Not so long ago it was rare to see a woman leading a major orchestra, let alone two women appearing on the same podium a week apart, but in November a pair of well-traveled maestras make their Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debuts, each bringing a musical treasure from her adopted country.
One thing that makes Cincinnati Pops concerts unique is the Orchestra’s ability to take well-loved and time-honored music and render it entirely new. Three upcoming Pops programs—Get Happy: Judy Garland Centennial, Holiday Pops featuring the Annie Moses Band, and New Year’s Eve: Billie Holiday Songbook—offer up beloved and cross-generational music made new through the magic of the Pops and incomparable guest artists.
Time flies when we’re in the midst of our concert season, and for this season in particular, the first full season since the onset of the pandemic, that is certainly no different.
Tour the United States through music in Lollipops: Postcards Across America! This “road trip” includes visits to the Shenandoah Valley, the Rocky Mountains and the California coast—and, of course, a trip back home to the mighty Ohio. Along the way, you’ll see the country’s most magnificent landscapes through drone footage shown on screen.
Whatever resources Gustav Holst had at his disposal when he began composing The Planets in 1914, they didn’t include computerized telescopes or astrophotography. If his imagination was sparked by telescopes at all, they were probably more like those of the Cincinnati Observatory, whose 11-inch Merz and Mahler refractor from 1845 is the oldest working telescope in this hemisphere.
When he was first invited to become Principal Conductor of the Cincinnati May Festival, Juanjo Mena began studying its past programming extensively. “I asked to see a full list of the Festival’s repertory—not just the past 10 or 15 years they initially sent, but everything the Festival has done since 1873,” he recalls. “Did you know the May Festival did the U.S. premiere of Bach’s Magnificat? Or Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum?”
In June of 2022, what would typically be a sleepy summer week on Miami University’s campus in Oxford, OH was shaken to life by a new sound ringing out from the Center of Performing Arts. That sound—the brilliant voices of 25 high school and young professional brass players—marked the inaugural season of a partnership between Miami University and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO).
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra welcomes several new faces to the stage this season. Over the next few issues of Fanfare Magazine, we’ll learn more about each of these talented new members of the Orchestra.
View the full issue of Fanfare Magazine.