This
month, 90.9 WGUC presents the 2018 May Festival season Sunday evenings at 8pm. 2018
marked the May Festival’s return to Cincinnati’s historic Music Hall following
an extensive renovation. It also celebrated the beginning of a new era for the
May Festival, under the baton of newly-appointed Principal Conductor Juanjo
Mena.
The
Cincinnati May Festival was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest and most
prestigious choral festivals in the Western Hemisphere. Their annual festival
consists of two weekends of outstanding concerts backed by the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra and internationally-acclaimed guest artists. Highlights from
this season include Eun Sun Kim’s May Festival debut leading Verdi’s powerful Requiem, a celebration of Leonard
Bernstein’s centennial year with performances of Mass and Chichester Psalms,
and a collaboration with a Cincinnati community choir in Handel’s iconic Messiah. See below for a complete
broadcast schedule.
Did
you know that in the mid-1800s, German immigrants who resided in Cincinnati’s
Over-the-Rhine community had a deep appreciation for the arts? They ended up
forming singing groups and invited similar choirs in nearby towns to join them
in a song festival. This eventually grew to be an annual gathering that took
place in various Midwest cities. In 1870 when it was Cincinnati’s turn to host,
it was decided that Saenger Hall would be built as a temporary structure to
house the festival. This building was constructed where Music Hall now stands
but was not an ideal setting for the festival since it was built with a tin
roof!
In
1873, renowned conductor Theodore Thomas happened to be traveling through
Cincinnati on tour with his New York-based orchestra and noticed that the
city’s residents had great musical potential. He decided to work with local
arts-advocates Maria Longworth Nichols and George Ward Nichols to create a
large music festival that wasn’t tied ethnically to the current “Saengerfest”
held at Saenger Hall. This was the beginning of the May Festival. It started as
a 108-piece orchestra and 800-person choir that came together biannually, and eventually
sparked the building of Music Hall in place of Saenger Hall, in order to
provide a better facility for the festival. The third May Festival was the
first to take place inside the new Music Hall in 1878. At the time, it was the
largest concert hall in America.
Since
the May Festival’s conception, it has remained one of the nation’s most eminent
choral festivals, attracting internationally-acclaimed artists to join them in
their annual performances. Be sure to tune to 90.9 Sunday evenings at 8pm all
month long to hear Cincinnati’s very own May Festival Chorus.
May Festival 2018
Broadcast Schedule
Sunday, October 7, 8:00 PM (Performance
Date: May 18)
Eun
Sun Kim, conductor; Michelle Bradley, soprano; Ekaterina Semenchuk,
mezzo-soprano; Bryan Hymel, tenor; May Festival Chorus, Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra
VERDI:
Requiem Mass
Sunday, October 14, 8:00 PM (Performance
Date: May 19)
Robert
Porco, conductor; Kevin Vortmann, celebrant; May Festival Chorus; Cincinnati
Children’s Choir; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
BERNSTEIN:
Mass
Sunday, October 21, 8:00 PM (Performance
Date: May 25)
Juanjo
Mena, conductor; John Holiday, countertenor; May Festival Chorus; Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra
GABRIELI:
Magnificat
BERNSTEIN:
Chichester Psalms
RAVEL:
Daphnis et Chloé [complete ballet]
