This Midnight Hour

Credit: Jennifer Taylor

• Born: March 9, 1980 in London, United Kingdom
• Work Composed: 2015
• Premiere: November 13, 2015, Théâtre Espace Coluche, Plaisir Orchestre national d’Île de France, Enrique Mazzola conducting
• Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, crotales, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, vibraphone, strings
• CSO Notable Performances: This is the first CSO performance of the work. 
• Duration: approx. 12 minutes

The opening to This Midnight Hour is inspired by the character and power of the lower strings of L'Orchestre national d'Île-de-France. From here, it draws inspiration from two poems. Whilst it is not intended to depict a specific narrative, my intention is that it will evoke a visual journey for the listener.
—Anna Clyne

This Midnight Hour Poetry

¡La música;
—mujer desnuda,
corriendo loca por la noche pura!—
—Juan Ramón Jiménez

Music—
a naked woman,
running crazed through the pure night!

Harmonie du soir

Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!

Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.

Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige,
Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir;
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige.

Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir,
Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige!
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige...
Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir!
—Charles Baudelaire

Evening harmony

Now comes the time when, quivering on its stem,
Each flower sheds perfume like a censer;
Sounds and scents turn in the evening air;
Melancholy waltz and reeling languor!
Each flower sheds perfume like a censer;
The violin throbs like a wounded heart,
Melancholy waltz and reeling languor!
The sky is sad and beautiful like a great altar.
The violin throbs like a wounded heart,
A fond heart that loathes the vast black void!
The sky is sad and beautiful like a great altar.
The sun has drowned in its congealing blood.
A fond heart that loathes the vast black void
And garners in all the luminous past!
The sun has drowned in its congealing blood...
Your memory within me shines like a monstrance!

Translation © Richard Stokes, from A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000)
Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder (www.oxfordlieder.co.uk)

Concerto in E Minor for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 85

• Born: June 2, 1857 in Broadheath, near Worcester, England
• Died: February 23, 1934 in Worcester, England
• Work Composed: November 1918 – August 1919 and was completed on August 8, 1919
• Premiere:  October 27, 1919 with Elgar conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Felix Salmond, cello
• Instrumentation: solo cello, 2 flutes (incl. piccolo, optional), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba (optional), timpani, strings
• CSO Notable Performances: First Performance: November 1970, Erich Kunzel conducting; Jacqueline Du Pré, cellist. Most Recent Performance: October 2002, Robert Spano conducting; Steven Isserlis, cellist
• Duration: approx. 30 minutes

Elgar visited the United States, where he was lavishly entertained and honored by Yale University. When Elgar received an honorary degree from Yale in 1905, composition professor Horatio Parker played his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 on the organ. Thereby was born a tradition, still strong today, of playing that piece at graduation ceremonies.

While in New Haven, Elgar met Lawrence Maxwell, Jr., president of the Cincinnati May Festival, who had come to Yale to negotiate a guest appearance by the famous composer at the next festival. The late conductor Theodore Thomas had included several of Elgar’s choral works at the previous May Festival, and the new director, Frank Van der Stucken, who knew Elgar, wanted him to conduct his own music in 1906.

Elgar wanted a more than handsome fee, far in excess of what Van der Stucken had thought he would ever have to pay a composer. Elgar, whose wife had a penchant for living beyond their means, demanded a substantial salary because “my feelings are dead against coming here again, but my pocket gapes aloud.” A deal was made, and Elgar agreed to come to Cincinnati.

When he and his wife arrived here, they were treated royally. There were constant parties, and the press would not leave them alone. The Elgars did not appreciate all this attention. Alice Elgar wrote in exasperation in her diary, “People called and called—Mrs. Taft, Mrs. Fleischmann, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Longworth, etc., etc., etc.!” The composer complained about the heat and about the chorus. But the concerts were a huge success. There were all sold out, with the boxes in Music Hall auctioned off for vastly inflated prices. At the final concert, 800 standees were allowed in.

Elgar toured the Midwest again in 1911, this time without his wife. “Truly parts of the world are beastly,” he wrote home. “I detest every minute of my life here!” He called Cincinnati “this awful desert.”

While he was in U.S. in 1911, he received a letter from Buckingham Palace offering him the Order of Merit. The time had come for the composer and his wife to take their proper places in English society. They would have to move to London, and their home would have to be appropriately opulent. Alice Elgar was already house hunting by the time the composer returned to England.

Alice showed him a palatial home she wanted to buy in Hampstead, an elegant neighborhood of London. Edward who had simple tastes, knew he would miss living in the country. But the lure of London high society and culture persuaded him. The acquisition of the magnificent Severn House marked a triumphant return to London for the now widely recognized composer. That they were able to acquire the house was a victory for Alice—a victory over those who had never believed in her husband’s genius or who had never acknowledged that an English composer could be a success.

Edward knew that he had to work hard to compose and conduct a lot, in order to meet his mortgage payments and to support his family in the grand style all but demanded of a resident of Hampstead. He was willing to undertake numerous projects, but the exciting society Alice brought to Severn House left him little time or energy. The Elgars entertained some of the most prominent people in the musical world. Polish pianist-composer Ignace Paderewski, Siegfried Wagner (son of the composer Richard Wagner), Russian conductor Alexander Siloti, English conductor Hamilton Harty, and Russian singer Feodor Chaliapin were among the famous names who dines at Severn House. Elgar found himself attending Royal Academy dinners, sitting for a portrait, purchasing a billiard table, going to his club—but not composing. In the nine years he lived at Severn House, Elgar composed only one substantive work under its roof. All his other compositions written at Severn House were inconsequential trifles tossed off in order to pay the rent.

In 1918 Elgar had to undergo surgery for a septic tonsil, which had bothered him for years. It was while recovering that he jotted down what became the opening 9/8 theme of the Cello Concerto. But he was too weak for any extended involvement in composition. Instead, he immersed himself in reading, discovering—among other literature—the essays of the eccentric world traveler Lafcadio Hearn, who had lived in Cincinnati for some time.

As his health returned, Elgar’s passion for composing renewed itself—for the first time in five years and, as it turned out, for the last time. He went not to Severn House, where it was always difficult to work, but to a rented cottage in Sussex. There he worked on three large-scale chamber works in addition to the Cello Concerto.

Now it was Alice who was recovering from surgery. The composer complained to a friend, “A[lice]., poor dear, is not well and of course is bored to death while I am in the heaven of delight…. If I have to live again at Hampstead composition is ‘off’.… Telephone etc. all day and night drives me mad…. This is no home for me.” In November, while they were still in Sussex, Severn House was robbed (by, as it turned out, two policemen who had been asked to look after the house while the Elgars were away).

In the winter they returned to Hampstead. Edward managed to work on the concerto a little, but not much. Alice finally admitted that they could not afford to live in Hampstead. When their staircase needed painting, they had no money to hire a workman, so the composer did it; with her own hands Alice stored away logs for burning, because wood was cheaper than coal; when it was time to plant the spring flower bulbs, they did it themselves. No other couple in this posh neighborhood had to do their own housework. Furthermore, a neighbor had cut down some beautiful trees and was noisily building a garage right beneath the window of Edward’s study, making composition no longer just difficult but now impossible. They put the house on the market.

This was a difficult time. Prospective buyers traipsed through Severn House, disrupting the household. But there were no offers: in a time of postwar austerity, few people were able to afford an opulent prewar house that required a staff of servants to run it. Furthermore, because of inadequate rehearsal time, the Cello Concerto premiere was poorly played and therefore coolly received. Worst of all, Alice’s health began to fail. She maintained her interest in her husband’s career and in selling the house, but time was running out. She died on April 7, 1920. A year and a half later, the despondent Elgar moved permanently out of Severn House (which was demolished three years after his death) and into a flat: “I go forth into the world alone as I did 43 years ago—only I am disillusioned and old.” Although he was to live nearly 13 more years, Elgar never again composed any music of substance. The Cello Concerto became his last major work.

A challenge for the composer of any cello concerto is to keep the middle register of the solo instrument from being overpowered by the full orchestra. Having the orchestra play softly and alternating solo and orchestra are two obvious solutions, but they can hardly be used throughout a multi-movement piece. Elgar is usually more subtle. He allows both forces to play simultaneously, but he keeps other instruments away from the register where the cello is playing. The result is a rich sonority in which the cello can sing forth while the orchestra plays its own music.

After a recitative introduction for solo cello lightly accompanied, the tempo quickens as the violas, then the cello, play the 9/8 melody that Elgar first noted. This melody uses the same simple rhythmic figure—quarter note, eighth note—over and over again, yet the effect is neither obsession nor monotony but rather, because of subtle harmonies, a lyrical melancholy. The mood is withdrawn. Eventually a second idea appears, introduced by clarinets and bassoons alternating with strings. This material is rhythmically freer. Later in the movement Elgar skillfully combines these two themes’ different approaches to rhythm. Only at the very end does the simple rhythm return unadorned.

The opening cello recitative returns pizzicato to introduce the second movement. After several false starts, the music quickens into a scherzo that is almost a perpetuum mobile (perpetually moving), with the cello playing rapid sixteenth notes almost throughout. This shadowy and skittish movement takes the solo instrument into its highest register several times.

We might expect the emotional core of such an intimate yet elusive work to occur in the adagio, but the lyrical third movement is too brief. In its mere 60 measures the cello sings a soulful song, but we still await the emotional center.

Like the first and second movements, the finale begins with a cello recitative. This becomes a full-fledged cadenza before the music plunges into a march-like allegro. The fast music keeps slipping into despondency. An extended lento brings the music to a tragic intensity implied but never realized earlier. This poignant music lasts almost until the end, when brief reminiscences of the first movement’s introduction and the last movement’s march bring to a close this most beautiful of concertos.

Biographer Michael Kennedy perceptively sums up the special mood of the concerto: “It is sometimes said that this concerto is Elgar’s war requiem, but the phrase, accurate in some respects, needs clarification. He was an egocentric artist, and the requiem here is not so much for the dead in Flanders Fields as for the destruction of a way of life. With an artist’s vision, he saw that 1918 was the end of a civilization…. This requiem is not a cosmic utterance on behalf of mankind; it is wholly personal, the musical expression of his bitterness…. There is…only the voice of an aging, desolate man, a valediction to an era and to the powers of music that he knew were dying within him.”

—Jonathan D. Kramer

Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68

• Born: May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany
• Died: April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria
• Work Composed: completed in September 1876
• Premiere: November 4, 1876, in Karlsruhe under the baton of Felix Dessoff. Brahms himself conducted a performance in Mannheim three days later.
• Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings
• CSO Notable Performances: First Performance: March 1898, Frank Van der Stucken conducting. Most Recent Performance: on the fall 2017 European tour, Louis Langrée conducting. The CSO also performed this work on several tours throughout North America, including at Carnegie Hall in March of 1983, Michael Gielen conducting. This work has been conducted by every CSO music director.
• Duration: approx. 45 minutes

Brahms was only 20 years old and had written only a small amount of music—mostly chamber and piano compositions—when he received a press review of enviable praise. The reviewer was Robert Schumann. Schumann, finding not only genius but also promise in these early works, wrote, “If he will dip his magic wand where the powers of the choral and orchestral masses will lend him their strength, then there will appear before us even more wonderful glimpses into the secrets of the spiritual world.”

With this review Schumann laid a heavy burden on young Brahms. By mentioning choral and orchestral masses, the reviewer was clearly invoking Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Brahms, who had not yet written anything for orchestra, was being told—publicly—that he could, should and probably would take up where Beethoven had left off.

It was only a few weeks later that Brahms accepted the challenge. He began to compose a symphony in D minor. But he was not ready to tackle the enormous form in which Beethoven had excelled. Parts of this symphony eventually found their way into the German Requiem, other parts into the First Piano Concerto—a work that took Brahms five years to complete—but there is no symphony in D minor in Brahms’ catalog. During those five years he also wrote two serenades for small orchestra. He had decided to approach the orchestra gradually. The composition of a symphony would have to wait. After he had composed for small orchestra and for piano and orchestra, he wrote for chorus and orchestra. Finally, in 1873, he created the Variations on a Theme of Haydn, which began life as a two-piano work only subsequently to be orchestrated. Now at last he felt ready to start—and finish—a symphony.

Actually, some of the materials of the First Symphony had already been in existence for a number of years. Brahms had sent Clara Schumann a sketch of the first movement, minus its famous introduction, in 1862, and he had sent her a birthday song in 1868 using the horn theme from the finale. But it was only in 1876 that the composer completed the Symphony in C Minor. That was 22 years after Schumann’s review had prompted him to think about composing in symphonic form.

Why did it take Brahms so long to finish a symphony? The answer lies in the influence of Beethoven. As Schumann’s review implies, the figure of Beethoven loomed over the entire 19th century like that of Big Brother. He was studied, admired, misunderstood, emulated and canonized, not only by every composer, but also by other artists. The titanism of Beethoven, his image as the great liberator of art from the constraints of classicism, became a rallying cry for the self-consciously free spirit of romanticism.

The 19th-century view of Beethoven was necessarily colored by contemporary values. Most romantic composers failed to recognize the classicism that counterbalanced the fiery and temperamental side of Beethoven’s genius. The only composer who really understood the balance of classic and romantic in Beethoven was Brahms. Brahms was the proverbial wise man who feared to tread where fools rushed in. He knew what others failed to realize—that writing a free-spirited symphony was not a profound response to the implications of Beethoven’s music. Brahms would not allow himself superficial emulation of the Bonn master. It took Brahms 22 years to find a way to cope with the implications of his predecessor, to keep classicism and romanticism in balance and yet to remain original.

When the C Minor Symphony was first performed, conductor Hans von Bülow dubbed it “The Tenth,” thereby declaring Schumann’s prophecy fulfilled. Bülow recognized the affinity between the two great composers who, reaching across the intervening half century of romanticism, established contact as romantic classicists.

Brahms was also influenced by the romantic composers—Schubert, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Chopin, Weber, Schumann and even his “rivals” Wagner, Liszt and Bruckner. One result of this romantic influence was that Brahms’ classicism was more self-conscious than that of Beethoven. The First Symphony, for example, works on a tightly constructed musical logic, which is never quite spontaneous. Brahms was too self-critical to be spontaneous. A further aspect of romanticism that could not fail to touch Brahms was its brooding melancholy. Thus the First Symphony contains restless music, especially in its first movement.

Brahms was attempting an all-but-impossible task, that of living up to the genius of Beethoven. In 1870 he said, “I shall never compose a symphony! You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.” Yet he succeeded in becoming a symphonist; he did not recapture Beethoven, but in trying to do so he found himself.

Neither Brahms’ allegiance to the spirit of Beethoven nor his self-imposed classicism should be thought of as an inhibition to his creativity. The First Symphony is in many ways an original work, despite its adherence to traditional aesthetics and techniques. Consider, for example, the third movement. Brahms replaced the expected dance movement with a more abstract intermezzo. The minuet as symphonic third movement was a holdover from the baroque dance suite. It had served a useful purpose in a symphony, usually functioning as a lighter and simpler piece between a possibly sober slow movement and an often elaborate finale. This function could also be served by movements not derived from the dance, as Brahms realized. Thus the replacement of Haydn’s minuet and Beethoven’s scherzo with Brahms’ intermezzo was a stroke of originality that owed nothing to the past. The result was sufficiently satisfactory and interesting for Brahms to continue to include intermezzos in place of scherzos in nearly all of his subsequent four-movement symphonic works.

The exceptionally long introduction to the finale—as long as the entire intermezzo—is another original idea. This introduction contains material that is used in different parts of the ensuing finale: even the lyrical C major melody that opens the allegro is foreshadowed (in minor) near the beginning of the introduction. This introduction also belies the commonly heard complaint that Brahms was not an imaginative orchestrator. Here we find the composer using particularly beautiful orchestral colors in order to sustain interest in an uncommonly long introductory section. Some examples: the gradually accelerating pizzicato passage heard twice, the horn call with muted strings shimmering in the background and the trombone-bassoon chorale. Brahms was indeed capable of creating coloristic orchestration when the occasion demanded it.

It took Brahms 22 years to learn how to use the orchestra symphonically. That period was hardly an apprenticeship, considering the long list of fine works composed while he struggled to create a symphony. During those years he worked to tame and control his romanticism, to merge inspiration and intellect, to understand Beethoven deeply, and to mold his own symphonic thoughts. The result of this incredible struggle for self-discipline is undoubtedly the greatest first symphony ever composed.

—Jonathan D. Kramer

David Danzmayr is widely regarded as one of the most talented and exciting European conductors to emerge from his generation. Newly appointed as Music Director of the Oregon Symphony, Danzmayr began his tenure there at the start of the 2021–22 season.

Danzmayr also stands at the helm of the versatile and innovative ProMusica Chamber Orchestra Columbus—having been that ensemble’s Music Director for the past ten years— and he holds the title of Honorary Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, an orchestra with whom he served as Chief Conductor for four seasons, leading the Zagreb musicians on several European tours with acclaimed concerts in Salzburg and the Vienna Musikverein.

Earlier in his career, as Music Director of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra in Chicago, Danzmayr was lauded regularly by both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Classical Review for his performances, which featured a work by an American composer on every program.

Danzmayr is a prize-winner of some of the world´s most prestigious conducting competitions including the International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition and the International Malko Conducting Competition. He has also been awarded the Bernhard Paumgartner Medal by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum.

In recent years Danzmayr has carved out his niche as an interpreter of a wide array of repertoire, with appearances in recent seasons at the Minnesota Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, and the North Carolina Symphony among many others in North America.

Overseas Danzmayr has led the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Bamberg Symphony, the Sinfonieorchester Basel, the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, the Essener Philharmoniker, the Hamburger Symphoniker, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, the Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic, the Bruckner Orchester Linz, and the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Vienna and Stuttgart.

His widely acclaimed tenure as the Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow was the launch for a career that has seen him conduct in the major European concert halls—the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg, and Usher Hall Edinburgh as well as the St Magnus Festival in the Orkney Islands.

David Danzmayr received his musical training at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg where, after initially studying piano, he went on to study conducting in the class of Dennis Russell Davies. He finished his studies with the highest honours.

Danzmayr was also strongly influenced by Pierre Boulez and Claudio Abbado in his time as conducting stipendiate of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and by Leif Segerstam during his additional studies in the conducting class of the Sibelius Academy. Subsequently he gained significant experience as assistant to Neeme Järvi, Stephane Deneve, Carlos Kalmar, Sir Andrew Davis and Pierre Boulez, who entrusted Danzmayr with the preparatory rehearsals for his own music.

musicvinearts.com/david-danzmayr

Credit: Kaupo Kikkas

Having launched his career with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Semyon Bychkov in 1991, Alban Gerhardt has since gained recognition as one of the most versatile cellists, highly regarded for his performances, from solo Bach through the classical and romantic canon to collaborations with several contemporary composers.

For more than 30 years, he has made a unique impact on audiences worldwide with his intense musicality, compelling stage presence and insatiable artistic curiosity. His gift for shedding fresh light on familiar scores, along with his appetite for investigating new repertoire from centuries past and present, truly set him apart from his peers.

Notable orchestra collaborations include Concertgebouw Amsterdam, London Philharmonic, all of the British and German radio orchestras, Berliner Philharmoniker, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestre National de France as well as the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago symphony orchestras, under conductors such as Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christian Thielemann, Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski, Kirill Petrenko and Andris Nelsons.

Gerhardt recently premiered a new cello concerto by Julian Anderson with Orchestre National de France, following on from the success of his performances of Brett Dean’s concerto premiered with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Berliner Philharmoniker and played with the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. This season he performs the Anderson concerto with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and the Dean concerto with ORF Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien and London Philharmonic Orchestra. Gerhardt has a residency with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. He also performs with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Konzerthaus Berlin and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

Gerhardt has won several awards, and his recording of Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto, released by Deutsche Grammophon, won the BBC Music Magazine Award and was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2015. Gerhardt has recorded extensively for Hyperion; his recording of complete Bach suites was released in 2019 and was one of the Sunday Times’ top 100 CDs of the year (all genres included). His recent album, Shostakovich: Cello Concertos with the WDR Sinfonieorchester, Köln and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, was awarded the International Classical Music Award in 2021.

He is a keen chamber musician; his regular performance partners include Steven Osborne and Cecile Licad. Most recently he has collaborated on a new artistic project, “Love in Fragments,” with violinist Gergana Gergova, choreographer Sommer Ulrickson, and sculptor Alexander Polzin. A poetic union of music, movement, sculpture and the spoken word, the project successfully premiered at 92^nd St Y in New York. This season he embarks on a trio tour with Markus Becker and Veronika Eberle. Recital engagements include Théâtre de la Ville in Paris and Wigmore Hall in London.

Gerhardt is passionate about sharing his discoveries with audiences far beyond the traditional concert hall: outreach projects undertaken in Europe and the U.S. have involved performances and workshops, not only in schools and hospitals, but also pioneering sessions in public spaces and young offender institutions.

Alban Gerhardt plays a Matteo Gofriller cello dating from 1710.

albangerhardt.com

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 for Associate Conductor

Wilbur Lin, Pops Assistant Conductor
- Ashley and Barbara Ford Chair for Assistant Conductor

FIRST VIOLINS

Stefani Matsuo
Concertmaster
—Anna Sinton Taft Chair

Charles Morey
Acting Associate Concertmaster
—Tom & Dee Stegman Chair

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

Eric Bates
Second Assistant Concertmaster
—Serge Shababian Chair

Kathryn Woolley
—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
Clifford J. Goosmann and Andrea M. Wilson Chair

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

CELLOS

Ilya Finkelshteyn
Principal
—Irene & John J. Emery Chair

Daniel Culnan*
—Ona Hixson Dater Chair

Norman Johns**
—Karl & Roberta Schlachter Family Chair

Matthew Lad§
—Marvin Kolodzik Chair

Susan Marshall-Petersen
—Laura Kimble McLellan Chair++

Hiro Matsuo

Theodore Nelson
—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

FLUTES

Randolph Bowman
Principal
—Charles Frederic Goss Chair

Henrik Heide*†

Haley Bangs
—Jane & David Ellis Chair

PICCOLO

[OPEN]
—Patricia Gross Linnemann Chair

OBOES

Dwight Parry
Principal
—Josephine I. & David J. Joseph, Jr. Chair

Lon Bussell*
—Stephen P. McKean Chair

Emily Beare

ENGLISH HORN

Christopher Philpotts
Principal
—Alberta & Dr. Maurice Marsh Chair+

CLARINETS

Christopher Pell
Principal
—Emma Margaret & Irving D. Goldman Chair

Joseph Morris*
Associate Principal and Eb Clarinet
—Robert E. & Fay Boeh Chair++

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

BASS CLARINET

Ronald Aufmann

BASSOONS

Christopher Sales
Principal
—Emalee Schavel Chair++

Martin Garcia*

Hugh Michie

CONTRABASSOON

Jennifer Monroe

FRENCH HORNS

Elizabeth Freimuth
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

Duane Dugger
—Mary & Joseph S. Stern, Jr. Chair

Charles Bell

TRUMPETS

Robert Sullivan
Principal
—Rawson Chair

Douglas Lindsay*
—Jackie & Roy Sweeney Family Chair

Steven Pride
—Otto M. Budig Family Foundation Chair++

Christopher Kiradjieff

TROMBONES

Cristian Ganicenco
Principal
—Dorothy & John Hermanies Chair

Joseph Rodriguez**
Second/Assistant Principal Trombone

BASS TROMBONE

Peter Norton

TUBA

Christopher Olka
Principal
—Ashley & Barbara Ford Chair

TIMPANI

Patrick Schleker
Principal
—Matthew & Peg Woodside Chair

Michael Culligan
Acting Associate Principal

[OPEN]*
—Morleen & Jack Rouse Chair

PERCUSSION

David Fishlock
Principal
—Susan S. & William A. Friedlander Chair

Michael Culligan*

[OPEN]*
—Morleen & Jack Rouse Chair

Marc Wolfley+

KEYBOARDS

Michael Chertock
—James P. Thornton Chair

Julie Spangler+
—James P. Thornton Chair

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 Celis Avila, bass

Amy Nickler, bass

LIBRARIANS

Christina Eaton
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

§ 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