Alan M. Gemmill

James F. and Dinah M. Gemmill John Gemmill Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church Mr. Tom Godell Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Goldman Anita Greer & William Gatian Ms. Melissa Haas John Andrew Hadley Carl and Barbara Harcourt Jean Hengelbrok Carl and Bonnie Hosea Marie F. Hurd Jeanine Jason Robert Jenkins Paul and Mary Jenks Marlene Johnson Jerry N. Kirby, M.D. Mary and John Kmet Ed and Judy Krautter Mr. John Krug Mel and John Kuempel Ronald C. Lamping Ms. Jane Lewin Mr. and Mrs. Peter Loomis David Mason Mr. Randolph McAusland Catherine McGraw Mr. and Mrs. Fred Moore Tim and Jean Muetzel Dr. and Mrs. Charles M. Myer III Terry and Jill Parsons Drs. Michael Privitera and Marcia Kaplan Joseph Raterman Connie Raub Mrs. Carole T. Rigaud Sandra Rivers Terry and Burr Robinson James E. & Mary Russell Dr. and Mrs. Rees W. Sheppard Ms. Deborah Simpson Sam and Dottie Stover Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Stradling Dr. Steve and Rev. Kristie Stricker Carmen-Helena Tellez James L. Thompson Janet G. Todd Dr. Ilsa van der Bent Jim and George Ann Wesner Rosanne Wetzel Stephen and Amy Whitlatch Ronna and James Willis John M. Yacher

SHAREHOLDER LEVEL

Gifts of $75–$99 Patrons Anonymous Dr. Ralph P. Brown Sarah Hawkins James N. Kaya and Ms. Debra Grauel Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence H. Kyte, Jr. Matthew Matson

Mr. and Mrs. Scott Q. Nesbitt themusicminions Mr. James Stark, Jr. Gifts of $50–$74 Anonymous (3) Mr. and Mrs. Frank Albi Tracey Bailey Richard Baker Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Beimesch Fred Berger Mrs. Barb Brown Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Burdin Jeanette Byrne Dr. C.J. and Carolyn Condorodis Ronda Deel Brian, Elizabeth, and Daniel Gorrell Mr. Barry L. Green Ms. Shari Hammel Lauren and Richard Hess Daniel J. Hoffheimer Mr. Barry Kassen Mr. and Mrs. Randolph L. Krumm Bob and Judy LaChance Ms. Megan Lawson David Martin Ms. Brenda Mitchell Michael and Stacy Nelson Chris and Angie Philpott Mrs. Norita D. Aplin and Mr. Stanley H. Ragle Ms. Nancy Richardson Steven and Emily Riedell Mrs. Toby Risman Dr. and Mrs. Joseph B. Ross Mr. and Mrs. Peter Savu John C. Serrage, MD Mr. Eli Shupe and Toby Ruben Elizabeth A. Snyder Mr. and Mrs. John J. Sullivan Patia Tabar Debbie and Dick Westheimer Allen White Bill Wolins * Denotes contributions received via the Greater Cincinnati Foundation The Cincinnati Musical Festival Association is also grateful to the many individuals who made donations of less than $50 whose names could not be listed due to space limitations. This list represents donations received between January 1, 2021 and April 1, 2022. Gifts received after this date will be recognized in future May Festival listings. To request a change to your listing, please reach out to Cat Dixon, Director of Advancement & Engagement at cdixon@mayfestival.com

ARTISTS & REPERTOIRE HISTORY You can browse a comprehensive list of May Festival repertoire and featured artists who have graced the Music Hall stage at mayfestival.com/about/history.

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 61

WE APPLAUD OUR LOYAL SUBSCRIBERS! Welcome and thank you to every audience member for supporting great music and the unique Cincinnati tradition that is the May Festival. Thank you especially to our subscribers. Whether it’s your ﬁrst or your 50th-plus season, your ongoing support makes these performances possible and enables us to engage and uplift the people of Greater Cincinnati.

List as of April 11, 2022

If your name is inadvertently missing or listed incorrectly, please call us at 513.381.3300 or email contact@mayfestival.com. 50+ YEARS David and M. Elaine Billmire Mrs. Florette B. Hoffheimer Mr. Isaiah Hyman, Jr. 25–49 YEARS Ms. Henrietta Barlag Mr. Michael Battersby Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Bierer Mr. and Mrs. John R. Brooks Mr. and Mrs. Frederick E. Bryan, III Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Burdin Donald L. and Kathleen Field Burns The Castellini Foundation Cincinnati Financial Corporation Mr. Mel Cohen Dr. George I. Colombel Mr. and Mrs. Stephen P. Donovan, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Harold K. Eberenz Mr. John Ellmore Ms. Barbara A. Feldmann Mr. Thomas Price Ferrell Mr. and Mrs. Ashley L. Ford Ms. Jane Garvey and Mr. John Lanier Steven and Shelley Goldstein Mr. Don Gray

Ms. Anita Marie Greer Mr. and Mrs. James W. Harper Mr. and Mrs. Irving Harris Mr. John L. Harrison Mr. Michael H. Hirsch Ms. Emily M. Hodges Mr. and Mrs. Andrew M. Jergens Mr. and Mrs. Randy Johnson Ms. Dorothyann Feldis Mr. and Mrs. Michael C. Krug Ms. Carol Louise Kruse Susan S. Laffoon Mr. Ronald C. Lamping Mr. Walter E. Langsam Mr. and Mrs. Richard I. Lauf Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Lippert Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan R. Lippincott Ms. Sally A. Lund Mr. Lon Mendelsohn Ms. Lynn Miller Mrs. Patricia C. Misrach Mr. Gary Mitchner Mr. Harry G. Moeller Mr. and Mrs. David W. Motch Mr. and Mrs. Thomas L. Neyer, Sr. Dr. and Mrs. Alan E. Oestreich

Dr. Cora K. Ogle Mr. and Mrs. Poul D. Pedersen Ms. Priscilla J. Prouty Mr. Joseph W. Raterman Dr. and Mrs. G. James Sammarco Mrs. Germaine L. Santos Dr. Joseph J. Scanio Ms. Carol J. Schroeder Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Skirtz Ms. Jean D. Snyder Ms. Karen H. Stewart Mr. Brett A. Stover Samuel M. Stover James L. Thompson Mrs. Helga Tillinghast Ms. Debbie Bogenschutz and Mr. Harold Tucker Frederick and Jo Anne Warren Mr. and Mrs. Richard Wayman 10–24 YEARS Mrs. Christine O. Adams Dr. and Mrs. Khosrow Alamin Jimmy E. Antia and Ms. Pheruza P. Tarapore Richard and Nancy Arnest

62 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

SUBSCRIBERS

Dr. Paule S. Asch Mr. and Mrs. John Bentley Ms. Dava L. Biehl Mr. Neil K Bortz Mr. Thomas A. Braun III Mr. and Mrs. Don H. Brown Ms. Nina S. Campbell Mr and Mrs. Christopher Canarie Mr. Victor Canﬁeld and Mr. Richard Sacksteder Ms. Melanie M. Chavez Mr. Michael L. Cioffi Ms. S. DeAnne Cleghorn Ms. Melissa Cox Mr. and Mrs. Steven Dauterman Mr. and Mrs.Thomas J. Davis Ms. Karolyn Schalk Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Elifrits Mr. Daniel Epstein Mr. and Mrs. Carl R. Fiora Mr. and Mrs. Jon T. Gimpel Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Givens Mr. George H. Warrington Connie and Karl Graham Dr. and Mrs. Jack A. Hahn Mr. Dale E. Harris Mr. Philip E. Hawkins Mr. and Mrs. William C. Hill Mr. Randy E. Hirtzel Karen and David Huelsman Mr. and Mrs. Dale Johnson Dr. and Mrs. Robert S. Jolson Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Kirkpatrick Mr. and Mrs. Jack Klette Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Klinedinst III Mr. and Mrs. Scott Kosarko Ms. Kathryn S. Lang Mrs. Sooncha Lee

Mr. and Mrs. John Lund Kathy and Brad Mank Mrs. Judith Martin Mr. Randolph McAusland Dr. Janet P. McDaniel Ms. Nancy McNeal Mr. and Mrs. Donald D. Mills Mr. and Mrs. James Nicholson Lois and Mel Nizny, MD Mr. and Mrs. Joe Orndorff Mr. and Mrs. Justin Peter Mr. and Mrs. Michael E. Phillips Ms. Roxanne Qualls Mr. Michael E. Rademacher Mr. and Mrs. Jason N. Ramler Ms. Gale Z. Roberts Mr. Chuck E. Seal Irwin and Melinda Simon Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Skidmore Mr. Jeffrey Slattery Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Stautberg Mr. and Mrs. William G. Steenken Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Stradling Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Stucky Mr. Phil E. Tworek Mr. and Mrs. E. Dieter van der Bent Mr. and Mrs. Mark Weaver Charles A. Wilkinson Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Williams Dean and Susan Windgassen Dr. and Mrs. John C. Winkelmann Ms. Jane Wittke Mrs. Shelby O. Wood 1–9 YEARS Dr. Jeffrey T. Baker Mr. Jeffrey Berry Mrs. Berdie Blersch

Mr. and Mrs. Otto M. Budig, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Christopher P. Dendy Mr. and Mrs. John G. Earls Mr. Shane Edington Mr. and Mrs. Deborah P. Ellis Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Ernst Mr. Lyon Gleich Ms. Marcia Hartsock Mr. and Mrs. James P. Healy Mr. and Mrs. John Hehman Mr. and Mrs. Terence Horan Mr. Henry Huber Mr. Jeff Johnson Ms. Mary-Elizabeth Keefe Mr. Robert A. Kercheval, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. John Kerr Mr. and Mrs. Kent P. Lyle Mr. David L. Martin Ron Matson Mrs. Rene McPhedran Mr. and Mrs. John P. Meyer Ms. Susanne E. Monteith Mr. Paul Neumann Mr. and Mrs. Roy Newman Dr. Manisha Patel and Dr. Michael Curran Dr. Michael D. Privitera Ms. Cindy Scheets Mrs. Ann Schoen Mr. and Mrs. Bruce M. Sherwood Mrs. Cynthia M. Starr Mrs. Diana Stoppiello Mr. and Mrs. Donald J. Swikert Mr. David Tsevat Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Works Mr. John M. Yacher

MAY FESTIVAL CONCERTS ON WGUC Tune in to WGUC 90.9 FM on Sunday evenings in October to hear all ﬁve May Festival concerts once again. All broadcasts begin at 8 p.m. Here’s the schedule: October 2: John Adams Conducts El Niño October 9: Leonard Bernstein’s Candide October 16: Juanjo Mena Conducts South American Epics October 23: Montgomery + Beethoven No. 9 October 30: May Festival at the Basilica

MAY FESTIVAL 2022 | 63

MAY FESTIVAL ADMINISTRATION The May Festival, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Vocal Arts Ensemble operate under an administrative shared services agreement. By the consolidation of resources and expertise, this cooperative management effort beneﬁts all organizations. OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT & CEO Jonathan Martin President & CEO

Digital Content & Innovation KC Commander Director of Digital Content & Innovation

Andrea Maisonpierre Hessel Executive Assistant

Lee Snow Digital Content Technology Manager

Deborah Benjamin Accounting Clerk

Corinne Wiseman Digital Content Manager

Sydney Mucha Accounting Clerk

Kaitlyn Driesen Digital Production Manager

Data Services Sharon D. Grayton Data Services Manager

MAY FESTIVAL Steven R. Sunderman Executive Director Cat Dixon Director of Advancement & Engagement Matthew Swanson Associate Director of Choruses Kathryn Zajac Albertson Chorus Manager Edy Dreith Administrative Assistant Bryce Newcomer Chorus Librarian ARTISTIC PLANNING & PRODUCTION Robert McGrath Chief Operating Officer Shannon Faith Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer Artistic Planning Nate Bachhuber Vice President of Artistic Planning Kristin Hill Assistant, Artistic Planning and Music Director Sam Strater Senior Advisor for Cincinnati Pops Planning Marissa Goodman Manager, Artistic Administration and Special Projects Olivia Cleri Artistic Planning Intern Production Paul Pietrowski Vice President of Orchestra & Production

COMMUNICATIONS Felecia Tchen Kanney Vice President of Communications Tyler Secor Communications Content Manager

Tara Williams Data Services Manager Kathleen Curry Data Entry Clerk

Charlie Balcom Social Media Manager Liz Donges Communications Intern

Megan Inderbitzin-Tsai Payroll Manager

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT | DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION Harold Brown The Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer

Jenny Ryan Human Resources Manager

Tiffany Cooper Director of Community Engagement and Diversity Amanda Franklin Community Engagement Manager Ian McIntyre Volunteer & Community Engagement Coordinator

Natalia Lerzundi Payroll Specialist MARKETING Michael Frisco Vice President of Marketing M. Todd Bezold Director of Marketing Stephen Howson Director of Web and Audience Insight

Jon Dellinger Copywriter/Marketing Manager Stephanie Lazorchak Graphic Designer Amber Ostaszewski Director of Audience Engagement Michelle Lewandowski Director of Sales Nic Bizub Group Sales Manager Kyle Lamb Box Office Manager Carmen Granger Assistant Box Office Manager PATRON SERVICES Supervisors Sean Bussell Ellisen Blair Hannah Kaiser Abigail Karr Representatives Daria Denysenko Brandon Dodge Grace Kim Hayley Maloney Wendy Marshall Eva Reyes-Smith Laura Ruple Emily Schaub Aspen Stein Administrative Offices: Music Hall, 1241 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202 Box Office: 513.381.3300 | contact@mayfestival.com

Camryn Morrow Community Engagement Intern FINANCE & DATA SERVICES Richard Freshwater Vice President & Chief Financial Officer Finance Kristina Pfeiffer Director of Finance, CSO Elizabeth Engwall Accounting Manager

Alex Magg Production Manager, CSO & May Festival

Judy Mosely Accounting Clerk

64 | MAY FESTIVAL 2022

Samantha Graham Accounting Manager

HUMAN RESOURCES Kyle Wynk-Sivashankar Vice President of Human Resources

Laura Adams Director of Operations

Carlos Javier Production Manager, Pops

Marijane Klug Accounting Manager

Monica Putnick Director of Finance, MEMI

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Cincinnati Fanfare - May Festival 2022

Articles inside

Administration

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

May Festival Subscribers

JUANJO MENA CONDUCTS SOUTH

Annual Fund

BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE: Sunday, May 22

JOHN ADAMS CONDUCTS EL NIÑO

Choral Student Fund, Special Thanks Tribute Gifts

Chorus Leadership: Robert Porco Director of Choruses; Matthew Swanson, Associate Director of Choruses

May Festival Chorus

Spotlight: Celebrating 35 Years of the May Festival Youth Chorus

Spotlight: May Festival Chorus The Experience Behind the Stage

Sidebars: Conversations with John Adams, composer and conductor, and Jessie Montgomery, composer

Juanjo Mena, Principal Conductor

50 MONTGOMERY + BEETHOVEN NO

Greetings from the Board Chair and Executive Director

Cover Story: Finally, a May Festival in Full Bloom

Friday, May