Long-running Cincinnati music festival features top conductors
Cincinnati’s May Festival, which calls itself “the oldest choral festival in the Western Hemisphere,” began in 1873 and was so successful that it led to the creation of Music Hall. Construction on Music Hall began in 1876 and was completed in time for the 1878 May Festival. Nationally and internationally acclaimed guest soloists and conductors have performed through the decades during May Festival, which features the 120-voice May Festival Chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. After being canceled in 2020 and downscaled in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, performances return this year May 20, 22 and 27-28.
The 2022 May Festival schedule:
John Adams Conducts El Niño
7:30 p.m. Friday, May 20, Music Hall—2 hours, 15 minutes with intermission
The American composer will lead his Messiah for the modern age at Music Hall. Interweaving biblical verse with poetry by Latin American writers in English and Spanish, El Niño takes the Nativity story from a mother’s point of view.
Bernstein’s Candide
2 p.m. Sunday, May 22, Music Hall—2 hours, 30 minutes with intermission
Austrian conductor Katharina Wincor makes her May Festival debut, leading the May Festival Chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a concert version of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. Part opera and part musical theater, Candide is Leonard Bernstein’s take on Voltaire’s satirical Enlightenment-era novella of the same name— rebellious, heartfelt and entertaining.
Mena Conducts South American Epics
7:30 p.m. Friday, May 27, Music Hall—1 hour 35 minutes
Principal conductor Juanjo Mena brings the romance of South America to life, leading a program of South American epics. Alberto Ginastera’s ballet music depicts a magical nighttime story, while Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Chôros rhythmic energies recall the raw power of Villa-Lobos’ native Brazil. Also, Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez’s Cantata Criolla—sometimes called South America’s Carmina Burana—stars tenor and baritone soloists as a poet and the devil in a singing contest. The concert will be sung in Spanish and Portuguese with English supertitles above stage.
Montgomery + Beethoven No. 9
7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 28, Music Hall—2 hours, 10 minutes with intermission
In Jessie Montgomery’s I Have Something to Say, voices sing, “We were blessed to be born, when many doors had been torn open for us to be free.” Montgomery’s new work was inspired by historic women past and present. Celebrations of justice ring through Ludwig van Beethoven’s early (and only) opera, Fidelio, and later in life, while almost deaf, Beethoven tore through the silence, composing his ultimate celebration of life: the Ode to Joy.
Additionally, the May Festival and artists from across the community are joining Christ Church Cathedral’s Music Live at Lunch in May. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the lunchtime concert series at Christ Church Cathedral, 318 E. Fourth St., downtown Cincinnati. Each 12:10 p.m. performance is free and open to the public:
May 17—Music by John Duke, Joaquín Turina, Lori Laitman and more.
May 24—Music by Fanny Hensel, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, Alma Mahler and more.
May 31—Moyen Age–Medieval music.
