May Festival 2025

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 MAY FESTIVAL 2025

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n o s a e S l a t i c O u r 11 2 R e rtist s !

A l a n o i t a n r e Debu t s I n t th

USA DEBUT

CINCINNATI DEBUT

Manami Suzuki

CINCINNATI DEBUT

Megan Moore

PIANO

Bridget Kibbey

MEZZO-SOPRANO

HARP

September 7, 2025

October 12, 2025

November 16, 2025

In 2024, the first Japanese pianist to win the prestigious Hamamatsu International Piano Competition

“...rich, buttery mezzo tone, a genuinely beautiful voice.”

Observer

“...the Yo-Yo Ma of the harp.”

Vogue Magazine

CINCINNATI DEBUT

CINCINNATI DEBUT

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko

Ziggy and Miles

March 8, 2026

March 29, 2026

Winner of the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition

Winners of the 2023 Young Concert Artists International Auditions

PIANO

DUO GUITARISTS

All recitals at 3 PM at Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm Street, OTR Tickets:

MemorialHallOTR.org or 513-977-8838 Visit us on Facebook.

MatineeMusicaleCincinnati.org

CINCINNATI MAY FESTIVAL

FESTIVAL 2025 CONTENTS 4 7 8 13 17 22 26

Greetings from the Board Chair and Executive Director Welcome from Festival Director Renée Fleming Festival Feature: The Brightness of Light: The Muses, the Artists and the Letters Spotlight: The Anthropocene: River, Rain and What Remains Spotlight: Jason Alexander Holmes: A Choir Director’s Journey Spotlight: A Partnership Worth Singing About Inside the Chorus: The Power of Singing Together

ARTISTS 28 31 32 34 36 39 46

Renée Fleming, Festival Director May Festival Chorus Chorus Leadership: Matthew Swanson, Director of Choruses; Jason Alexander Holmes, Associate Director of Choruses May Festival Youth Chorus, Jason Alexander Holmes, Director Cincinnati Boychoir, Lisa Peters, Director Guest Soloists and Conductors Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

CONCERTS 49 58 69 80

VERDI REQUIEM: May 16 CHASING THE DAWN: A CHORAL JOURNEY: May 18 THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT: May 22 VOICE OF NATURE: THE ANTHROPOCENE: May 24

DEPARTMENTS 87 89 95 96

Cincinnati Musical Festival Association Thank You to Our Donors We Applaud Our Subscribers Administration

ON THE COVER: As dawn comes to the forest, a ray of light touches the petals of spring tulips and the voices of nature soar. (Credit: Alan Villegas)

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Music Hall Geraldine V. Chavez Center for the Choral Arts 1241 Elm Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 Administrative Offices: 513.621.1919 contact@mayfestival.com Box Office 513.381.3300 contact@mayfestival.com Group Sales 513.864.0196 contact@mayfestival.com TTY/TDD Use TTY/TDD Relay Service 7-1-1 mayfestival.com

MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM BOOK STAFF: Managing Editor Tyler Secor Senior Editor/Layout Teri McKibben Assistant Editor Gabriela Godinez Feregrino Graphic Design David Mill & Regina Kuhns

CINCINNATI MAGAZINE:

Advertising and Publishing Partners for May Festival Program Book Publisher Ivy Bayer Production Director & IT Systems Administrator Vu Luong Advertising Designer Sophie Kallis Account Representatives Laura Bowling, Maggie Wint Goecke, Chris Ohmer, Julie Poyer, Joe Hoffecker Operations Director Missy Beiting Business Coordinator Erica Birkle Advertising and Business Offices 1818 Race Street, Suite 301 Cincinnati, OH 45202 | 513.421.4300 Subscriptions: 1.800.846.4333 | cincinnatimagazine.com

All contents © 2025. The contents cannot be reproduced in any manner, whole or in part, without written permission from the May Festival.

GREETINGS FROM THE BOARD CHAIR AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Dear Friends, On behalf of the May Festival, the May Festival Choruses, the Cincinnati Boychoir and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, welcome to the 2025 May Festival!

We are thrilled that internationally renowned American soprano Renée Fleming has brought her passions and artistry to the 2025 May Festival as the Festival Director.

The Brightness of Light and Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene are unique artistic projects for Dr. Michael Curran Fleming, and both will make their debut on the stage of Music Hall this Festival. In addition to being an opera superstar, Fleming is a devoted advocate for the positive impact the arts can have on our health. Her most recent book, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, is a collection of essays, curated by Fleming, from leading experts about the powerful impacts of music and the arts on health and the human experience. As part of the Festival, Fleming will host a panel discussion with local experts, neuroscientists and organizations to bring attention to the intersection of music, health and neuroscience in our everyday lives.

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For this second Festival under our new artistic model, Fleming’s programming demonstrates the richness and diversity of thought that are central to this model. Each Festival, we, as audience, as well as chorus and orchestra members, will get to experience the artistic world and viewpoint of a new Festival Director — the prospects and opportunities are exciting!

As former board chair Christy Horan wrote in last year’s welcome letter, the May Festival has been in a period of “transformation,” which has since culminated in the appointment of three new members of the May Festival team. The 2025 May Festival is Matthew Swanson’s first as Director of Choruses. Swanson started his May Festival journey in 2012 as a tenor within the May Festival Chorus. In 2015, he was appointed Conducting Fellow, which led to his appointment as Associate Director of Choruses and Director of the May Festival Youth Chorus. Read more about Matthew’s journey at mayfestival.com/ MeetMatthew. On pages 17–21, David Lyman introduces us to Jason Alexander Holmes, who was appointed Associate Director of Choruses and Director of the May Festival Youth Chorus in July 2024. And, in November 2024, we welcomed our new Executive Director, Julianne Akins Smith, to the May Festival. Smith brings more than a decade of experience in organizational growth and community engagement, along with a passion for welcoming new audiences.

As leading ambassadors and advocates for the vocal community, the May Festival recently welcomed the Cincinnati Boychoir into its fold through an historic alliance between the two organizations. On pages 22–25, writer Hannah

GREETINGS

Edgar explores how the alliance came to be and its ongoing success.

From the Board of Directors, Choruses, Orchestra, artistic leadership, crew, staff and soloists, we express our deep gratitude for every single audience member, donor and sponsor. All of you help make this world-class event possible — Enjoy the 2025 May Festival!

Dr. Michael Curran, Chair, Board of Directors n

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Dear Friends, Welcome to the 2025 May Festival!

I am honored to serve as the May Festival’s Executive Director. I am continually impressed by the rich history, dedication, and passion that exudes from the May Festival community, and I am eager to meet and connect with you — the Festival’s donors, audience, singers and community.

I would like to echo Dr. Curran’s words of welcome to 2025 Festival Director Renée Fleming and give a Julianne Akins Smith special thank you to her for enriching the new Festival Director model by sharing her unique artistic vision with the May Festival.

Within the pages of the program book, readers will discover articles and letters that shed light on the stories behind Fleming’s artistic programming.

Composer Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light explores the intriguing relationship between two artists: Georgia O’Keeffe (Renée Fleming) and Alfred Stieglitz (Rod Gilfry). Writer Vittoria Benzine dives deep into this long and complicated

relationship on pages 8–11. On page 82, discover the story behind the creation of Fleming’s latest commercial recording, Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene before experiencing selections from that project brought to life on the final concert of the 2025 Festival. On pages 13–16, writer Gabriela Godinez Feregrino brings the ideals of “The Anthropocene” to Cincinnati and our connection to the Ohio River. In short, there are many ways to enrich your Festival experience by diving into the stories behind the scenes.

I want to extend a special thank you to the members of the May Festival Chorus, May Festival Youth Chorus and Cincinnati Boychoir for your hard work and dedication to the art of choral singing. Without our volunteer chorus members and the countless hours they spend in rehearsal and preparation, the May Festival would not exist.

If this is your first May Festival experience, welcome — it is mine, too! While honoring the rich history of the past, it is my deepest hope to create a Festival experience that draws in ever-new audiences each spring to experience the journey curated by each new Festival Director. From start to finish, this Festival is a place to give yourself space to explore themes of death and life, health and humanity, beauty and nature — all on a grand scale connected by the one universal thread that unites us all: the human voice.

After recently moving to Cincinnati with my husband, four-year-old boy and newborn son, we are overwhelmed by the welcoming atmosphere and impressed by the vibrant artistic community.

Thank you for the opportunity to steward the founding organization of Music Hall and the musical community of Cincinnati forward into an inspiring new era. This is very clearly a special community of music lovers and the perfect place for diehard May Festival fans, newcomers, families just like mine, and the generations yet to come. I look forward to enjoying the 2025 May Festival together with you!

Julianne Akins Smith, Executive Director

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A proud sponsor of the musical arts

LETTER OF WELCOME FROM 2025 FESTIVAL DIRECTOR RENÉE FLEMING Welcome to the 2025 May Festival!

I am delighted to serve as 2025 Festival Director. For over 150 years, the May Festival has showcased the finest in choral music. It is a privilege to carry this legacy forward with the new artistic model. With a different Director each year, this celebration offers fresh perspectives, artistic innovation and exciting new collaborations. It is exciting to share the stage with fantastic musicians like Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson, the May Festival Choruses, and maestros Juanjo Mena, Robert Moody and Ramón Tebar.

Beyond music’s power to express the most profound ideas and feelings, we are learning more every day about the creative arts’ ability to improve our health and well-being. This year’s Festival has been carefully curated to highlight these benefits. On the stage of Music Hall, you will hear stories about the life of iconic American artist Georgia O’Keeffe; the voice of nature that, though imperiled, inspires us; a composer reconciling his feelings about death; and the universal experiences that carry us from dusk to dawn.

The founding of the May Festival in 1873 catalyzed Cincinnati’s renown for its vibrant music and arts scene. This would not be possible without the passionate audience that gives artists the opportunity to offer new and unexpected musical narratives alongside revered works. From all of us on stage, we are grateful for your dedication to the arts and your support of the Cincinnati May Festival.

Together, we will create unforgettable moments and share the joy and unity that only live music can bring. Thank you for being with us at the 2025 May Festival!

Renée Fleming 2025 Festival Director

Credit: Andrew Eccles for Decca MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 7

MAY FESTIVAL FEATURE

The Brightness of Light: The Muses, the Artists and the Letters by vittoria benzine It’s easy to feel like art history happens as if it were the weather. Roving winds from Africa birthed Cubism. A high pressure system in Europe yielded Dada. This well-intentioned take on art overlooks the human element, however. What aesthetics would surround our lives today if Andy Warhol never met Jean-Michel Basquiat, or if Alfred Stieglitz never met Georgia O’Keeffe?

O’Keeffe and Stieglitz initially connected 109 years ago via letters — the famed linchpin of their Above: Palladium print photograph from 1922 by Alfred Stieglitz titled “Georgia O’Keeffe” (Credit: Donated to the public domain by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and through the generosity of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation and Jennifer and Joseph Duke, 1997). Above right: An autochrome self-portrait by Alfred Stieglitz from 1907 (Credit: In the public domain through the National Gallery of Art from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection).

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storied, saucy relationship. The couple exchanged 5,000 letters across 25,000 pages between the time they met, in 1916, and Stieglitz’s death, in 1946. Since then, perspectives on their union have shifted significantly. For several decades, it seemed reasonable to believe there’s no way O’Keeffe, an unknown artist, would have achieved international acclaim without the exposure afforded by her marriage to Stieglitz, who was the most important gallerist, publisher and photographer in American art at the time, single-handedly championing modernism in the States.

O’Keeffe, in turn, became the mother of American modernism, contributing a style all her own to the art-historical canon — at once dreamy,

natural, mythic and powerful. She knew the nation better, after all. Whereas Stieglitz was a rich Manhattanite with a European education, an ego and an allowance totaling nearly $4,000 a month, O’Keeffe was a Wisconsin-born daughter of dairy farmers who studied art in Chicago, New York City, Virginia, South Carolina and Texas.

She’d certainly heard of Stieglitz along the way, particularly while at Columbia University and the Art Students League of New York — which awarded O’Keeffe tuition to its summer school in Lake George (where the Stieglitzes summered) after her still life of a dead rabbit won a competition.

In 1893, when O’Keeffe was five years old, Stieglitz — nearly 30 — became a co-editor at the American Amateur Photographer magazine. The photo printing business his father bought him handled all imagery for the magazine. He wed Emmy Obermeyer, the sister of his associate. Over the next five years, Stieglitz led two prominent photography clubs, transforming the newsletter for one into the groundbreaking photography magazine

Camera Notes, which he helmed. Stieglitz made it his mission to elevate photography, his great love, to the art-historical importance of painting.

Stieglitz founded the Photo-Secession movement in 1902, then staged the member artists’ first exhibition in 1905 at his new gallery, 291 — catapulting both the movement and the space to renown. 291 later offered seminal American shows to revolutionary artists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Auguste Rodin.

O’Keeffe was 18 and studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago when 291 opened. Seven years later, she learned to appreciate Japanese compositional techniques through a University of Virginia professor who taught her about the artist Arthur Wesley Dow. In 1914, she studied directly under Dow at Columbia University — then started teaching there in 1915.

In early 1916, O’Keeffe sent her friend, the suffragist Anita Pollitzer, a few new charcoal abstractions called “Specials.” Pollitzer brought them to 291. Stieglitz famously called them the “purest, finest, sincerest things.”  MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 9

THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT

O’Keeffe made her first contact with Stieglitz studio — if not domestic bliss. “Coming may bring soon after. “If you remember for a week — why you darkness instead of light,” he wrote before she you liked my charcoals that Anita Pollitzer showed left, warning that he didn’t know what he wanted you — and what they said to you — I would like from her. “It’s in Everlasting light that you should to know,” she wrote him in January 1916, adding live.” Stieglitz knew he couldn’t be a provider. that she made them “to express myself — things O’Keeffe arrived, and Stieglitz finally got I feel and want to say — haven’t words for.” With his lens on her, igniting a 350-part series Stieglitz, however, she learned to be very poetic. immortalizing her body, often nude. Stieglitz’s Upon her death in 1986, O’Keeffe’s letters joined wife, Emmy, walked in on an early session.

Stieglitz’s papers at Yale, completing the archive Emmy never had the head for culture he did, of correspondence — with a stipulation not to but still shared her allowance with him, hopeful publish them for 20 years. From she and their now 20-yearthis cache emerges a torrid if old daughter would earn his Society has struggled common love story. Time moves love someday. Stumbling in to make sense of fast, but people change slowly. on Stieglitz photographing such romantic power At the start of their tempestuous O’Keeffe ripped off those roseromance, O’Keeffe was 28 and tinted glasses. Emmy told him imbalances.… As Stieglitz was 52. He had much to stop seeing O’Keeffe, or evidenced throughout to offer her professionally. leave their house. their letters, they truly Meanwhile, her benefits to him, He chose the latter. One besides her beauty, were a bit month later, Stieglitz and loved each other. more abstract.

O’Keeffe were living in But, they were both Society has struggled to Manhattan like newlyweds, fallible, too. make sense of such romantic making love and making art. power imbalances. Although Stieglitz may have offered there was an age gap between them, both were O’Keeffe an enhanced degree of entry into the grown, more-than-willing adults. As evidenced male-dominated art world, but she unlocked unseen throughout their letters, they truly loved each artistic abilities within him. Up until Stieglitz other. But, they were both fallible, too. started photographing her, he’d been heralded a far O’Keeffe — driven yet insecure, that timemore effective organizer than artist. In 1921, though, honored combination — clearly reveled in her Stieglitz got his first solo show in eight years, at mentor’s admiration. “I am so glad they surprised Anderson Galleries. Forty-six never-before-seen you,” she wrote to Stieglitz weeks later. “I am photos of O’Keeffe debuted — and caused a buzz. glad I could give you once what 291 has given These arousing clusters of close-up shots of her me many times.” Her revelry reinforced his selfbody tantalized, in no small part, due to O’Keeffe’s image. Legend has it that O’Keeffe had a crush enigmatic personage. The next year, she started on Stieglitz’s colleague, the photographer Paul incorporating her signature flowers into her Strand, first. When Strand mentioned letters paintings, beginning a long and often combative between himself and O’Keeffe, Stieglitz confessed dialogue with critics who viewed them as sexual. he fancied O’Keeffe, clearing his lane.

Stieglitz’s divorce from Emmy was finalized in In fact, Stieglitz loved O’Keeffe’s vision so 1924. He wed O’Keeffe soon after, hopeful that much that he showed 10 charcoal drawings at 291 the stability would help his daughter’s mental without her permission, O’Keeffe learned from health. O’Keeffe loved him enough to acquiesce, a friend. He misnamed her “Virginia.” O’Keeffe even though she knew Stieglitz had already made surprised Stieglitz by showing up at her first 291 moves on confidantes like Strand’s wife Beck (who solo show the following May. “How I wanted to O’Keeffe is believed to have bedded years later) and photograph you,” Stieglitz wrote right after she O’Keeffe’s sister Ida (who’d declined.) left. “But I didn’t want to break into your time.”

Marriage bore down. O’Keeffe wanted a child, 291 closed that year. Their letters heated up, but Stieglitz had watched his daughter suffer, became explicit. In 1918, Stieglitz invited O’Keeffe and he feared his ineptitude as a parent. O’Keeffe to live in New York, promising her a quiet got restless summering at Lake George. In 1925, 10 | mayfestival.com

THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT

O’Keeffe/ Stieglitz--5 pp Gelatine silver print photograph from 1931 by Alfred Stieglitz titled “Georgia O’Keeffe — Hands and Horse Skull.” (Credit: Donated to the public domain by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and through the generosity of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation and Jennifer and Joseph Duke, 1997)

her work, there would be no “her” to enjoy. “You Stieglitz founded The Intimate Gallery. Two years really need have no regrets about me,” she wrote later, a beautiful, young, married Smith graduate from Taos in July 1929. “You see — I have not named Dorothy Norman started hanging around. really had my way of life for many years.” Stieglitz Her relationship with Stieglitz began in 1928 — the responded that he’d love her forever. He’d taken same year O’Keeffe lost a mural commission for her virginity, after all. In her letters, O’Keeffe Radio City Musical Hall and was hospitalized for called New Mexico “my country.” The desert depression. O’Keeffe visited New Mexico with Beck was her loyal lover. When Stieglitz died in 1946, Strand at the behest of a famed patron the following O’Keeffe kicked Norman out of the hospital room. summer, just before Stieglitz opened his largest For women, this story has never been anything gallery, An American Place. By 1930, Norman was new. The distinct dynamics of gender, work and art Stieglitz’s new muse. O’Keeffe started frequenting at play in this tale between O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, New Mexico in 1934. however, feels truly modern. Would there be an O’Keeffe and Stieglitz exchanged letters all the O’Keeffe without Stieglitz — or a Stieglitz without while. He mourned her absence. At times, she got O’Keeffe? Probably. Both artists were so fixated angry: “I know that one can not control what one on their professional aims that they’d have made feels but one can control the public exhibition themselves happen somehow. But the specific union of it,” O’Keeffe wrote in July 1934. But, through of these two talents alone left an indelible impact it all, she wholeheartedly assured Stieglitz she on art history. Therein lies an loved him, that separation was argument for embracing love as an best for both of them. She begged Read composer element of art and work, no matter him to take care of himself — and Kevin Puts’ statement what pain it may bring. n understand that without pursuing about The Brightness of

Light on pp. 74–75.

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 11

HORAN HORAN HORANWealth Wealth Wealth proudly proudly proudly welcomes welcomes welcomes Renée Renée Renée Fleming Fleming Fleming to toto the the the 2025 2025 2025 May May May Festival Festival Festival and and and isisis pleased pleased pleased to toto sponsor: sponsor: sponsor: Voice Voice Voice of ofof Nature: Nature: Nature: The The The Anthropocene.

Anthropocene.

Anthropocene.

www.horanwealth.com www.horanwealth.com www.horanwealth.com 513.745.0707 513.745.0707 513.745.0707 MayMay Festival Festival May- Festival 2025 - 2025 Ad- v1.1.indd 2025 Ad v1.1.indd Ad v1.1.indd 1 1 1

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REFLECTIONS OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

River, Rain and What Remains

by GABRIELA GODINEZ FEREGRINO

Louis Charles Vogt (American, 1864–1939), The Ohio River from Eden Park, 1909–10, oil on canvas, Cincinnati Art Museum; Gift of The Procter & Gamble Company, 2020.111.

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MAY FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

From ancient Greek pastoral literature to intervention in the 1880s, “the river actually used Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons to oil paintings to be a lot smaller, though it also used to have like Frida Kahlo’s “Naturaleza Viva,” nature’s bigger floods.” simultaneous fierceness and tranquility has been Grote grew up by the river, watching the fog a source of infinite artistic inspiration. unfurl over it in the mornings. It isn’t difficult to The word “Anthropocene” was initially created to categorize the period in time when humans have been the largest influence on the natural world. It was coined by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2001 as a proposed geological epoch, though, in 2024, the International Union of Geological Sciences voted against ratifying the Anthropocene as a formal geological term. However, the IUGS included in their published statement that the term has expanded into other disciplines such as “social scientists, Print titled “Spring Scene on the Ohio River” from 1885. (Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division) politicians, and economists, as well as the public at large,” and as such, “it will remain an invaluable descriptor see why the Ohio River has been the subject of so in human-environment interactions.” much art throughout the years. Artists like Thomas For artists like Renée Fleming, the term Hart Benton and writers like Toni Morrison have offers a lens to contemplate our relationship captured the Ohio River’s unforgiving strength and with environmental destruction and climate its beautiful promise of life and freedom. change. Fleming’s album Voice of Nature: A sustaining force and a witness to generations the Anthropocene is described as a work that of triumphs and tears, the Ohio River holds the “explores nature as both inspiration and a hearts of those who live along its shores and casualty of humanity.” deserves protection. Once cared for through The effects of human-caused climate change generations of rich education by indigenous are all around us. The Natural History Museum in peoples like the Wahzhazhe Manzhan, London states, “Carbon dioxide emissions, global Shawandasse Tula and Myaamia, the river became warming, ocean acidification, habitat destruction, exploited and has suffered extensive pollution extinction, and wide scale natural resource through colonialism and industrialization. Today, extraction are all signs that we have significantly indigenous peoples continue to advocate for “the modified our planet.” Locally, Boone County’s critical connection between native sovereignty and Natural Areas Technician Sarah Grote noted the environmental preservation.”

Ohio River as a prime example of our influence Over time, community activism has led to on nature. “The Ohio is a lot different now. It’s no policy reform to restore the river’s health, longer a free-flowing river, more like a series of though the battle is far from over. In 2020, interlocking moving lakes because of all the locks according to Louisville Public Media, “41 million and dams.” They explained that, before human pounds of toxic pollution were released into the Ohio River Basin.” In 2024, the Ohio River 14 | mayfestival.com

THE ANTHROPOCENE

Foundation endorsed the Ohio River Restoration Program Act in Congress that aims to restore the Ohio River watershed, benefiting over 30 million people across 14 states.

It is important that legal policy like this protects our environment beyond what we are capable of as individuals. This legislation would establish the Ohio River National Program Office and lead Illustration from 1914 titled “River View from Eden Park, Cincinnati, Ohio.” (Credit: Columbus Metropolitan Library) restoration efforts and workforce development to ensure clean water access and protection for the visits one of Cincinnati’s parks regularly can region’s communities. attest that breaking away from noise pollution Conserving what nature we have left is vital. and artificial light helps improve focus and Traditional conservation rhetoric often treats reduces anxiety. According to the Harvard School nature as something separate from humanity, to of Public Health, being in nature can also lead to be protected from human influence. However, we “lower blood pressure and reduced risk of chronic must go beyond preservation disease” because “green-space and engage in stewardship, exposure is linked to more Visit the Ohio River embracing our responsibility playtime and less screen time.”

Foundation’s website in shaping our environment Luckily, Cincinnati is known for resources on how to for the future. Grote says, “In for its plethora of park options. this region, we can’t leave Whether one is looking to be volunteer and donate to land alone. It might be a nice immersed in greenery in Mt. the preservation of the thought to buy land to keep Airy Forest or looking for a river and its ecology: it from being destroyed by blend of nature and urban ohioriverfdn.org.

And learn a commercial project, but design like Smale Riverfront how indigenous peoples of Park, Cincinnati has something without stewardship, invasive Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana for everyone. species will overtake the area.”

Half-jokingly, Grote said, “It’ll This city believes in the continue to advocate for probably become entirely bush power of retreating into native sovereignty and honeysuckle.” nature but also believes in the environmental preservation: Grote encourages importance of preservation UrbanNativeCollective.org. and promoting environmental people to participate in the rehabilitation of degraded stewardship. The effects of the environments but emphasizes climate crisis are already here. sustainable resource use as a more accessible In Cincinnati, we are experiencing stronger, more goal. Small habits can have a big impact. We frequent storms and more consistent precipitation, cannot detach ourselves from nature. We must meaning a higher threat of flooding and water think of ourselves as an active part of it and supply contamination. The City of Cincinnati reckon with our responsibilities. reported that “in 2019, large rain events caused Our ancient connection with nature is deeply hillside instability along Columbia Parkway.” intertwined with our well-being. Today, we can It cost the city two years and $17.6 million, not recognize that being in nature is also an obvious because they just wanted to fix the parkway, but  source of mental health benefits. Anyone who MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 15

THE ANTHROPOCENE

neighborhood-level solutions to the climate crisis.”

Like an artist carefully selecting their materials and refining their craft, we must make choices that protect and enhance the ecosystems of which we are a part. Reducing our plastic use, switching to reusable items like grocery bags and glass containers, conserving energy and water, using public transportation or cycling, and minimizing overconsumption are all helpful steps toward sustainability and protecting nature. There are many ways to reduce our carbon footprints as individuals. However, it’s important to recognize that policy and legal protections of our precious resources will ultimately lead to a more successful, sustainable future.

The Ohio River serves as a reminder of our impact on the environment and our potential recovery through collective action and policy change. As we continue to confront the effects of climate change, we have to continue examining our relationship with nature. Art, music and coming From top: Dry plate negative of a Steamboat on the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Ohio together as a community are crucial c. 1906 (Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). Construction of to processing these stark facts about Pilcher Dam/Lock and Dam No. 43 with heavy machinery on the Ohio River c. 1914– c. 1920 (Credit: James Scott Bryant Collection via the Bobbie Smith Bryant Donation, the climate crisis.

Office of History, HQ, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers).

Artists like Fleming remind us because they needed to build with the prevention of Nature’s beauty and fragility, giving us a sense of future landslides in mind. We are facing a long of awe and reverence as audience members. It is journey of climate change, but not as passengers, this connection that can inspire action. People rather as drivers with decisions to make. created these problems, and together, people can Adding to Cincinnati’s long-standing efforts solve them. to be a more sustainable city, the 2023 Green With our individual and collective commitment Cincinnati Plan emphasizes sourcing local food to sustainability and stewardship, there is hope from regional agriculture, increasing food access for revitalizing our ecosystems and protecting and expanding the city’s use of renewable energy. the resources that sustain us. We have to keep In February, the City of Cincinnati announced gathering, staying informed and talking about the continuation of the Green Cincinnati Plan these issues, and keep our elected officials by opening this year’s grant accountable. Nature and the applications. They will be arts are places for respite, but Read Renee Fleming’s letter “investing at least $300,000 about the inspiration behind her more importantly, they are this year in dynamic, places to find resilience. n latest commercial recording, 16 | mayfestival.com

Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, on p. 82.

JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES: A Choir Director’s Journey

by DAVID LYMAN

Credit: Lyons Photography MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 17

Credit: Mark Lyons

MAY FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

The announcement came as a surprise. Jason Alexander Holmes, the director of the Cincinnati Boychoir, had been appointed the May Festival’s Associate Director of Choruses and Director of its Youth Chorus.

That was in March 2024.

From the moment he arrived in Cincinnati in 2019, Holmes ever-so-gradually started popping up all over the place. Whatever it was, local music groups were falling all over themselves to have him conduct for them.

His abilities as a musician were impeccable. But it was more than that. His gentle demeanor, perhaps? Or his genuine affection for those who sang for him? Or possibly it was his eagerness for all manner of musical Small wonder, then, collaboration. that Holmes would When he became associate director of the Boston Children’s Chorus in 2017, the group posted a short interview with him on its soon become an various social media outlets. When asked about his favorite musical invaluable asset to genre, he said that it “depends on my mood, the weather, what I’m doing and just about any other variable you could imagine. Some the broader music favorites these days are opera (of all periods), R&B, gospel, dancecommunity. pop, musical theatre and fabulous choral music of all styles. Ask me again tomorrow... :-).”

Small wonder, then, that Holmes would soon become an invaluable asset to the broader music community. He is also the director of Cincinnati’s MLK Chorale and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Classical Roots Community Choir. He has been music director for a raft of musicals, including at The Carnegie in Covington (Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, The Wonderful Music of Oz and, later this summer, The Color Purple), with Cincinnati Children’s Theatre (Cinderella, The Wiz Jr.) and with Cincinnati Opera (Liverpool Oratorio).

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JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES

“When I first moved here, I made all the quiet for a moment. “At the Boychoir, we had rounds,” he recalls. “I met all the people I been through so much together. I didn’t feel could and just let them know that I was always comfortable leaving that just as we were getting interested in collaborations. Being a newcomer, it back on our feet. It felt weird. And wrong. So I was really interesting.” shared my reticence with Matthew.”

His friends back in Boston, though, were highly skeptical of his move to the Midwest.

“People in Boston were like ‘Oh, Jason, are you sure you want to move to Cincinnati?’ But I had to remind them that my family in Virginia had said ‘Oh, Jason, are you sure you want to move to Boston?’

And that worked out, didn’t it?”

Cincinnati, as it turned out, has been very, very good to Holmes. And he has, most definitely, returned that kindness.

A month after the May Festival announced Holmes’ appointment, it introduced a new “strategic alliance” between the Festival and the Cincinnati Boychoir.

“Effective July 1, 2024,” the May Festival said, “the organizations will begin operating under the May Festival organizational structure while preserving the Boychoir identity, brand, programming and independent non-profit status.”

“It was an arrangement that made sense on every front,” says Holmes. “Musically, financially, The Cincinnati Boychoir performing for the February 2025 “All Together Now” concert. philosophically — we both had (Credit: Mark Lyons) shared goals.”

It was all set into motion, says Holmes, when That launched a healthy bit of institutional Matthew Swanson — the May Festival’s Director of brainstorming for both organizations. What would Choruses — asked if he might consider leaving the be the benefits — and the downsides — to a deeper Boychoir to join the May Festival. organizational collaboration?

“I wasn’t looking for a move,” says Holmes. “But “Neither Matthew nor I are legal minds, so we selfishly, there were practical reasons it made sense didn’t know what to call it,” says Holmes. They to me.” discussed the idea with board members and wellHe turns 40 on May 24 — one of those milestones informed constituents. when most of us reflect on where we are headed In the end, the alliance was regarded as a winprofessionally, personally and financially. Holmes win for both groups. One of the many pluses for the was no exception.

Boychoir is that it was able to become tuition-free “I have to admit that the idea of really welllast September, matching the “no tuition, no fees” defined retirement benefits was very appealing,” model of the May Festival Choruses. he says. “I was completing my fifth year with the “It used to cost parents between $500 and $900 a Boychoir and had seen them through the Covid year for their boys to be in the choir,” says Holmes. lockdown — it was horrible — and ….” He’s very “Not any more. You know, there is no shortage of  MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 19

JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES

Jason Alexander Holmes directing the May Festival Youth Chorus in 2024. (Credit: Mark Lyons)

ways to spend money on your kids. It’s great when I can go to a school to visit or do a workshop to be able to say all you need is the desire to sing and the desire to sing with others. Those are the very best reasons to sing.”

For the May Festival, the alliance rounds out a full spectrum of singing opportunities capable of seeing a singer through an entire lifetime of opportunities. Some of them you already know well — the May Festival Chorus, for instance.

But did you know about the May Festival MiNiS program geared to children ages 0–12? Or the Cincinnati Choral Academy for grades 3–6 at several partner schools? With the addition of the Cincinnati Boychoir to the roster, there is now a pair of programs for boys with unchanged voices— the Apprentice program for grades 3–6 and the Journey Men program for grades 4–7.

It also completes a circle that began in 1965, when the Cincinnati All-City Boys Choir, as it was known then, made its debut with the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for a presentation of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem.

You can hear the relief in Holmes’ voice as he talks of the alliance — a successful resolution to the reticence he described to Swanson. It’s clear the enormity of care he feels for his singers, whatever their age.

There is a profound connection between Holmes and his singers. It’s as if he is an extension of the chorus rather than their conductor.

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For all of his years in front of audiences and choirs, there is a certain shyness that permeates Holmes. His smile is big and genuine. But it’s as if every question you ask surprises him a little. And maybe it does.

He is, after all, a small-town boy, raised in Ridgeway, Virginia, a tiny town with fewer than 750 inhabitants. Music was not at the heart of the town’s interests. Nestled in the rolling hills in southernmost Virginia — it’s just three miles from the North Carolina border — Ridgeway is in the heart of NASCAR country. If you check out Ridgeway’s appropriately small Wikipedia page, it lists six notable former residents. Three are NASCAR drivers.

Holmes’ high school, Magna Vista High School, touts not just its own livestock barn, but one notable alumnus, Ultimate Fighting Challenge fighter Tony Gravely.

That’s life in Henry County, Virginia — as in Patrick Henry, whose 10,000-acre Leatherwood Plantation was nearby.

But Magna Vista also had an active music program that staged musicals every year. It was there at Magna Vista that young Jason Holmes found his niche.

It would carry him on to the Eastman School of Music and Ithaca College and, eventually, to Cincinnati and the May Festival.

When he was introduced to the young singers of the May Festival Youth Chorus, it was a shock

JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES

for some of them. After all, Matthew Swanson was the only May Festival conductor they had ever known.

“For me, it was a difficult change at first,” says 15-year-old Oliver Wagner, a 9th grader at Sycamore High School. “I really, really liked Dr. Swanson. I was used to how his rehearsals were.”

His first encounter with Swanson was just a year earlier, when he auditioned for the MFYC. “The audition was so much simpler than I expected,” he recalls. “I sang ‘Amazing Grace.’ And there were some rhythm exercises, too. I could have sung a German piece — I speak German — but it seemed difficult.”

From the very start of his May Festival experience, he was thrilled.

“I still remember my first rehearsal,” he says. “I know it was two-and-a-half hours. But it flew by. It felt like 20 minutes. I couldn’t wait to come back the next week.”

And as for his new music director, he has grown to enjoy Holmes.

“He’s very cheerful, so it’s hard not The May Festival Youth Chorus during rehearsal in 2024, Jason Alexander Holmes directing. (Credit: Mark Lyons) to like him,” says Wagner. “And we’re getting to sing some really great, diverse repertoire. We’re learning one in the native you couldn’t really tell. He seems so comfortable language of Ghana. I have absolutely no clue how with us. I really like working with him thus far. He to pronounce it yet. It’s in 2/4 and most of the has a great energy and always comes to the table notes are triplets and … it’s really complicated with a lot of ideas. He’s very inspiring that way. music. I like it.”

And I especially like that he has a little silliness Elyse Longbottom, a junior at Indian Hill High sometimes. He has such a positive vibe. You’re School, joined the MFYC just last October. And like never afraid of doing something wrong. Really, he Wagner, she has been attracted by the complexity of has been a joy to sing for.” the music she’s had the chance to sing.

For his part, Holmes feels pretty much the “I went into it expecting it to be a little same way. At one point in an earlier interview, bit rigorous,” she says. “And I haven’t been he pondered the relative merits of leading a disappointed. It’s a way for me to keep performing professional 16-voice choir versus a choir made up outside of regular school hours and to be of less experienced singers. performing with different people.”

“Obviously, the elite choir is appealing,” he says.

Like many of the MFYC choristers, she has “But then I think of the realities that go with it. a schedule jam-packed with extra-curricular You know, when you work with community choirs, activities. She runs cross-country, regularly there is something about that avocational group performs in school musicals and plays — she did that is so beautiful. And working with kids, too. I Footloose in February — and is a teen volunteer at have such a passion for teaching that I don’t think I the Cincinnati Zoo. As Holmes says, this is a chorus would ever want to give up seeing that moment on a filled with overachievers. child’s face when they ‘get it,’ when they fall in love “I was vaguely aware that he (Holmes) was a with a piece of music. There is nothing like it.” n new conductor this year,” says Longbottom. “But MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 21

MAY FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

A PARTNERSHIP WORTH SINGING ABOUT Last season, the Cincinnati Boychoir and the May Festival announced an historic alliance — here’s how it came to be, and how it’s going. by hannah edgar

to ‘How can we make a Jason Alexander Holmes partnership with each had a difficult conversation other?’” Sheehan recalled. ahead of him.

On its own, the Boychoir At the end of 2023, was, in Sheehan’s words, Holmes learned he’d won a “small but mighty.” Before job as the Associate Director the alliance, the organization of Choruses and Youth had two full-time staff, one Chorus Director of the May part-timer and two hourly Festival. That was great employees. All were working news for his career — but overtime to try to rebuild the bad news for the Cincinnati chorus to its pre-pandemic Boychoir, which was only enrollment. (The Boychoir’s just getting back on its feet goal is to field 60 singers in after the pandemic and which time for its 60th anniversary he’d led as Artistic Director this year.) since 2019.

In that climate, the So, when he met with prospect of sharing Boychoir board chairs Jason Alexander Holmes (Credit: Lyons Photography) administrative and Katy Sheehan and Emily operational costs with the May Festival was a Reinhold at a Cincinnati café to break the news, he welcome relief. floated an idea he’d already spitballed with May “That administrative support was a huge part of Festival Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson what was needed,” Holmes says. and then-May Festival Executive Director Steven The alliance was just as beneficial for the May Sunderman. What if the Cincinnati Boychoir came Festival. Festival board chair Michael Curran noted into the fold of the May Festival? that the organization almost always had to pull It went over better than he’d imagined. After singers from outside its ranks if repertoire called for recovering from the initial shock of Holmes’ a boy chorus or soloist. With the Boychoir under its announcement, Sheehan herself could see the umbrella, the May Festival was, for example, able benefits of such a union “right away.” to call on the Boychoir for its November Chichester “It almost immediately segued from, ‘How Psalms performance, resulting in Cincinnati are we going to find a new Boychoir director?’

Boychoir soprano Elessar DeHoff, clad in the organization’s signature yellow-and-black bowtie, taking center stage as boy soloist.

“We have the MiNis [pre-K education program], we have the teenagers and we have the adults. But we were missing that late-grade-school-to-earlyteenager part,” Curran says.

Both organizations also noted the tough recruitment prospects of male choral singers generally. Men are underrepresented even in the May Festival Chorus. According to Holmes, that Boychoir board members Katy Sheehan and Bryan Hafertepe gap is trending bigger, not smaller.

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A PARTNERSHIP WORTH SINGING ABOUT

May Festival Youth Chorus, Cincinnati Boychoir and Cincinnati Youth Choir performing Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Symphony of a Thousand for the May Festival’s 150th anniversary season in 2023. (Credit: Mark Lyons)

“If you look at the May Festival Chorus, the adult chorus, it’s not 50/50 soprano-alto and tenor-bass.

It’s, like, two-thirds soprano-alto and then a third tenor-bass,” Holmes says. “Looking at that, you think, ‘Okay, we’ve got to have something in the pipeline to fix this.’”

Curran and Bryan Hafertepe, the Boychoir’s board secretary, both echo Holmes’ concern.

“The May Festival historically struggles to get young boys and men to audition. The Boychoir was always a bit of a feeder for the changed voices in that organization,” Holmes says.

In the ensuing months, the leaders of both organizations — Swanson and Sunderman from the May Festival and Sheehan and Reinhold from the Boychoir — met to talk more seriously about what such a partnership might look like. Holmes, as the common denominator between the two, came to the table with both organizations’ interests in mind.

“It was never contentious, which you always worry about,” Sheehan says. “We really wanted to make sure we presented a united front.”

Throughout, the executive committee and board of the Boychoir also met separately 

May Festival Youth Chorus and Cincinnati Boychoir singing with the May Festival Chorus in the world premiere performance of James Lee III’s Breaths of Universal Longings at the 2023 May Festival. (Credit: Mark Lyons)

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A PARTNERSHIP WORTH SINGING ABOUT

to discuss their own nonnegotiables. The Boychoir endeavored to keep things as consistent as possible for its young singers amid all the changes. For example, it still rehearses at its usual home, the Aronoff Center for the Arts.

And the Boychoir is now led by a veteran of the organization, Lisa Peters, its assistant conductor for nearly a decade.

“When the singers [learned] that Jason was stepping over The Cincinnati Boychoir warms up with the May Festival Youth Chorus and Cincinnati Youth Choir in advance of their performance of Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand. (Credit: JP Leong) to the May Festival, that was a relief to them, too. It’s a familiar face,” Peters says. unheard of” in the context of such a major So far, it’s going well for both the Boychoir transition, Holmes notes. and May Festival Youth Chorus. Rather than Above all, both organizations agreed, from the competing for the same demographic, enrollment beginning, that it was imperative for the Boychoir has increased for both ensembles — “pretty to retain its own identity. This season, the choir has The May Festival Youth Chorus and Cincinnati Boychoir perform together at the February 2025 “All Together Now” concert, Jason Alexander Holmes conducting; David Kirkendall, piano. (Credit: Mark Lyons)

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A PARTNERSHIP WORTH SINGING ABOUT

continued to run its own programming independent of the May Festival.

“The true north in all the conversations was remaining a boy-centric organization,” says Hafertepe. “There are plenty of athletic places for boys to just be boys, but there aren’t a lot of artistic places in society for boys to just be boys.”

For Hafertepe, it’s personal: he was a Boychoir member from 2000 to 2003. Members of the bass section of the May Festival Chorus (Credit: JP Leong) He still fondly remembers understudying for a boy soprano role in Music Hall. don’t think I’m friends with anybody I played soccer Hafertepe has since come out as gay, but at the time with. But I still have probably a half-dozen people I the secret weighed on his social life. sang with in Boychoir who are still good friends of “When I was playing soccer, I hid parts of myself. mine, all over the country.” n Boychoir gave me more space to be me,” he says. “I

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 25

Credit: JP Leong

INSIDE THE CHORUS

THE POWER OF SINGING TOGETHER by tyler m. secor

In 2019, Chorus America estimated that more than 54 million Americans sang in choruses — more than one in six of all Americans over the age of 18.

And the percentage of singing Americans grows with each passing decade. Anecdotally, the ranks of choruses swelled dramatically post-Covid pandemic as people sought community after the long period of isolation.

With so many people participating in choral singing, there must be clear benefits beyond loving to sing or loving choral music.

Research at the intersection between the arts and health/ wellness is everexpanding, especially with the rise of noninvasive methods of studying brain activity. 2025 Festival Director Renée Fleming has curated a nearly 600-page book of essays from “leading scientists, artists, creative arts Credit: Mark Lyons therapists, educators 26 | mayfestival.com

and healthcare providers about the powerful impacts of music and the arts on health and the human experience.” Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts of Health and Wellness explores topics such as how to love opera, using music to manage chronic pain, the intersection between music and memory, dance and Parkinson’s, and even “The Potential of Group Singing to Promote Health and Well-Being.”

In her overture to the book, Fleming writes the following about the root of her passion for exploring the intersection between art and health: The many of us who appreciate, create or perform the arts intuitively understand their therapeutic effects on our lives. For me, experiencing art — whether musical, theatrical, or visual — can invoke bliss, a heart-filling satiation, and the gift of being fully present.

Additionally, as a performer, I know well how it can produce a flow state, a sense of being in the zone, with my voice transported on long breaths as I attempt to paint a landscape of sound. As a singer, my body is my instrument, so I [was] … hoping to understand what science could teach me about the biological need to express and create. The ideas I encountered … gave form and language to questions I had long harbored, sparked a passion that is continuing to enrich my life.

INSIDE THE CHORUS

not only encourages close social bonding but it also is effective at relieving pain, by stimulating an increase in pain thresholds. Similarly, music therapist Dr. Joke Bradt’s essay, “Music for Chronic Pain Management” found within Music and Mind, states that “a survey of music listening habits in 318 people with chronic • Nearly seven in 10 singers say that singing pain found that those has helped them socialize better in other parts who engaged more of their lives. frequently in listening • 73% of singers reported that choral singing helps them feel less alone or lonely. to music, and for whom • 80% of choral singers expect more good music was important, things than bad things to happen to them reported better quality of life and needed less (compared to 55% of the general public). medical treatment.”

• 63% of singers reported that choral singing As you listen to the May Festival Chorus sing Igor has made them more open to and accepting of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms or Giuseppe Verdi’s people who are different from them or hold Requiem watch how the singers breathe together different views. and how deeply they breathe to create their sound.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia is the clinical term for the “physiologic change in heart rate synchronized with respirations, so that the heart rate increases with inspiration and decreases with expiration” (Cardiac Electrophysiology Clinics). The link between breathing and heart rate suggests that, as singers sing in unison, they breathe together and thus speed up and slow down their heart rates together, thereby creating a bond at a biological level.

For older adults, singing in a chorus can help to Credit: JP Leong maintain cognitive abilities and improve chronic There is also evidence that, instead of doing health conditions. Eight in 10 older (65+) choral the typical ice-breaker or getting-to-know-you singers report that singing has kept their mind activities at gatherings like corporate retreats, sharper, and 20% reported that choral singing attendees should try singing together. Research helped to relieve or improve one or more chronic published by Royal Society Open Science reports health conditions (Chorus America). the “first evidence for an ‘ice-breaker effect’ Although this is just the tip of the research of singing in promoting fast cohesion between iceberg when it comes to the benefits of singing unfamiliar individuals,” noting that “singing breaks and singing together, it is clear there is power the ice so that individuals feel closer to the group in choral singing, with positive impacts both as a whole even if they do not yet know anything on singers’ mental health and their physical about the individual members. Such an effect wellbeing. As we learned all too well from the may overcome time constraints mental health effects that came on the creation of individual from the pandemic, we are social Join 2025 Festival Director relationships to allow large beings. Singing together helps us Renée Fleming and a panel human groups to coordinate understand each other and feel of local experts on May 20 at effectively and quickly.” safe with one another. Working 5:30 p.m. in the Music Hall Research published in together to create music from Ballroom for “Music and Evolution and Human Behavior our lungs soothes our souls and suggests that choral singing Mind: Conversation with our bodies. n Dr. Julene K. Johnson, a cognitive neuroscientist and co-director of the Sound Health Network, noted in her contribution to Music and Mind that group singing led to an overall sense of “feeling good.” As one participant in Johnson’s “Community of Voices” study stated, “The choir — it rejuvenates you. It gives you encouragement, more will to live.

Music is medicine for the soul. It’s helped me a lot.”

When Chorus America surveyed singers for their 2019 “The Chorus Impact Study” the results showed that:

Renée Fleming.”

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 27

Credit: Andrew Eccles for Decca

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RENÉE FLEMING FESTIVAL DIRECTOR SOPRANO Renée Fleming is one of the most highly acclaimed singers of our time, performing on the stages of the world’s great opera houses and concert halls. A 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree, winner of five Grammy® awards and the U.S. National Medal of Arts, she has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In 2008, she became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala, and in 2014, she became the first classical artist ever to sing the national anthem for the Super Bowl. In 2023, the World Health Organization appointed her as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health, and this year at Davos, she became an inaugural member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Arts and Culture Council.

Renée’s latest recital and concert program, Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene, inspired by her 2023 Grammy-winning album, includes an original film created by the National Geographic Society to reflect the musical selections. In 2024 at the Metropolitan Opera, she reprised her role in The Hours, an opera based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and award-winning film.

In 2023, she portrayed Pat Nixon in a new production of Nixon in China at the Opéra de Paris.

Renée’s anthology, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, was published in 2024. A prominent advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health and neuroscience, Renée launched the first ongoing collaboration between the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and America’s largest health research institute, the National Institutes of Health. She created her own program called Music and Mind, which she has presented in more than 70 cities around the world. She is now an advisor for major initiatives in this field, including the Sound Health Network at the University of California San Francisco and the NeuroArts Blueprint at Johns Hopkins University.

Renée has recorded everything from complete operas and song recitals to indie rock and jazz.

In 2023, Decca released a special double-length album of live recordings from Renée’s greatest performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Known for bringing new audiences to classical music and opera, Renée has sung not only with Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, but also with Elton John, Paul Simon, Sting, Josh Groban and Joan Baez. Renée’s voice is featured on the soundtracks of Best Picture Oscar winners The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings.

Co-Artistic Director of the Aspen Opera Center and VocalArts at the Aspen Music Festival, Renée is also Advisor for Special Projects at LA Opera and Artist Development Advisor at Wolf Trap Opera. Renée’s other awards include the 2023 Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize and honorary doctorates from 10 major universities. www.reneefleming.com

Renée Fleming appears by arrangement with IMG Artists, www.imgartists.com.

Ms. Fleming’s jewelry is by Ann Ziff for Tamsen Z.

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 29

Credit: JP Leong

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MAY MAY FESTIVAL FESTIVAL CHORUS CHORUS & & CHORUS CHORUS LEADERSHIP LEADERSHIP

MAYMAY FESTIVAL FESTIVAL CHORUS CHORUS

TheThe MayMay Festival Festival Chorus Chorus has earned has earned national national and and international international acclaim acclaim for its formusicality its musicality and and command command of repertoire. of repertoire.

Consisting Consisting of 150 of 150 MATTHEW MATTHEW SWANSON, SWANSON, Director Director of Choruses of Choruses Jason Jason Alexander Alexander Holmes, Holmes, Associate Associate Director Director of of avocational avocational singers singers whowho collectively collectively devote devote more more Choruses Choruses & Youth & Youth Chorus Chorus Director Director thanthan 45,000 45,000 hours hours in rehearsals in rehearsals and and performances performances Heather Heather MacPhail, MacPhail, Accompanist Accompanist annually, annually, the Chorus the Chorus is the is core the core artistic artistic element element Andrew Andrew Miller, Miller, Conducting Conducting Fellow Fellow KellyKelly Haney, Haney, Interim Interim Chorus Chorus Manager Manager of the of Cincinnati the Cincinnati MayMay Festival Festival and and the official the official Kathryn Kathryn Zajac Zajac Albertson, Albertson, chorus chorus of the of Cincinnati the Cincinnati Symphony Symphony Orchestra Orchestra and and Supporting Supporting Chorus Chorus Manager Manager Cincinnati Cincinnati Pops.

Pops.

The The premier premier choral choral ensemble ensemble in in Kathleen Kathleen Moran, Moran, Chorus Chorus Librarian Librarian Cincinnati, Cincinnati, the May the May Festival Festival Chorus Chorus has garnered has garnered The May The Festival May Festival Chorus Chorus is endowed is endowed by the byBetsy the Betsy & & Alex C. Alex Young C. Young ChairChair

THETHE MAYMAY FESTIVAL FESTIVAL CHORUS CHORUS The The MayMay Festival Festival Chorus Chorus is endowed is endowed by the byBetsy the Betsy & Alex & Alex C. Young C. Young Chair Chair Megan Megan Lawson, Lawson, 10* 10* Fall, Fall, 3 3 Molly Molly Scruta, Scruta, 6* 6* Caitlin Caitlin Ahmann-Miller, Ahmann-Miller, 2* 2* SarahSarah Kevin Kevin Leahy, Leahy, 7* 7* Lindsey Lindsey Fitch,Fitch, 11 11 Emily Emily Seedle, Seedle, 2* 2* Hannah Hannah Bachmann, Bachmann, 2* 2* Matthew Matthew Leonard, Leonard, 3* 3* Benjamin Benjamin Flanders, Flanders, 2* 2* A.J. Seifert, A.J. Seifert, 1 1 TracyTracy Bailey, Bailey, 24* 24* Jennifer Jennifer Leone, Leone, 2* 2* France, France, 20* 20* Adam Adam Shoaff, Shoaff, 12 12 Cassandra Cassandra Bailey-Langjahr, Bailey-Langjahr, 1* 1*SteveSteve ScottScott Lincoln, Lincoln, 1 1 Amanda Amanda Gast,Gast, 4 4 SarahSarah Stoutamire, Stoutamire, 8 8 Avery Avery Bargassé, Bargassé, 7* 7* Robert Robert Lomax, Lomax, 7 7 Alex Alex Getz,Getz, 1 1 Kristie Kristie Stricker, Stricker, 3 3 MarkMark Barnes, Barnes, 8 8 Katherine Katherine Loomis, Loomis, 5 5 Ella Giesler, Ella Giesler, 1 1 Katherine Katherine Sullivan, Sullivan, 2 2 Deborah Deborah Barnett, Barnett, 1 1 AlexxAlexx Lujan, Lujan, 1 1 David David Gillespie, Gillespie, 3 3 NikkiNikki Tayidi, Tayidi, 1 1 Karen Karen Bastress, Bastress, 26 26 Elaine Elaine P. Lustig, P. Lustig, 15 15 Joelle Joelle Graham, Graham, 2* 2* KatieKatie Tesmond, Tesmond, 2 2 Jim Baxter, Jim Baxter, 34 34 JuliaJulia Marchese, Marchese, 4 4 AnitaAnita Marie Marie Greer, Greer, 36* 36* Joshua Joshua Wallace, Wallace, 18 18 Emily Emily Benoit, Benoit, 1 1 Audrey Audrey Markovich, Markovich, 4 4 BellaBella Gullia, Gullia, 2 2 Megan Megan Weaver, Weaver, 12 12 Mariah Mariah Berryman, Berryman, 1 1 Noelle Noelle Marousis, Marousis, 1 1 Grace Grace Guthrie, Guthrie, 1 1 MarkMark Weaver, Weaver, 19* 19* Nathan Nathan Bettenhausen, Bettenhausen, 4* 4* Melissa Melissa A. Martin, A. Martin, 19 19 Melissa Melissa Haas,Haas, 7 7 GaryGary Wendt, Wendt, 19* 19* Kenny Kenny Bierschenk, Bierschenk, 8 8 JohnJohn McKibben, McKibben, 7 7 Emma Emma Hage,Hage, 1 1 Paul Paul Wessendarp, Wessendarp, 5 5 Jennifer Jennifer Blair,Blair, 2 2 Teri Teri McKibben, McKibben, 17 17 DanaDana Harms, Harms, 17 17 Tommy Tommy Wessendarp, Wessendarp, 4* 4* RyanRyan Block, Block, 2* 2* Christopher Meleski, Meleski, 1 1 Vickery Vickery Harper, Harper, 54 54 Christopher Stephen Stephen West,West, 4 4 Laurel Laurel Boisclair Boisclair Ellsworth, Ellsworth, 20 20SallySally Justine Justine Merritt, Merritt, 7 7 MaryMary Wynn Wynn Haupt, Haupt, 23* 23* Robin Robin Rae Wiley, Rae Wiley, 3* 3* David David Bower, Bower, 4* 4* Andrew Andrew Miller, Miller, 3* 3* Carolyn Carolyn Hill, Hill, 14 14 Patricia Patricia Wilkens, Wilkens, 4 4 Andrew Andrew L. Bowers, L. Bowers, 9 9 Salvador Salvador Miranda, Miranda, 2* 2* Grace Grace Ho, 1Ho, 1 Nathaniel Nathaniel Wilkens, Wilkens, 1 1 ScottScott Brody, Brody, 10* 10* Jennifer Jennifer Moak, Moak, 11* 11* MarkMark Hockenberry, Hockenberry, 4* 4* Taraneh Taraneh R. Wilkinson, R. Wilkinson, 3 3 Douglas Douglas J. Bruestle, J. Bruestle, 14* 14* James Murray, Murray, 1 1 JasonJason Alexander Alexander Holmes, Holmes, 1 1 James EvanEvan Young, Young, 1 1 Dawn Dawn Bruestle, Bruestle, 20 20 H Scott H Scott Nesbitt, Nesbitt, 15* 15* LeahLeah Hoover, Hoover, 1 1 BarryBarry Zaslow, Zaslow, 41 41 Darren Darren Bryant, Bryant, 4 4 C. Osgood, C. Osgood, 23 23 SarahSarah Keeling Keeling Horseman, Horseman, 15 15ScottScott Meg Meg Zeller, Zeller, 1 1 Sage Sage Bushstone, Bushstone, 1 1 MaryMary Patton, Patton, 1 1 Kim Kim P. Icsman, P. Icsman, 28* 28* Olivia Olivia Zimmerman, Zimmerman, 2 2 Caitlyn Caitlyn Byers, Byers, 3 3 Alison Alison Peeno, Peeno, 6 6 Spence Spence B. Ingerson, B. Ingerson, 35 35 Christopher Christopher Canarie, Canarie, 31* 31* AmyAmy M. Perry, M. Perry, 13* 13* Karolyn Karolyn L. Johnsen, L. Johnsen, 53 53 Miriam Miriam Cantwell, Cantwell, 1 1 Numbers Numbers behind behind chorus chorus James James V. Racster, V. Racster, 43 43 Alexandra Alexandra Kesman, Kesman, 10 10 Timothy Timothy Carnahan, Carnahan, 1 1 members’ members’ names names signify signify JasonJason Ramler, Ramler, 23 23 Erin Erin Kieffer, Kieffer, 1 1 Renee Renee Cifuentes, Cifuentes, 8 8 theirtheir yearsyears of service. of service.

ThoseThose KristiKristi C. Reed, C. Reed, 14* 14* Jenifer Jenifer Klostermeier, Klostermeier, 6 6 Rachel Rachel Curran, Curran, 1 1 celebrating celebrating anniversaries anniversaries BrianBrian Reilly, Reilly, 4* 4* Andrew Kneer, Kneer, 1 1 Steven Steven L. Dauterman, L. Dauterman, 43* 43* Andrew of five-year of five-year increments increments LarryLarry Reiring, Reiring, 16* 16* Fansheng Fansheng Kong,Kong, 4 4 Grace Grace Devoid, Devoid, 1 1 are honored are honored with with lapellapel BethBeth Roberts, Roberts, 19* 19* Takuya Takuya Konishi, Konishi, 4 4 Kathy Kathy Dietrich, Dietrich, 11* 11* pins they pins they proudly proudly wearwear Christy Christy Roediger, Roediger, 3 3 Lisa Koressel, Lisa Koressel, 25 25 Jennifer Jennifer Dobson, Dobson, 8 8 with with their their May May Festival Festival Laura Laura Ruple, Ruple, 1 1 Alex Alex Kress, Kress, 2 2 BrianBrian Donaldson, Donaldson, 13 13 uniforms. uniforms.

Hannah Hannah Schafer, Schafer, 2 2 Judith Judith C. LaChance, C. LaChance, 47 47 Bethany Bethany Dorsel, Dorsel, 1 1 JuliaJulia H. Schieve, H. Schieve, 30 30 Hilary Hilary Landwehr, Landwehr, 36* 36* David David Dugan, Dugan, 3 3 of theofMay the May Amanda Amanda Schwarz Schwarz Rosenzweig, Rosenzweig, 4 *Member 4 *Member JulieJulie Laskey, Laskey, 21 21 Donna Donna Dunlap, Dunlap, 2* 2* Festival Festival Chamber Chamber ChoirChoir Ann Schwentker, Ann Schwentker, 6 6 Jim Laskey, Jim Laskey, 15 15 Douglas Douglas J. Easterling, J. Easterling, 10* 10* Karen Karen Scott-Vosseberg, Scott-Vosseberg, 8* 8* Emma Emma Lawrence, Lawrence, 1 1 Margaret Margaret Eilert, Eilert, 2* 2* MAY MAY FESTIVAL FESTIVAL 20252025 | 31 | 31

MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS & CHORUS LEADERSHIP

presenter of lectures, concerts and broadcasts in Cincinnati, New York and elsewhere.

Swanson is a native of southeast Iowa and was educated at the University of Notre Dame, CCM and King’s College, Cambridge. He held the May Festival Conducting Fellowship in 2015. Prior to his fellowship appointment, he sang in the May Festival Chorus and worked in the CSO Box Office.

Credit: Krista DeVaul

MATTHEW SWANSON, Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson is Director of Choruses for the Cincinnati May Festival, a cornerstone of the Cincinnati arts community since its founding in 1873. He is the artistic leader of the May Festival’s choral ensembles — the May Festival Chorus, the May Festival Chamber Choir, the May Festival Youth Chorus and the Cincinnati Boychoir — and collaborates with the annually appointed Festival Director to craft programming for the May Festival. He conducts and prepares the May Festival Chorus — the core artistic element of the Cincinnati May Festival and the official Chorus of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops — for their performances at historic Music Hall and beyond. As Director of Choruses, he also leads the May Festival Conducting Fellowship, a collaboration of the May Festival and the Choral Studies Program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Previously, Matthew Swanson was the Associate Director of Choruses, Youth Chorus Director and Director of Special Projects for the May Festival. Beyond the May Festival, he has been affiliated with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir, Lincoln Center (New York), CCM and Xavier University, along with other educational and cultural institutions in the U.S. and abroad. He is frequently engaged as a host and

32 | mayfestival.com

Credit: Lyons Photography

national and international attention through numerous PBS broadcasts and award-winning recordings, many in collaboration with the CSO and Pops. Most recently, a live recording of Robert Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses featuring Music Director Laureate James Conlon conducting the Chorus and CSO at Carnegie Hall was released to critical acclaim in 2016 on Bridge Records, and, in 2017, the Chorus re-released its popular a cappella holiday recording Christmas with the May Festival Chorus on the Fanfare Cincinnati label. The Chorus is also featured on several Pops recordings, which have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. mayfestival.com/chorus

JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES Associate Director of Choruses and May Festival Youth Chorus Director Jason Alexander Holmes is a music educator and performer from Ridgeway, Virginia and serves as the associate director of choruses for the Cincinnati May Festival. Before coming to Cincinnati, he was director of educational programming at the Boston Children’s Chorus. Prior to his time in Boston, Holmes taught music at the elementary and secondary levels in Rochester, NY. He also led the University of Rochester Gospel Choir and the Eastman Young Children’s Chorus. Holmes holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Ithaca College.

Choirs under Holmes’ direction are consistently praised for their energetic, unified tone and engaging performances. He is known for innovative programming that celebrates the cultural context while encouraging singers and audiences alike to stretch their awareness by living in many different musical worlds.

Pedagogically, Holmes is committed to implementing culturally responsive practices in music education. He has given workshops and taught sessions on this topic at professional development seminars, schools and conferences.

At the core of Holmes’ teaching and performing is the belief that we are all expressive and musical beings who deserve to witness and participate regularly in moments of truth and beauty.

Read more about Jason in “Jason Alexander Holmes: A Choir Director’s Journey” on p. 17.

MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS & CHORUS LEADERSHIP

IN RECOGNITION OF RETIRING CHORUS MEMBERS The May Festival acknowledges with gratitude and appreciation those Chorus members who conclude their membership in the May Festival Chorus at the close of the 2025 Festival.

Those retiring from the Chorus, with their service years, are:

ANDREW MILLER May Festival Conducting Fellow Andrew Miller, a Cincinnati-based conductor, tenor and instrumental instructor, serves as May Festival Conducting Fellow for the 2024–25 season.

In addition to his work as a choral singer with the May Festival Chorus and Vocal Arts Ensemble, Miller maintains an active performing schedule as a conductor and clinician. He most recently directed the choir and class guitar programs at Covington Catholic High School in Northern Kentucky, a tenure highlighted by collaborations with several area universities and a performing tour to Carnegie Hall in New York City. He also serves as Director of Music at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Cincinnati.

Prior to his work in Cincinnati, Miller served as the director of the University of Louisville Singing Cardsmen while completing his Master of Music degree in choral conducting under the direction of Dr. Kent Hatteberg. He also served as an assistant for all university choruses and presented an eclectic Requiem Mass as his conducting recital, including a world premiere by Louisville composer Blake Wilson.

Miller completed his undergraduate degree in music education at the University of Kentucky in 2015 under the direction of Dr. Jefferson Johnson and Dr. Lori Hetzel and is currently pursuing doctoral studies in choral conducting at CCM.

Credit: Mark Lyons

Credit: Lyons Photography

HEATHER MacPHAIL, Accompanist Heather MacPhail has been the accompanist for the May Festival Chorus since 1990. She is a frequent keyboardist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, performing on all keyboard instruments.

Since 1997, she has been staff accompanist at Miami University, where she supervises and coaches students in accompanying, teaches organ, and performs with faculty and guest artists. MacPhail has performed as piano soloist with area ensembles and in recital on local concert series.

Heather MacPhail is organist/director of music ministries at Westwood First Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati and maintains a private teaching studio for piano and organ. She holds a Master of Music degree in accompanying and a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music.

The May Festival is grateful to Ginger Warner for her generous support of the Conducting Fellowship.

Barry Zaslow, 41 years Ryan Block, 2 years

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 33

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES, Director David Kirkendall, Accompanist and Assistant Director Lisa Peters, Musicianship Instructor Edy Drieth, Interim Chorus Manager Kathleen Moran, 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 choralorchestral 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 is generously supported by the BAI Foundation.

Additional ongoing support provided by the following:

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Credit: Lyons Photography

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS

DAVID KIRKENDALL, Accompanist and Assistant Director David Kirkendall served as choral director at Princeton High School in Cincinnati from 1980 to 2013. He has been assistant director and accompanist for the May Festival Youth Chorus since 2006 and has also served as accompanist for the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati since 2017.

Kirkendall completed his undergraduate degree, as well as a master’s degree in Choral Conducting, at the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music (CCM). He attended 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. He provided continuo realizations for the Roger Dean edition of the Vivaldi Gloria and has an SSA arrangement published with Alfred Music.

2025 YOUTH CHORUS AWARD WINNERS John Hauck Foundation Scholarship The May Festival Youth Chorus is pleased to award the John Hauck Foundation Scholarship to Sam Bringle and Emily Wendt. The scholarship annually supports graduating Youth Chorus members who plan to study music, or the arts more broadly, at the university level.

James Bagwell Award The Youth Chorus is pleased to honor Jenavieve Southcombe with the James Bagwell Award.

Named for Dr. James Bagwell, conductor of the Youth Chorus 1997–2018, the award honors a singer who demonstrates musical curiosity, a strong record of academic achievement and exemplary commitment to the Youth Chorus.

Enrichment Scholarship Program The Youth Chorus is pleased to honor Sophia Clever as the recipient of the Enrichment Scholarship, available to all members who attend enrichment events and concerts outside of MFYC rehearsals, enroll in the MFYC voice lesson program, audition for solo opportunities and finish the year with an examplary attendance record.

MAY FESTIVALYOUTH CHORUS

THE MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS Carter J. Allen, Sycamore High School Ava Altenau, Seton High School Seth Barry, Oak Hills High School Isabella Bauer, Williamsburg Schools Hope Bowden, Clark Montessori High School Lenora Braukman, Saint Ursula Academy Sam Bringle, Sycamore High School Anna Burkhart, Turpin High School Cameron Carnahan, Little Miami High School Romeo Ciolino, Walnut Hills High School Sophia Clever, Saint Ursula Academy Thanh-Tam Dao, Walnut Hills High School Lucy Dixon, Madeira High School Alijah Frost, Wyoming High School Mary Hollon, Simon Kenton High School and Ignite Institute Natalie Hoover, Highlands High School Vris Hossain, Wyoming High School Genevieve Howard, Newport Central Catholic Dez Flynn Hutchens, Campbell County High School Naomi Jackson, Sycamore High School Aiden Jin, Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy Mason Jones, Williamsburg Schools Madeleine Kasman, The Seven Hills School Preston Koeninger, Newport Central Catholic High School Nick Kruckeberg, St. Francis de Sales Lebanon

Claire Kruckeberg, Ursuline Academy Talula Lane, Covington Latin School Emily Lewis, Seton High School Zachary Li, The Schilling School for Gifted Children Elyse Longbottom, Indian Hill High School Kelly Lonneman, SCPA Grace Manning, Highlands Middle School Sylvie Martin, Highlands High School Ella Martin, St. Therese School Adriana Mayfield, Colerain High School Pearl Morey, Makers Academy and homeschool Runako Muvirimi, The Summit Country Day School Charles Rahner, The Summit Country Day School Pearl Ramstetter, Makers Academy and homeschool Norah Shadwell, Highlands High School Nathan Share, SCPA Seava Sierra King, Villa Madonna Academy Jenavieve Southcombe, SCPA Oliver Wagner, Sycamore High School Eden Walker, SCPA Emily Wendt, Holy Cross High School Daniel Winhusen, The Summit Country Day School Adelynn Woodward, The Summit Country Day School Sam Wright, Covington Classical Academy Maggie Zink, Woodland Middle School

Support YOUR May Festival with a tax-deducible gift TODAY! TODAY mayfestival.com/give.

The May Festival is a 100% cost-free opportunity because of the generous support of our friends and neighbors.

View a complete list of May Festival donors at mayfestival.com/partners.

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 35

CINCINNATI BOYCHOIR

and singing, as well as how to tie their bowtie,

LISA PETERS, director Sara Cahall, accompanist Patrick Apfelbeck, chorus manager

and more.

Cincinnati Boychoir is a choir for male-identifying

region and have performed concerts and

youth of all musical abilities from across the

completed residencies both at home and abroad.

The Cincinnati Boychoir presents approximately 20 annual performances in the greater Cincinnati

Greater Cincinnati Region. Founded in 1965,

The Boychoir strives to be accessible to

the Boychoir is a teaching and performing

boys of all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic

organization that offers musical enrichment,

backgrounds, affording them the opportunity to

performance and touring opportunities.

experience the life-changing impact of immersive

Boychoir vocal ensembles are directed by

arts participation.

professional music educators who teach a curriculum not only of musical skills but cultural appreciation, empathy, self-discipline, leadership, mentorship and a spirit of volunteerism.

Boys from grades 3–12 attend weekly rehearsals, and commit from six weeks to a full academic year. Each week, all boys come together for a combined rehearsal in which older boys are empowered as big brothers to younger boys, teaching them the nuts and bolts of music

Know a boy who likes to sing?

Register for the 20252026 school year at cincinnatiboychoir.org/audition

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LISA PETERS, conductor Lisa Peters is a graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music in Ithaca, New York, where she received a Bachelor of Music Education degree with an emphasis in choral and vocal music. In addition, she

CINCINNATI BOYCHOIR

holds a master’s degree in Education with

SARA CAHALL, piano

music emphasis from Xavier University. Peters

Sara Cahall is currently working

taught high school choir in the Cincinnati

in the Cincinnati area as a

area for 30 years, finishing her career at the

collaborative pianist, organist

nationally ranked Walnut Hills High School.

and choral director. Her

Since her retirement from high school

positions include Associate

teaching, Peters has stayed active as a local

Professor of Choral Activities

music educator and choral conductor. She

at Thomas More University,

held the position of adjunct choral director at

where she directs Dolce, the

Mount St. Joseph University and has taught

auditioned women’s chorus.

voice privately for the Mount St. Joseph

She is also an accompanist for the Cincinnati

Music Academy and the Northern Kentucky

Boychoir and Minister of Music at Ascension &

University preparatory department. She also

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Wyoming, OH.

held the position of children’s chorusmaster

She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at

for Cincinnati Opera for a number of seasons.

Bowling Green State University, a Master of Music

Peters has sung with numerous groups in

degree from The University of Arizona in 2017,

Cincinnati, including the Cincinnati Opera

and partial doctoral studies at the University of

chorus, Cincinnati Camerata and the Christ

Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Church Cathedral Choir. Peters is currently

During her studies at CCM, she also served

director of choirs at St. Barnabas Episcopal

as organ scholar at Christ Church Cathedral

Church and associate director of the Cincinnati

Cincinnati.

Choral Society, where she also sings alto and is a member of its board of directors. Peters has been on the artistic staff of the Cincinnati Boychoir for a number of years and was named director starting with the 2024–25 season.

Support the Boychoir with a gift today!

To make our program accessible to all boys, the Boychoir has become a tuition-free program, but we couldn’t do it without the support of generous friends like you. cincinnatiboychoir.org/donate

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 37

CINCINNATI BOYCHOIR

CINCINNATI BOYCHOIR Ambassador Tenors/Basses Alexander Gentil, Milford High School Alexander Shelton, Bridgetown Middle School Andrew Prevost, Walnut Hills High School Christian Bedinghaus, Highlands High School Clark Hamlet, School for Creative and Performing Arts Elessar DeHoff, Princeton Community Middle School Enairs Turnbow, Moeller High School Ishaik Craig, Harrison Junior High School Jackson Metz, Harrison High School Joel Leptak-Moreau, School for Creative and Performing Arts Madden Menz, Highlands High School Nicholas Kruckeberg, St. Francis de Sales Lebanon Otto Heckman, Walnut Hills High School Owen Flora, McNicholas High School Rex Hornsby, School for Creative and Performing Arts Ryan Keller, John Paul II School Santiago Dreher, The Seven Hills School

Ambassador Trebles Aaron O’Rourke, St. Margaret of York School Beckett Zoller, Wyoming Middle School Cody Ching, Mariemont Junior High School David Erisman, Spencer Center for Gifted and Exceptional Students Hezekiah House, Walnut Hills High School Kaeden James, Reading Community Elementary School Max Hughes, Mason Middle School Stefano Adams-Orejuela, Xavier Montessori Theodore Miritello, Spencer Center for Gifted and Exceptional Students Journeymen Adam Tuemler, St. Dominic’s School Anthony Williams, Pleasant Ridge Montessori School Christopher Omolayo, John P Parker School David Santamaria, Maddux Elementary Dominic Miller, Mason Middle School River Maynard, Beechwood Elementary School Simon Foster, School for Creative and Performing Arts

THANK YOU! to the many pre-concert

performers & ensembles who join us in our mission to share the

unifying power of the human voice in the

City that Sings!

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GUEST SOLOISTS AND CONDUCTORS

RAMÓN TEBAR, conductor Spanish Conductor Ramón Tebar is currently principal conductor and artistic director of Opera Naples and artistic director of Spain’s Arantzazu Festival.

He was previously music director of the Orquesta de Valencia, artistic director of the Florida Grand Opera and principal guest conductor of Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.

In the 2024–25 season he returns to the San Francisco Opera and Hamburg State Opera for La bohème, Ópera de Tenerife for Madama Butterfly, Florida Grand Opera for Carmen and Cincinnati Opera for Tosca. This season, he will also return to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico and Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa for symphonic concerts.

Some of Tebar’s previous guest appearances in the opera pit include engagements at the Vienna State Opera (Madame Butterfly, La bohème, Turandot, Don Pasquale), Gran Teatre del Liceu (L’elisir d’amore), Frankfurt Opera (Francesca da Rimini), Hamburg State Opera (Don Pasquale), Cincinnati Opera (Carmen, Roméo et Juliette, Turandot), Royal Swedish Opera (La Cenerentola), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Madama Butterfly), Opéra national de Lorraine (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Gothenburg Opera (Tosca), Savonlinna Festival (Carmen), Pamplona’s Baluarte Theater (Otello), Teatro Regio di Parma (Giovanna d’Arco), Ópera de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra) and Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (I puritani), among others.

In addition to his operatic career, Tebar is sought after as a guest conductor with symphonic orchestras around the world. He has conducted the Spanish National Orchestra several times, and he further guested with many of Spain’s other orchestras. Beyond Spain, Tebar has guest conducted such orchestras as the Philharmonia in London, Prague Philharmonia, Het Gelders Orkest, Malaysian Philharmonic, Armenian Philharmonic, Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen Normandie, RobertSchumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz, Daejeon Philharmonic, Aalborg Symphony, Szczecin Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, San

Antonio Symphony and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Perú. Tebar was also previously the artistic director of the Santo Domingo Music Festival in Puerto Rico.

Tebar’s work can also be heard on recordings with Joseph Calleja and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana on the Decca label and with Gregory Kunde and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra on Universal. ramon-tebar.com ANGELA MEADE, soprano American soprano Angela Meade is the winner of both the Metropolitan Opera’s 2012 Beverly Sills Artist Award and the 2011 Richard Tucker Award.

In 2008, she joined an elite group of history’s singers when, as Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani, she made her professional operatic debut on the Met stage.

Since then, she has fast become recognized as one of today’s outstanding vocalists, excelling in the most demanding heroines of the 19th-century bel canto repertoire as well as in the operas of Verdi and Mozart.

In the 2024–25 season, Angela Meade makes notable returns to Teatro La Fenice, the Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper and Teatro Carlo Felice in celebrated role portrayals.

She returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Leonora in Il trovatore in David McVicar’s critically acclaimed production, conducted by Daniele Callegari. She sings the title role in Lucrezia Borgia in Munich and makes her role debut as the title role in Die Liebe der Danae at Teatro Carlo Felice with Fabio Luisi.

Concert appearances include Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Nashville Symphony and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare.

On the concert stage, Meade has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony and Seattle Symphony, among others.

Photo: Faye Fox

MAY 16: VERDI REQUIEM

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 39

GUEST SOLOISTS & CONDUCTORS

A native of Washington State and an alumna of the Academy of Vocal Arts, Meade has triumphed in an astounding number of vocal competitions: 57 in all, including many of the opera world’s most important prizes. In addition to being a winner at the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, as documented in The Audition, a film subsequently released on DVD by Decca, she was also the first singer to take first prize in both the opera and operetta categories of the prestigious Belvedere Competition. angelameade.com

Photo: Dario Acosta

J’NAI BRIDGES, mezzo-soprano In the 2024–25 season, the two-time Grammywinning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges makes her role debut as Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera. She returns to Seattle Opera in her role debut as Didon in Les Troyens and sings the title role in Carmen in her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper. Her concert engagements include Erika in Vanessa with the National Symphony Orchestra and engagements with Symphony Tacoma, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In New York City, she gives a solo recital as an artist-in-residence at the Kaufman Music Center and joins the Dessoff Choirs in Verdi’s Requiem at Trinity Church. Bridges recently made her Lincoln Center debut performing Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs and sang the role of Mary in John Adams’ El Niño at the Metropolitan Opera to critical acclaim.

Bridges has emerged as a leading figure in classical music’s shift toward conversations of inclusion and racial justice in the performing arts.

In 2022, she was announced as one of the Kennedy Center’s NEXT50 cultural leaders and appeared with The National Philharmonic in the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s A Knee on the Neck that same year. Bridges led a highly successful panel on race and inequality in opera with the Los Angeles Opera that drew international acclaim.

Bridges was also featured in the Converse shoe brand’s All Stars Campaign for its “Breaking Down Barriers” collection and performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel for two episodes of the digital Sound/Stage series. She was also a part of the Global Citizen movement’s Global Goal campaign, a program 40 | mayfestival.com

that also included Coldplay, Shakira, Usher and more, and she was featured as a “DVF” Woman, a campaign started by clothing designer Diane Von Furstenberg recognizing leading women who also love fashion.

Bridges is a recipient of the prestigious 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence Award, a 2016 Richard Tucker Career Grant, first prize winner at the 2016 Francisco Viñas International Competition, first prize winner at the 2015 Gerda Lissner Competition, a recipient of the 2013 Sullivan Foundation Award, a 2012 Marian Anderson Award winner, the recipient of the 2011 Sara Tucker Study Grant, the recipient of the 2009 Richard F. Gold Grant from The Shoshana Foundation and the winner of the 2008 Leontyne Price Foundation Competition. jnaibridgesmezzo.com JONATHAN BURTON, tenor Tenor Jonathan Burton is engaged to sing the most demanding roles in the tenor repertoire, including Cavaradossi in Tosca, Calaf in Turandot, Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West and Radames in Aida.

The 2024–25 season highlights include Burton’s performances as Cavaradossi at Pittsburgh Opera.

He will also be seen as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana at Pittsburgh Opera, Canio in Pagliacci with Utah Opera and the tenor soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with Key Chorale. Additionally, he will perform Britten’s War Requiem with the Columbus Symphony and portray Steve Wozniak in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at Washington National Opera.

In the 2023–24 season, Burton performed as Canio at Nashville Opera and Austin Opera and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with Virginia Opera, returned to Palm Beach Opera as Cavaradossi, and joined the Madison Symphony as the tenor soloist in Verdi’s Requiem. He also made his debut at the Washington National Opera as Calaf. Additionally, Burton joined The Dallas Opera’s opening night performance as Cavaradossi, replacing an ailing colleague.

In the 2022–23 season, Burton sang the Prince in Rusalka and Manrico in Il trovatore at Pittsburgh Opera, des Grieux in Manon Lescaut at North Carolina Opera, Canio at Opera San Antonio, and both Calaf in Turandot and Paul in Die tote Stadt at Opera Colorado. Burton also made his Santa Fe Opera debut as Cavaradossi.

GUEST SOLOISTS & CONDUCTORS

Photo: Jiyang Chen

DAVID LEIGH, bass

American bass David Leigh, a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, has been described

by Opera News as “a bass of unusual agility, depth and darkness” and is internationally known for his visceral and intelligent singing. In the 2024–25 season, Leigh debuts at the Opéra national de Paris as Virgilio in Pascal Dusapin’s world premiere production of Il Viaggio, Dante, conducted by Kent Nagano and Rocco in Fidelio with Washington National Opera; in concert, he makes two appearances with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, both with Semyon Bychkov, first in Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass on tour in Karlovy Vary and at Carnegie Hall, and then Pater Profundus in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 as part of the Prague Spring Festival, which will later be released as a recording. Elsewhere, he joins the Rochester Philharmonic for Mozart’s Requiem and the Nashville Symphony for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and he presents a solo concert with Minnesota Opera.

In the 2023–24 season, David Leigh returned to Opernhaus Zürich for Hagen in Götterdämmerung, a role he repeated later in the season as part of the complete Ring cycles, including Fafner in Siegfried, as well as Commendatore in Don Giovanni with the Canadian Opera Company. In concert, he performed as Hagen in Act III of Götterdämmerung with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

David Leigh comes from a family of artists: his father, Mitch Leigh, was the Tony-winning composer of Man of La Mancha; his mother, Abby Leigh, is an American painter whose work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Whitney, among others; and his sister, Eve Leigh, is a multiple award-winning playwright. He studied music composition at Yale University and holds master’s degrees in Voice and Opera from Mannes College and the Yale School of Music, respectively; at Yale he also received the Harriet Gibbs Fox Prize. He has received awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions,

the McCammon Competition at Fort Worth Opera, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and a 2017 top prize from the Wagner Society of New York. davidleighbass.com MAY 18: CHASING THE DAWN: A CHORAL JOURNEY

MATTHEW SWANSON, conductor Turn to p. 32 for a biography of May Festival Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson.

JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES, conductor Turn to p. 32 for a biography of May Festival Associate Director of Choruses and May Festival Youth Chorus Director Jason Alexander Holmes.

LISA PETERS, conductor Turn to p. 36 for a biography of Cincinnati Boychoir Director Lisa Peters.

MAY 22: THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT

JUANJO MENA, 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, which he led for seven seasons, taking the orchestra on tours of Europe and Asia and conducting annual televised concerts at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. His BBC tenure featured, notably, performances of Bruckner symphonies, as well as a cycle of Schubert symphonies, and set new standards for the interpretation of Spanish and South American repertoire. He held the position of principal conductor of the Cincinnati May Festival, the longest-running choral festival in North America, served by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, until 2023. His tenure reinvigorated the Festival’s repertoire with previously unheard music and new commissions (Julia Adolphe, James MacMillan, Missy Mazzoli, Ellen Reid, James Lee III), and expanded its audience both in numbers and in demographic reach.

Photo: Michal Novak

A protégé of Lorin Maazel, Burton sang under the famed maestro in multiple productions at the Castleton Festival, concerts in Washington, D.C., and in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the reopening of Teatro La Fenice. jburtontenor.com

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 41

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stronger arts for a stronger region We don’t make the music you’ll hear on stage, but for nearly 100 years, we’ve been the primary way Cincy’s arts are funded. Your gift to ArtsWave ripples out across our communities to create a more vibrant future for everyone.

With tens of thousands of gifts from people like you, ArtsWave is proud to support the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, plus over a hundred other arts organizations and artists that make our region stronger.

Make your gift today at artswave.org

GUEST SOLOISTS & CONDUCTORS

RENÉE FLEMING, soprano Turn to p. 28 for a biography of soprano and Festival Director Renée Fleming.

ROD GILFRY, baritone

Photo: Soulcatcher Studio

A sought-after guest conductor, Juanjo Mena has led Europe’s top ensembles and also appears regularly with all the major orchestras in his native Spain. Following his North American debut with the Baltimore Symphony 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.

During the 2024–25 season, Juanjo Mena returns to conduct the New York Philharmonic, with Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry as soloists. Other guest performances this season include returns to the Dallas Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. In Europe, he returns to the Berlin Philharmonic, Spanish National Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony, Orchestra Filarmonica della Fenice and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, among others.

In the world of opera, Juanjo Mena conducted a new production of Arthur Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake with Marion Cotillard in the leading role, paired with Debussy’s La damoiselle élue staged

by Madrid’s Teatro Real in 2022. His operatic repertoire also includes Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman; Richard Strauss’ Salome, Elektra and Ariadne auf Naxos; Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle; and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, as well as productions of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, and Beethoven’s Fidelio and Britten’s Billy Budd.

Mena’s latest release is a disc of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6 with the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos. His rich discography with the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos also includes an acclaimed Gabriel Pierné release selected as a Gramophone Editor’s Choice, Weber symphonies, Ginastera’s orchestral works to mark the composer’s centenary, and new reference recordings of lesser-performed Spanish repertoire, including Arriaga’s orchestral pieces, works by Albéniz, Montsalvatge and Turina, as well as three discs of works by Manuel de Falla featuring his opera La vida breve.

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. juanjomena.com

American baritone Rod Gilfry is a twotime Grammy Award nominee, singer and actor who has performed in all of the world’s music capitals. His most recent Grammy Award nomination was for his performance in the title role of Messiaen’s monumental opera Saint François d’Assise in Amsterdam. Best known as an opera singer, he is also an acclaimed recitalist and concert artist and appears frequently in musical theater classics. His discography of 28 audio and video recordings includes the DVD and CD of his oneman show My Heart is So Full of You. His radio program, Opera Notes on Air, aired on K-Mozart 105.1 FM in Los Angeles for over three years.

With over 80 roles in his repertoire, Gilfry sings music from the Baroque to that composed expressly for him. He was brought to worldwide attention when he created the role of Stanley Kowalski in the 1998 premiere of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire at the San Francisco Opera, opposite Renée Fleming. Other world premieres include Nicholas in Deborah Drattell’s Nicholas and Alexandra (Los Angeles, opposite Plácido Domingo); Nathan in Nicholas Maw’s Sophie’s Choice (London, Washington D.C.); Jack London in Libby Larsen’s Every Man Jack (Sonoma, CA); Edward Gaines in Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner (Detroit, Cincinnati, Philadelphia); the title role in Marc-André Dalbavie’s Gesualdo (Zurich); and Master Chen in Christian Jost’s Rote Laterne (Zurich). Recently, he originated the role of Walt Whitman in Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing in Boston, Los Angeles and San Diego; the Father in Aucoin’s Eurydice with Los Angeles Opera; Alfred Stieglitz in Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light, opposite Renée Fleming; Claudius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet with the Met, Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Festival and Adelaide Festival; Mr. Potter in Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life in Houston and San Francisco; and David Lang’s the loser in New York City and Los Angeles.

In the 2024–25 season, Rod Gilfry performs Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte with James Conlon at LA Opera and additional dates of Kevin Puts’ MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 43

A New Era begins

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Cristian Măcelaru

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GUEST SOLOISTS & CONDUCTORS

The Brightness of Light with Renée Fleming with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Symphony and Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

Gilfry devoted an entire season to the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, starring as Emile de Becque in the U.S. National Tour of the Lincoln Center production of South Pacific, a production that garnered seven Tony Awards. He also appeared as Captain von Trapp with the Théâtre du Châtelet in The Sound of Music, with his daughter, Carin Gilfry, in the role of his character’s daughter, Liesl.

A lifelong Californian, Gilfry resides in Rancho Cucamonga with his wife, Tina. rodgilfry.com

MAY 24: VOICE OF NATURE: THE ANTHROPOCENE

RENÉE FLEMING, soprano Turn to p. 28 for a biography of soprano and Festival Director Renée Fleming.

Photo: Jamie Harmon

ROBERT MOODY, conductor Conductor Robert Moody celebrates his ninth season as music director of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and 18th season as music director of Arizona Musicfest.

He was named music director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra in June 2024.

In 2022, Moody was invited to conduct the Lakeland Symphony Orchestra in Florida in a

gala concert with Renée Fleming. Following that experience, he was immediately named Principal Opera Conductor for Lakeland Symphony/Opera.

Prior to Memphis, Moody was music director of both the Portland Symphony (Maine) and the Winston-Salem Symphony (North Carolina).

During the 2024–25 season, Moody debuts with Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Tulsa Opera, both in performances with Renée Fleming, and with the Tampere Philharmonic and Romania’s Filarmonica Banatul; he also returns to conduct the Portland and Greensboro symphony orchestras.

He has led many of the major orchestras and opera companies of the world, including the Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Toronto symphony orchestras; the Los Angeles and Buffalo philharmonics; the Minnesota Orchestra; and Washington National Opera. Internationally, his recent engagements include the Aachen and BadenBaden symphony orchestras in Germany, Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá (Colombia), and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra (Austria). He made his debut in China in 2024 with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. He is a frequent guest conductor in South Africa, returning this season for the third time to conduct the three major orchestras there — Cape Town, Johannesburg and KZN Philharmonic in Durban.

Passionate about mentoring the next generation of musicians, Moody has spent recent summers conducting at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra and Highlands Opera Festival.

Moody’s work is available on several commercial recordings, including the Canadian Brass albums Bach and Legends, R. Carlos Nakai’s Fourth World album, and with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and trumpet legend Ryan Anthony on his Re:mission Rubato album.

A South Carolina native, Moody holds degrees from Furman University and the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his conducting degree with Donald Neuen. Additional studies included an undergraduate term abroad in Vienna and a summer of study with Otto-Werner Mueller at Le Domaine Forget in Quebec. He is a Rotarian and has served on the boards of AIDS Care Services, Winston-Salem YMCA, WDAV Classical Radio and the Charlotte Master Chorale. robertmoodymusic.com

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 45

CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Music Director Designate Cristian Măcelaru With a legacy dating back 130 years, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is considered one of America’s finest and most versatile ensembles. In the 2025–26 season, Cristian Măcelaru joins the Orchestra as its 14th Music Director, after serving as Music Director Designate in the 2024–25 season. 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.

Since its inception in 1895, the CSO has dedicated itself to seeking and sharing inspiration with the Greater Cincinnati community through the transformative power of music. With a vibrant and dedicated history, the CSO has commissioned more than 200 new works and presented more than 300 world or U.S. premieres, solidifying its role as a cornerstone of musical innovation.

The CSO’s commissioning legacy includes two Fanfare Projects, the first during World War II and the second during the Covid-19 pandemic, that sought to inspire, uplift and provide meaning during pivotal moments in our nation’s shared history through the universal language of music. In

addition to its commissioning efforts, the CSO and Pops can be heard around the world through more than 300 commercial recordings, including those on the Orchestra’s own label, Fanfare Cincinnati.

The CSO is committed to its vision to be the most relevant orchestra in America, realized through a focus on serving the entire community and continually innovating ways in which the Orchestra presents music. Recent examples include One City/ One Symphony, fostering city-wide discussions through music; Lumenocity®, blending music and visual art with Music Hall’s illuminated façade; Look Around, uniting Cincinnati’s arts community at Washington Park; and CSO Proof, the Orchestra’s flagship program for innovative concert experiences and formats.

The CSO is also dedicated to enriching and expanding access to music education through the power of culturally inclusive music to nurture and inspire lifelong learning. Focusing on Learning, Playing and Developing, the Orchestra brings music education to the Greater Cincinnati community through youth orchestras, Musicians in Schools and one of the United States’ longestrunning Young People’s Concerts series, launched over 100 years ago. cincinnatisymphony.org

Connecting the World, Celebrating the Arts!

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46 | mayfestival.com

CRISTIAN MӐCELARU, Music Director Designate Louise Dieterle Nippert & Louis Nippert Chair

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

Matthias Pintscher, CSO Creative Partner Damon Gupton, Pops Principal Guest Conductor Louis Langrée, Music Director Laureate Samuel Lee, Associate Conductor Ashley and Barbara Ford Chair

Daniel Wiley, Assistant Conductor Ashley and Barbara Ford Chair

FIRST VIOLINS Stefani Matsuo

CELLOS Ilya Finkelshteyn

Felicity James

Lachezar Kostov *

Concertmaster Anna Sinton Taft Chair Associate Concertmaster Tom & Dee Stegman Chair

Philip Marten

First Assistant Concertmaster James M. Ewell Chair++

Principal Irene & John J. Emery Chair

CLARINETS Christopher Pell

Principal Emma Margaret & Irving D. Goldman Chair

Ona Hixson Dater Chair

Joseph Morris*

Karl & Roberta Schlachter Family Chair

Ixi Chen

Norman Johns**

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

Eric Bates

Drew Dansby§ Daniel Kaler

Kathryn Woolley

Nicholas Mariscal

BASS CLARINET Ronald Aufmann

Anna Reider

Hiro Matsuo

BASSOONS Christopher Sales

Mauricio Aguiar§

Alan Rafferty

Second Assistant Concertmaster Serge Shababian Chair Nicholas Tsimaras– Peter G. Courlas Chair++ Dianne & J. David Rosenberg Chair Anne G. & Robert W. Dorsey Chair

Peter G. Courlas– Nicholas Tsimaras Chair++ Marvin Kolodzik & Linda S. Gallaher Chair for Cello Laura Kimble McLellan Chair++ Ruth F. Rosevear Chair

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

Principal Emalee Schavel Chair++

Minyoung Baik

Tianlu (Jerry) Xu

Martin Garcia* Hugh Michie

James Braid

BASSES Owen Lee

CONTRABASSOON Jennifer Monroe

Luis Celis*

HORNS Elizabeth Freimuth

Jo Ann & Paul Ward Chair Marc Bohlke Chair given

by Katrin & Manfred Bohlke

Rebecca Kruger Fryxell Clifford J. Goosmann & Andrea M. Wilson Chair

Elizabeth Furuta Gerald Itzkoff

Jean Ten Have Chair

Joseph Ohkubo Luo-Jia Wu Jonathan Yi

SECOND VIOLINS Gabriel Pegis Principal Al Levinson Chair

Yang Liu*

Principal Mary Alice Heekin Burke Chair++ Thomas Vanden Eynden Chair

Stephen Jones**

Trish & Rick Bryan Chair

Boris Astafiev§ Gerald Torres Rick Vizachero

HARP Gillian Benet Sella

Principal Cynthia & Frank Stewart Chair

Scott Mozlin**

FLUTES Randolph Bowman

Kun Dong Cheryl Benedict Evin Blomberg§

Henrik Heide* Haley Bangs

Harold B. & Betty Justice Chair Henry Meyer Chair

Sheila and Christopher Cole Chair

Rose Brown Rachel Charbel

Ida Ringling North Chair

Chika Kinderman Charles Morey Hyesun Park Paul Patterson

Charles Gausmann Chair++

Stacey Woolley

Brenda & Ralph Taylor Chair++

VIOLAS Christian Colberg

Principal Louise D. & Louis Nippert Chair

Gabriel Napoli

Acting Associate Principal Grace M. Allen Chair

Julian Wilkison** Rebecca Barnes§ Christopher Fischer Stephen Fryxell

Melinda & Irwin Simon Chair

Caterina Longhi Denisse Rodriguez-Rivera Dan Wang Joanne Wojtowicz

Principal Charles Frederic Goss Chair Jane & David Ellis Chair

PICCOLO Rebecca Pancner

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++

Principal Mary M. & Charles F. Yeiser Chair

David Alexander

Acting Associate Principal Ellen A. & Richard C. Berghamer Chair

Molly Norcross** ‡

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

Donald & Margaret Robinson Chair

TRUMPETS Anthony Limoncelli Principal Rawson Chair

[OPEN]

Jackie & Roy Sweeney Family Chair

Alexander Pride†

Otto M. Budig Family Foundation Chair++

Christopher Kiradjieff TROMBONES Cristian Ganicenco

Principal Dorothy & John Hermanies Chair

Joseph Rodriguez**

TIMPANI Patrick Schleker

Principal Matthew & Peg Woodside Chair

Joseph Bricker*

Morleen & Jack Rouse Chair

PERCUSSION David Fishlock

Principal Susan S. & William A. Friedlander Chair

Michael Culligan* Joseph Bricker

Morleen & Jack Rouse Chair

Marc Wolfley+

KEYBOARDS Michael Chertock

James P. Thornton Chair

Julie Spangler+

James P. Thornton Chair

CSO/CCM DIVERSITY FELLOWS~ Lucas Ferreira Braga, violin Melissa Peraza, viola Manuel Papale, cello Caleb Edwards, double bass Wendell Rodrigues da Rosa, double bass LIBRARIANS Christina Eaton

Principal Librarian Lois Klein Jolson Chair

Elizabeth Dunning

Associate Principal Librarian

Cara Benner

Assistant Librarian

STAGE MANAGERS Brian P. Schott Phillip T. Sheridan Daniel Schultz Mike Ingram 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 Mellon Foundation

Second/Assistant Principal Trombone Sallie Robinson Wadsworth & Randolph L. Wadsworth Jr. Chair

BASS TROMBONE Noah Roper TUBA Christopher Olka

Principal Ashley & Barbara Ford Chair

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 47

INVEST ENGAGE INNOVATE LEAD

Grantee Spotlight:

INSPIRATION STUDIOS, INC.

Inspiration Studios, Inc., and Sonny Spot Too are two Southwest Ohio organizations serving people with developmental disabilities. In 2023, they collaborated to create a new mural for Sonny Spot’s computer and technology room.

Image courtesy of the organziation

Investing state and federal dollars, the Ohio Arts Council funds and supports quality arts experiences for all Ohioans to strengthen communities culturally, educationally, and economically.

Learn more about our grant programs and resources, find your next arts experience, or connect: OAC.OHIO.GOV.

VERDI REQUIEM

FRI MAY 16, 7:30 pm | Music Hall RAMÓN TEBAR, conductor ANGELA MEADE, soprano J’NAI BRIDGES, mezzo-soprano JONATHAN BURTON, tenor DAVID LEIGH, bass MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS, Matthew Swanson, director The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Cristian Măcelaru, Music Director Designate Giuseppe VERDI (1813–1901)

Requiem Mass

Requiem and Kyrie Sequence (Dies irae) Offertorio (Domine Jesu) Sanctus Agnus Dei Lux aeterna Libera me

Tonight’s concert will last approximately 90 minutes.

There is no intermission.

Tonight’s concert is made possible through endowment gifts from the friends and family of the Joan P. and Oliver L. Baily Fund.

The 2025 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors.

The 2025 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 Ramón Tebar in tonight’s performance is made possible in part by a generous endowment gift in memory of Mr. and Mrs. LeRoy R. Brooks.

The appearance of Angela Meade in tonight’s performance is sponsored by made possible in part by a generous endowment gift from Dr. and Mrs. Morton Harshman.

The appearance of J’Nai Bridges in tonight’s performance is sponsored by Isaiah Hyman.

The appearance of Jonathan Burton in tonight’s performance is sponsored by Barry Zaslow.

The appearance of David Leigh in tonight’s performance is made possible in part by Hixson Architecture Engineering Services.

This evening’s pre-concert talk is sponsored by Drs. William Hurford and Lesley Gilbertson.

This evening’s lobby entertainment is made possible in part by Robert A. Atterton.

Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival.

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 49

MAY 16 PROGRAM NOTES GIUSEPPE VERDI

Requiem Mass

Born: October 10, 1813, Le Roncole, Italy Died: January 27, 1901, Milan, Italy Work Composed: 1873–74 Premiere: May 22, 1874 in Milan, Verdi conducting Instrumentation: SATB chorus, SATB soloists, 3 flutes (incl. piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, strings Duration: approx. 1 hour, 25 minutes

Giuseppe Verdi was, above all, a patriot. From his earliest years, he was an ardent supporter of the Risorgimento — the “resurgence” of ancient national pride — to free Italy from foreign domination and unify it under a single, native rule. Although he never Giuseppe Verdi personally manned the (Credit: Giovanni Boldini) barricades, he became, through his music, one of the most illustrious embodiments of the Italian national spirit.

Almost all of Verdi’s early operas ran afoul of the censors because of the political implications of their plots. In 19th-century Europe, no one doubted that music and drama could inspire strong emotions and, perhaps, even action. The political arbiters were ever wary about allowing ideas of insurrection or royal fallibility to escape from the stage into the public consciousness. One such idea that did slip through their suspicious examination, however, was contained in Verdi’s Nabucco of 1842. The chorus Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate (“Fly, thoughts, on wings of gold”), sung by the Israelites captive in Babylon longing for their lost homeland, was quickly adopted by the Risorgimento as an anthem of struggle for Italy’s freedom. So great and enduring was the fame of this stirring music that it was sung by the crowds that lined the streets for Verdi’s funeral procession almost six decades later.

During the insurrections of 1848, the name VERDI became a rallying cry for the nationalists and was scrawled across walls and carried on signs.

Besides being a tribute to their beloved composer, the letters of his name were also an acrostic for

50 | mayfestival.com

“Vittorio Emanuele, Re d’Italia,” the Duke of Savoy whom the nationalists were fighting to bring to power as “King of Italy.” When the Count of Cavour called the first parliamentary session of the newly united Italy in 1859, Verdi was elected as the representative from Busseto. Though reluctant to enter the political arena, he was sufficiently patriotic and cognizant of his standing with his countrymen to accept the nomination.

With his love of country and constant efforts to promote Italian culture, Verdi viewed the death of Rossini in Paris on November 13, 1868 as a national tragedy. He wrote to the Countess Maffei, “A great name has disappeared from the world! His was the most vast and most popular reputation of our time and he was a glory of Italy.” Verdi felt that a musical memorial should be erected to Rossini — not as a religious expedient to usher his soul into heaven, or as an expression of personal grief (the two were never close friends), but rather as an act of patriotism. One of the great Italians was gone, and Verdi believed the nation should properly mourn his passing.

Verdi proposed the composition of a composite Requiem Mass for Rossini to which the leading Italian composers would contribute. (“No foreign hands!” he insisted.) The performance was to take place on the first anniversary of Rossini’s death. Following Verdi’s instructions, the composers were chosen by lot by the publisher Giulio Ricordi, and each was assigned a section of the work. The closing Libera me fell to Verdi.

However, preparations for the Rossini Mass foundered on Verdi’s proposal that all those involved offer their services free of charge. The 12 other composers agreed to this, and the Mass was actually written, but the performers could not be secured. The project was canceled, and the manuscripts were returned to their composers, whose reputations faded along with the prospects for the memorial Mass — Platania, Mabellini and Cagnoni, for example, are unknown today, even in Italy. (The scores for this Messa per Rossini were discovered in Ricordi’s archives in 1970 by musicologist David Rosen during his research in preparing the complete edition of Verdi’s works.

A performance of the work, its first ever, took place in Stuttgart on September 11, 1988 under

PROGRAM NOTES

the direction of Helmuth Rilling; the New York Philharmonic gave the American premiere on October 12, 1989. A recording was released on the German label Hänssler Classic.) Verdi’s Libera me was filed away and forgotten, as were the plans for the Rossini Requiem.

In 1871, Alberto Mazzucato, a friend of Verdi’s and a composition teacher at the Milan Conservatory, discovered the Libera me manuscript in Ricordi’s vaults. He was enraptured with its beauty and wrote to its creator urging him to complete the entire work. Verdi responded, “Your words nearly prompted me to compose the whole Mass.... Think what a disastrous result your praise could have had!

But have no fear; this is only a temptation, which, like others, will pass.” He continued that to add yet another Requiem to the “many, many” that existed was “useless.” Soon, however, he was to find a use for such a work and give in to the temptation to take up his Libera me once again. n

n

n

Alessandro Manzoni was one of the dominant figures of 19th-century Italy. His poems, plays and novels spoke to the Italian soul as it quested

for freedom and national identity. His most famous work was the novel I promessi sposi (“The Betrothed”), which was considered not only the greatest Italian prose piece of the time, but also, as William Weaver noted, “a kind of stylebook for the country, which...was linguistically chaotic.” Manzoni’s book accomplished for Italy what Luther’s translation of the Bible had done 300 years before for Germany — brought a standardized language to a country factionalized by innumerable dialects.

Verdi venerated Manzoni. He often referred to him as “a saint” and his letters show boundless admiration for the great writer. Of I promessi sposi he said, “In my opinion he has written a book that is not only the greatest product of our times, but also one of the finest in all ages which has issued from the human mind. And, more than being just a book, it is a comfort to humanity as well.... My enthusiasm for this work is undiminished; nay, it has increased with my understanding of humanity; for this book is true, as true as ‘truth’ itself.” After the two first met in 1868, Verdi wrote, “What can I tell you of Manzoni? How to express the new, inexplicable, happy feeling which the sacred presence of this man

MUSIC AND MIND: Conversation with RENÉE FLEMING TUE MAY 20, 5:30 PM Ballroom, Music Hall Exploring the power of music in supporting humanity’s overall mental and physical well-being with leading local experts, neuroscientists and organizations.

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MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 51

Join Barbara Kellar as she showcases artists and cultural leaders from the Greater Cincinnati community.

SATURDAY 6:30PM CET SUNDAY 8:30PM CET ARTS

www.CETconnect.org Emmy Award Winner Regional - Interview/Discussion Program

Showcase Emmy NEW Barbara photo-02.indd 1

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PROGRAM NOTES

aroused in me? I would have knelt before him if men worshipped men.”

Manzoni died at the age of 87 on May 22, 1873.

Verdi was stricken with grief. A few days after receiving the news he wrote, “With him ends the most pure, the most sacred, the highest of our glories. I have read many of the newspapers, and not one of them speaks of him as he should be spoken of. Many words, but none of them profoundly felt.”

Verdi could not bring himself to attend the funeral.

While thousands of mourning Milanese poured into the streets of the city to witness Manzoni’s funeral procession, Verdi stayed at his country home, Sant’Agata, too distraught to leave until he found the strength to make a private visit to the graveside on June 3rd. As he had been five years earlier with the passing of Rossini, Verdi was again inspired to commemorate the death of a great Italian with a memorial Mass. He sent his proposal to compose a Requiem in honor of Manzoni to the mayor of Milan, and it was eagerly accepted. When the mayor expressed his appreciation, Verdi replied, “You owe me no thanks for my offer to write a Requiem for the anniversary of Manzoni’s death. It is an impulse, a need of my heart which impels me to honor, as far as I can, this Great Man whom I so respected as a writer, and have revered as a man, a model of virtue and of patriotism.”

Verdi scheduled the Requiem’s premiere for the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death and began the score immediately. Remembering his earlier experience with the Rossini Requiem, however, he decided this time to control the entire project himself — composition, preparations and performance. He revived the Libera me for inclusion in the Manzoni Requiem, but he newly composed the rest. As the work proceeded, he arranged for performers, printing and publicity, and he even conducted acoustical tests to determine the most suitable of Milan’s churches for the premiere.

The work was finished on April 10, 1874, and the first performance six weeks later in San Marco Cathedral was a complete success.

While he had undertaken the Requiem as an act of homage and patriotism, Verdi managed the venture as he did his operas — in a professional, commercial manner. Long before the success of the premiere, he planned three subsequent performances at La Scala in anticipation of the desire to hear the new work. The Requiem was

in such demand throughout Italy that Verdi instructed Ricordi to invoke the law, if necessary, to prevent unauthorized performances, such as those which took place in Ferrara with a brass band as accompaniment, and in Bologna, with only four pianos.

Verdi carefully organized the tour that took the Requiem to the capitals of Europe following its initial Milan performances. He conducted seven performances at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1874, and eight more the following year, when he was made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor. The London premiere was such a special event that the impresario there engaged a chorus of 1,200 to sing in the Albert Hall. The audiences in Vienna packed the auditorium for four performances, undaunted by stifling temperatures caused by a fierce June heat wave. Verdi, like Rossini and Manzoni, had become an Italian hero. n

n

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British musicologist Sir Donald Tovey thought that the opening Requiem aeternam (“Eternal rest”) was “the most moving passage in all Verdi’s works.”

The initial gesture, in the cellos, comes as if from a great distance and establishes the grave solemnity of the movement. The chorus intones a sweet, pathetic invocation for departed souls that leads directly into the Kyrie eleison (“Lord, have mercy”), a broad, flowing prayer for divine compassion.

The Dies irae is among the most graphic and dramatic of all liturgical texts. It paints the aweinspiring “Day of Wrath,” when the world will stand in judgment. Verdi rose to the challenge of these words with music “full of things terrifying and at the same time moving and pathetic,” wrote the critic Filippo Filippi following the premiere.

This movement, which occupies fully one-third of the Requiem’s length, is divided into nearly a dozen successive scenes, which cover a range of musical moods and technical devices far beyond the scope of these notes to discuss. Just a few examples in the opening pages must suffice: the shattering hammerblows and the tumultuous terror of the beginning; the approaching summons of the trump’s last call (Tuba mirum — “Trumpet wondrous”); the breathless fear of the bass soloist standing aghast at the resurrection of dead souls (Mors stupebit — “Death stupefying”). Such evocatively expressive depictions abound in the Dies irae. It is one of the 19th century’s most magnificent musical panoramas.

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The Offertorio (Domine Jesu Christe — “Lord Jesus Christ”) that follows comes like a halcyon spring breeze after the winter’s blast. Its gently swaying rhythm and huge melodic arches bear to celestial reaches the supplicant’s entreaty to deliver the departed from the pains of hell. Its contrasting center section (Quam olim — Hostias — Quam olim repeated) is followed by a brief return of the gentle opening music, giving the movement a symmetrical structure.

The Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) begins with a joyous shout. Verdi then launches a bracing fugue on two subjects for divided chorus, which is followed by an antiphonal setting (i.e., choruses in alternation) of the Hosanna. Embedded in the propulsive rhythmic vibrancy and elaborate textures of this movement is more than a hint of pedantry, as if Verdi were showing his critics that he was no “mere” opera composer, incapable of writing counterpoint. He knew his craft — thoroughly — and here he put some of its most learned techniques on display. In the same spirit, one afternoon shortly before he began the Requiem, he had some free time, and he dashed off a string quartet just to prove that he was no stranger to the Germanic styles of composition.

Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God”), the shortest movement of the Requiem, is also the simplest.

Plain in texture and introspective in expression, it is dominated by the voices with only the sparsest orchestral accompaniment. The Lux aeterna

(“Light eternal”) is memorable for some of the most ethereal, translucent orchestral scoring in all of Verdi’s works.

The concluding Libera me (“Deliver me”) is the remnant of the earlier Requiem for Rossini. In the Manzoni Requiem, the movement consists of several sections: an introductory verse for soprano soloist that rises from a freely chanted beginning, a recall of the tempestuous Dies irae movement, a reminiscence of the opening Requiem aeternam in a breathtakingly beautiful setting for unaccompanied chorus and soprano, and a fugue that concludes with the quiet, resigned chanting that opened the movement. It is now thought that the fugue and the opening chant were the only music originally written for the earlier Mass, and that the Dies irae and Requiem aeternam reminiscences were inserted when the work was newly composed for the Manzoni commemoration.

Verdi’s Requiem is one of music’s greatest masterpieces, providing artistic, emotional and spiritual sustenance whenever it is performed. No amount of discussion or analysis could exhaust its content, and yet any comments on it seem almost unnecessary — the Requiem speaks eloquently for itself and its composer. Perhaps it is most prudent to agree with Johannes Brahms, a curmudgeonly soul disinclined to compliments, who honored his Italian colleague when he said, simply, “Verdi’s Requiem is a work of genius.”

—Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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TEXT & TRANSLATION Requiem and Kyrie (Soloists and Chorus) Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.

Exaudi orationem meam.

Ad te omnis caro veniet.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison.

Rest eternal grant them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them.

There shall be singing unto Thee in Zion, and prayer shall go up to Thee in Jerusalem.

Hear my prayer.

Unto Thee all flesh shall come.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

Dies irae (Chorus)

Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus, quando Judex est venturus cuncta stricte discussurus!

This day, this day of wrath shall consume the world in ashes, so spake David and the Sibyl.

Oh, what great trembling there will be when the Judge will appear to examine everything in strict justice!

Tuba mirum (Bass and Chorus)

Tuba mirum spargens sonum per sepulchra regionum, coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura, cum resurget creatura judicanti responsura.

The trumpet, sending its wondrous sound across the graves of all lands, shall drive everyone before the throne.

Death and nature shall be stunned when all creation rises again to stand before the Judge.

Liber scriptus (Mezzo-Soprano and Chorus)

Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur, unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit, quidquid latet apparebit, nil inultum remanebit.

A written book will be brought forth, in which everything is contained, from which the world will be judged.

So when the Judge is seated, whatever is hidden shall be made known, nothing shall remain unpunished.

Quid sum miser (Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano and Tenor)

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

Quem patronum rogaturus, cum vix justus sit sicurus?

What shall such a wretch as I say then?

To which protector shall I appeal, when even the just man is barely safe?

Rex tremendae (Soloists and Chorus)

Rex tremendae majestatis, qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me, fons pietatis!

King of awesome majesty, who freely saves those worthy of salvation, save me, fount of pity!

Recordare (Soprano and Mezzo-Soprano)

Recordare, Jesu pie, quod sum causa tuae viae, ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus, redemisti crucem passus; tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis ante diem rationis.

Recall, dear Jesus, that I am the reason for Thy time on earth, do not cast me away on that day.

Seeking me, Thou didst sink down wearily, Thou hast saved me by enduring the cross; such travail must not be in vain.

Righteous judge of vengeance, award the gift of forgiveness before the day of reckoning.

Ingemisco (Tenor)

Ingemisco tamquam reus, culpa rubet vultus meus, supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti et latronem exaudisti, mihi quoque spem dedisti.

I groan like the sinner that I am, guilt reddens my face, Oh God, spare the supplicant.

Thou, who pardoned Mary and heeded the thief, hast given me hope as well.

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Preces meae non sunt dignae, sed tu bonus fac benigne, ne perenni cremer igne.

Inter oves locum praesta et ab hoedis me sequestra, statuens in parte dextra.

My prayers are unworthy, but Thou, good one, in pity let me not burn in the eternal fire.

Give me a place among the sheep and separate me from the goats, let me stand at Thy right hand.

Confutatis (Bass and Chorus)

Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus afflictis, voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis, gere curam mei finis.

When the damned are cast away and consigned to the searing flames, call me to be with the blessed.

Bowed down in supplication I beg Thee, my heart as though ground to ashes: help me in my last hour.

Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla.

This day, this day of wrath shall consume the world in ashes, so spake David and the Sibyl.

Lacrimosa (Soloists and Chorus)

Lacrimosa dies illa qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus; huic ergo parce Deus.

Pie Jesu, Domine, dona eis requiem.

Amen.

Oh, this day full of tears when from the ashes arises guilty man, to be judged: Oh Lord, have mercy upon him.

Gentle Lord Jesus, grant them rest.

Amen.

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Offertorio: Domine Jesu Christe (Soloists) Domine Jesu Christe, rex gloriae, Libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni et de profundo lacu.

Libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum; sed signifer sanctus Michael representet eas in lucem sanctam, quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus.

Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of the faithful departed from the pains of hell and the bottomless pit.

Deliver them from the jaws of the lion, lest hell engulf them, lest they be plunged into darkness; but let the holy standard-bearer Michael lead them into the holy light, as Thou didst promise Abraham and his seed.

Hostias et preces tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus, tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus: fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam, quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus.

Lord, in praise we offer to Thee sacrifices and prayers, receive them for the souls of those whom we remember this day: Lord, make them pass from death to life, as Thou didst promise Abraham and his seed.

Sanctus (Chorus)

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Saboath!

Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.

Hosanna in excelsis!

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini!

Hosanna in excelsis!

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts!

Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.

Glory to God in the highest!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Glory to God in the highest!

Agnus Dei (Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano and Chorus) Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam.

Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, grant them rest.

Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, grant them eternal rest.

Lux aeterna (Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor and Bass) Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternam, quia pius es.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

May eternal light shine upon them, O Lord, with Thy saints forever, for Thou art good.

Lord, grant them eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Libera me (Soprano and Chorus)

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna in die illa tremenda, quando coeli movendi sunt et terra, dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.

Tremens factus sum ego et timeo, dum discussio venerit atque venture ira: quando coeli movendi sunt et terra.

Dies irae, dies illa, calamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde, dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Libera me, Domine, etc.

Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death in that awful day, when the heavens and earth shall be shaken, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

I am seized with fear and trembling, until the trial shall be at hand and the wrath to come: when the heavens and earth shall be shaken.

That day, that day of wrath, of calamity and misery, a great day and exceeding bitter, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

Lord, grant them eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Deliver me, O Lord, etc.

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 57

CHASING THE DAWN: A CHORAL JOURNEY SUN MAY 18, 2 pm | Music Hall

MATTHEW SWANSON, conductor JASON ALEXANDER HOLMES, conductor LISA PETERS, conductor MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS and MAY FESTIVAL CHAMBER CHOIR, Matthew Swanson, director; Heather MacPhail, pianist The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS, Jason Alexander Holmes, director; David Kirkendall, pianist CINCINNATI BOYCHOIR, Lisa Peters, director; Sara Cahall, pianist Traditional Song

This Little Light of Mine *

arr. Block, Holmes and Swanson

Kathy Dietrich, soloist

Ephraim AMU (1899–1995)

Natalie HEMBY (b. 1977), Lori McKENNA (b. 1968) and Brandi CARLILE (b. 1981)

As m Yi Di Ka Crowded Table Grace Manning, soloist

arr. Ramsey

Sarah QUARTEL (b. 1982) E. Pauline Johnson, poet

Bird’s Lullaby

Tonight’s concert will last approximately 90 minutes.

There is no intermission.

Today’s concert is sponsored by Chris and Beth Canarie.

The 2025 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors.

The 2025 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.

David von Kampen’s arrangement of “Every Night When the Sun Goes In” was commissioned through the support of Sherry and Mark Holcomb.

The appearance of Matthew Swanson in today’s performance is sponsored by David and Elaine Billmire.

The appearance of Jason Alexander Holmes in today’s performance is sponsored by Connico, Bryan Hafertepe & Graham Hunter in honor of the Cincinnati Boychoir’s 60th Anniversary.

The appearance of Lisa Peters in today’s performance is sponsored by The Board of Directors of the Cincinnati Boychoir.

The appearance of the May Festival Youth Chorus in today’s performance is sponsored by Dr. Rob and Ashley Altenau Family with additional support from the Beatrice Aldrink Idema Foundation.

The appearance of the Cincinnati Boychoir Ambassadors in today’s performance is made possible in part by a generous gift from Dr. Thomas Lesher.

Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival.

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Henry PURCELL (1659–1695)

Traditional Song arr. von Kampen

Morten LAURIDSEN (b. 1943) Dana Gioia, poet

LAURIDSEN James Agee, poet

Alfred SCHNITTKE (1934–1998)

Evening Hymn Every Night When the Sun Goes In * Cassandra Bailey-Langjahr and Margaret Eilert, soloists

Prayer

Sure on this Shining Night Movement IV, “Complete this Work,” from Concerto for Choir

Shayla BLAKE and Patricia MOCK

Bring Your Dreams Along

Abbie BETINIS

Lumen

(b. 1980)

Pēteris VASKS (b. 1946) Jānis Peters, librettist

Lili BOULANGER (1893–1918)

Susan LaBARR (b. 1981) Jan Richardson, author

Stephen PAULUS (1949–2014) Michael Dennis Browne, librettist

Ben PARRY (b. 1965)

Luther Ronzoni VANDROSS

Māte saule (“Mother Sun”)

Hymne au Soleil (“Hymn to the Sun”) Megan Lawson, soloist

Where the Light Begins

“Hymn to the Eternal Flame” from To Be Certain of the Dawn Dawn Bruestle, Grace Guthrie, Julia Marchese and Kristi Reed, soloists

Flame “Brand New Day” from The Wiz *

(1951–2005) arr. Block, Holmes and Swanson

* The arrangements of “This Little Light of Mine,” “Every Night When the Sun Goes In” and “Brand New Day” are world premieres.

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 59

MAY 18 PROGRAM NOTES CHASING THE DAWN: A CHORAL JOURNEY Completing Cincinnati’s Music Hall in 1878 met important needs in a thriving “singing city,” which needed dedicated spaces to support its many choirs.

Work had begun earnestly two years prior, and, by 1878, work had accelerated so the space would be ready in time to host that year’s May Festival.

Music Hall has thus always been linked to the May Festival. Yet, as Director of Choruses for the May Festival Matthew Swanson notes, the 2025 edition marks the first time the Festival’s choruses will perform a strictly choral concert in Music Hall as part of the Festival. To be sure, Swanson says, the choruses have long presented chorusonly concerts, including during the Festival and in nearby spaces like Covington’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, but never as a Festival program in Music Hall.

Swanson and colleagues Jason Alexander Holmes (Associate Director of Choruses) and Lisa Peters (Artistic Director of the Cincinnati Boychoir) have crafted “Chasing the Dawn: A Choral Journey” to exemplify the full breadth of the Festival’s

choral organization. The program includes not only the May Festival Chorus but also the May Festival Chamber Choir, May Festival Youth Chorus and the Cincinnati Boychoir, the latter recently officially allied with the Festival amid the Boychoir’s 60th anniversary. Including both adult and youth choruses honors history; as Swanson details, “There’s almost nothing more foundational to the Festival than involving young people. At the very first May Festival, a chorus of 700 adults was well publicized; also appearing at the Festival was a chorus of 600 schoolchildren. Proceeds from the first May Festival were used to found singing schools.” Indeed, 1897 even saw a Children’s May Festival with performances including more than 2,000 local students, according to reports.

Carefully curated throughlines hold together the concert’s remarkable variety. The program coalesces around light and a day’s progression, partly inspired by 2025 May Festival Director Renée Fleming’s May 22 program, “The Brightness of Light.” The unique atmospheres of each day’s hours transliterate into the program’s musical array and

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PROGRAM NOTES

alternation of ensembles. Swanson emphasizes, “It’s a great opportunity for the audience to consider a lot of different musical styles back-to-back. The program is multilingual and quite varied in terms of vocal and instrumental color. The great thing about a theme like light is that any number of pieces could have gone in one of these slots. Everything was chosen for a specific reason.”

The program’s sequencing registers its intention, as Swanson explains: “There’s a great moment where the Chorus has just been singing an expansively textured movement from the Schnittke Concerto for Choir, followed immediately by a very charming work in unison and two parts, sung by the Boychoir trebles. That will be quite a contrast, not only of language and style but also vocal color.”

Such moments capture musical variety, reaching across generational lines to do so.

Within its overarching theme, audiences may discover that each selection conveys multiple meanings. Swanson says, “There can be very literal expressions about day and night, and Purcell’s ‘Evening Hymn’ is one of those, but the program also brings up this idea of what we do in those evening times.” What we do also emanates from the important Ghanaian composer Ephraim Amu’s “Asem Yi Di Ka.” This piece conveys the necessity of finishing work, forecasting similar aspirations in the final movement of Schnittke’s Concerto.

Swanson encourages careful contemplation of the program’s words, as he says, “I hope people follow the narrative and consider the texts deeply, even after we’ve stopped singing them, because they are works of art in and of themselves. The marriage of the texts with fantastic and compelling music is art on an even higher plane.” Peters echoes this appeal of texted music: “There’s something about people singing together with text, with a message. To allow yourself to be in that story, it’s so powerful.”

Each entire piece holds potential for deep understanding, but in the Youth Chorus’ selection of “Where the Light Begins,” Holmes notes that even single words can provoke: “The young people get the word ‘perhaps’ more in this piece than any other and it offers a bit of tension in the program’s narrative. It’s not just ‘Day — great!’ It’s also, ‘But perhaps we don’t turn to the day. What happens?

Where does it actually begin? Does it begin when the light shines or when we turn to it?’ I think it’s good to complicate these narratives.”

The program consciously demonstrates the technical versatility and stylistic range of today’s choral discipline at large. As Holmes puts it, “It’s important that our audience sees the ensembles for who they are.” He continues, “It’s a perfect concert for someone who is new to or curious about choral music or the May Festival organization.”

Foregrounding the program’s repertoire, Swanson says, “It isn’t any accident that this concert features a lot of living composers and pieces of contemporary music. This is a chance to see that the choral art is an evolving and present art, and that these composers are doing what composers have done for centuries, which is taking forms, singing, and song and casting them in new lights.

Abbie Betinis’ ‘Lumen’ is a fantastic example. Her signature harmonic style brings a piquant quality to the classic form of a canon.”

Among the concert’s exceptional dimensions is its confidence in intergenerational relationships.

Cultural activities rarely involve the age range that will appear on this stage, and continuities within and between the ensembles run deep. Many members of the May Festival Chorus sang in the Youth Chorus, and some sang in the Boychoir. For Holmes, maturity and artistic growth go hand in hand: “The teacher in me always gets excited when audiences see the progression from knowing things to knowing more things and then knowing a whole bunch of things.”

He highlights that pieces like “Lumen,” Sarah Quartel’s “Bird’s Lullaby,” and Shayla Blake and Patricia Mock’s “Bring Your Dreams Along” develop singers’ musicianship. The latter piece inspired important breakthroughs for the Boychoir in the past year, recalls Holmes: “This was one of the first pieces that the Boychoir treble singers put together in fall 2024. There’s something special when children master part-singing, even in just two parts — their eyes get really big and really excited because it’s this new thing.”

As Peters relates, the choice for the youth to sing on the same stage as adults is valuable: “There’s a whole piece of it for the younger singers who get to be there and have that high level professional experience. It helps the audience and the youth singers see that singing is a lifelong thing that brings you joy.” She suggests that children’s choral performance also offers a vivid affirmation: “Positivity and hopefulness;

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 61

PROGRAM NOTES

you see them and you think, ‘You know what, it’s going to be okay down the road.’”

From the opening arrangement of “This Little Light of Mine,” the notion of human connection and community are never far from mind. As Swanson notes: “This is a welcoming gesture to get everybody in the room excited and feeling familiar with the Chorus and one another.”

For this program, the Festival commissioned composer David von Kampen to compose a new arrangement of the Appalachian folk song “Every Night When the Sun Goes In.” As Swanson describes it, the song symbolizes links between Cincinnati’s musical traditions and its regional neighbors: “Cincinnati is at a geographic crossroads between Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and a regional crossroads of the American Midwest, South and Appalachia. Appalachian folk traditions are very much alive in this area, and this is a great way to celebrate that.” The Boychoir’s presence in the program represents the city, as well; as Peters observes, many alumni still live locally and still sing in choruses.

Holmes’ choice of “Asem Yi Di Ka” was geared toward teaching the May Festival Youth Chorus about the value of community-minded initiative, its text asking, “If not me, then who will take charge?”

Holmes reflects, “I’m sensitive to the fact that the young people in the Youth Chorus are at a really impressionable time where they’re figuring out at least the first version of who they want to be. I take seriously this message of individual responsibility for the greater good.”

Peters regularly reminds her singers about choral singing’s impacts: “We’re making this magical thing happen where people come together and it’s greater than each individual person. I’ll say, ‘What a great rehearsal we had today; we just moved the world forward. It’s in a better place because we did this thing together.’”

The program evinces community in more precise ways, as well. “Hymn to the Eternal Flame” from Stephen Paulus’ To Be Certain of the Dawn ruminates on inter-community reconciliation.

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Basilica of Saint Mary commissioned the work, commemorating World War II’s end and the Vatican’s 1965 Nostra aetate, which apologized to the Jewish community for the Church’s role in antisemitism. Serious matters of humanity also resonate in “Every Night When the Sun Goes In,” a meditation on parental loss of a child that complements Morten Lauridsen’s “Prayer,” which sets to music Dana Gioia’s elegy for his son, lost at only four months old.

Ben Parry’s “Flame” culminates the program, mirroring imagery from “This Little Light of Mine.” “Flame” assembles the concert’s full forces for the first time, magnifying the program’s theatricality and chief themes. The piece’s score bears an epigraph from Siddhartha Gautama, Buddha: “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Although “Flame” does not quote these words, the central notion inspired Garth Bardsley’s text. Parry’s music begins with elemental simplicity before building to a splendid, scintillating climax. For Swanson, “The hope is that we can provide the audience with a kind of overwhelming feeling of ‘Wow! I’ve never been to something like this before.’ Or ‘I didn’t know choirs could sound like that.’”

“Chasing the Dawn” concludes with Luther Vandross’ “Brand New Day” from The Wiz, inviting audience members to join the choruses in song. Swanson described the intent behind the selection, “We want everybody to sing — and not just the people on stage — to celebrate all the singing that happens in Cincinnati, one of America’s great singing cities … and celebrate the act of singing itself. That’s one thing that the May Festival is all about.”

Along with the program’s apparent thematic and visual focus on light, music throughout the concert brings together other senses: “Brand New Day” inspires movement, and Jānis Peters’ text for Pēteris Vasks’s Māte saule compares a sunrise to a fermenting bread loaf — evoking light through taste and warmth.

Along many lines, the program encourages audiences to imagine surprising and fresh connections through its various people and communities, and within its sounds, words, images and symbols.

—Jacques Dupuis

PROGRAM NOTES

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

Adwuma yi di yε, edi yε, hena bεyε? Me ara...

This work has got to be done.

Who will do it? I myself…

Ev’rywhere I go, I’m gonna let it shine, Oh, ev’rywhere I go, I’m gonna let it shine, Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Ɔbra yi di bɔ, edi bɔ, This life has got to be lived,**

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

hena bεbɔ? Me ara...

Who will live this life? I myself…

TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS This Little Light of Mine

All through Cincinnati, I’m gonna let it shine, Oh, down into Kentucky, I’m gonna let it shine, Over in Indiana, I’m gonna let it shine, Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

All around the world, I’m gonna let it shine, Yeah, all around the world, I’m gonna let it shine, All around the world, I’m gonna let it shine, Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, yeah, This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

Ephraim Amu: Asεm Yi Di Ka Asεm yi di ka, edi ka hena bεka?

Me ara o, me ara, εnnyε obiara o, me ara!

This talk has got to be spoken.* Who will speak it?

I, myself It is nobody else, I myself.

Asεm yi be si ne kwan mua me ara.

Adwuma yi be si ne kwan mua me ara. Ɔbra yi be si ne kwan mua me ara.

For this talk to be spoken rightly, I myself.

For this work to be done the right way, I myself.

For this life to be lived the right way, I myself.

Hena bεka? Hena bεyε?

Hena bεbɔ? Me ara ...

This talk, this work, This life, I myself… *As in truth. **As in living an exemplary life.

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RENÉE FLEMING Masterclass WED MAY 21, 5 PM Memorial Hall An exclusive public masterclass with Renée Fleming, presented in collaboration with the Cincinnati Song Initiative! Featuring young professional singers and pianists, experience the artistry and expertise of one of the world’s most celebrated singers as she shares with them her insights on vocal technique, performance and interpretation.

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JOHN MORRIS RUSSELL Conductor

PROGRAM NOTES

Hemby, McKenna, Carlile: Crowded Table Text: Natalie Hemby, Lori McKenna and Brandi Carlile

Every Night When the Sun Goes In Text: Traditional

You can hold my hand when you need to let go.

I can be your mountain when you re feeling valley-low.

I can be your streetlight showing you the way home, if you can hold my hand when you need to let go,

Every night when the sun goes in I hang down my head and mournful cry.

True love, don’t weep, true love, don’t mourn, True love, don’t weep, or mourn for me, I’m going away to Marble town.

‘Twas once my apron but it hung down low, ‘Twas once my apron it hung down low, You followed me through both rain and snow.

But now my apron, it’s to my chin, It’s now my apron, it’s to my chin, You pass my door but you don’t come in.

I wish to the Lord that my babe was born, And sitting on his daddy’s knee, And me, poor girl, was dead and gone, And the green grass is growing all over me.

Every night when the sun goes in I hang down my head and mournful cry.

Refrain: I want a house with a crowded table, and a place by the fire for everyone.

Let us take on the world while we’re young and able, and bring us back together when the day is done.

If we want a garden, we re gonna have to sow the seeds, plant a little happiness, let the roots run deep.

If it’s love that we give, then it’s love that we reap.

If we want a garden, we re gonna have to sow the seeds. Refrain.

The door is always open, your picture’s on my wall, Everyone s a little broken, and everyone belongs, Yeah, everyone belongs. Refrain.

Sarah Quartel: The Bird’s Lullaby Text: Emily Pauline Johnson Sing to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping With shadowy garments, the wilderness through; All day we have caroled, and now would be sleeping, So echo the anthems we warbled to you; While we swing, swing, And your branches sing, And we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

Sing to us, cedars; the night-wind is sighing, Is wooing, is pleading, to hear you reply; And here in your arms we are restfully lying, And longing to dream to your soft lullaby; While we swing, swing, And your branches sing.

And we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

Sing to us, cedars; your voice is so lowly, Your breathing so fragrant, your branches so strong; Our little nest-cradles are swaying so slowly, While zephyrs are breathing their slumberous song.

And we swing, swing, While your branches sing, And we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

Henry Purcell: Evening Hymn Text: Bishop William Fuller Now that the sun hath veil’d his light, And bid the world goodnight; To the soft bed my body I dispose, But where shall my soul repose?

Dear God, even in thy arms, And can there be any so sweet security!

Then to thy rest, O my soul!

And singing, praise the mercy That prolongs thy days.

Hallelujah!

Morten Lauridsen: Prayer Text: Dana Gioia Echo of the clocktower, footstep in the alleyway, sweep of the wind sifting the leaves.

Jeweller of the spiderweb, connoisseur of autumn’s opulence, blade of lightning harvesting the sky.

Keeper of the small gate, choreographer of entrances and exits, midnight whisper traveling the wires.

Seducer, healer, deity or thief, I will see you soon enough — in the shadow of the rainfall, in the brief violet darkening a sunset — but until then I pray watch over him as a mountain guards its covert ore and the harsh falcon its flightless young.

In memory of Michael Jasper Gioia, d. 1987, age four months Morten Lauridsen: Sure On This Shining Night Text: James Agee Sure on this shining night Of starmade shadows round, Kindness must watch for me This side the ground.

The late year lies down the north.

All is healed, all is health.

High summer holds the earth.

Hearts all whole.

Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder Wand’ring far alone Of shadows on the stars.

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PROGRAM NOTES

Alfred Schnittke: Complete this Work Text: Gregory of Narek Сей труд, что начинал я с упованьем И с именем Твоим, Ты заверши, Чтоб песнопенье стало врачеваньем, Целящим раны тела и души.

Complete this work which I began in hope and with Your name, so that my singing may become healing, curing the wounds of body and soul. И если труд мой скромный завершится С Твоим благословением святым, — Пусть дух господень в нем соединится Со скудным вдохновением моим.

If my humble work is finished with Your holy blessing – May the divine spirit in it join with my meager inspiration. Тобой дарованное озаренье Не погаси. Мои разум не покинь, Но вновь и вновь приемли восхваленья От Твоего служителя. Аминь.

Do not extinguish the revelation You have granted, do not abandon my reason, but, again and again, receive praise from Your servant. Amen.

Blake & Mock: Bring Your Dreams Along I can hear life knocking steady at my door.

All the world is waiting, I’m ready to explore!

I can feel my heartbeat racing as I climb!

Come, and bring your dreams along.

I’m rising with the sun and preparing for the day!

I welcome the adventure; I am not afraid.

There’s no turning back, won’t you join with me?

Come and bring your dreams along.

Music’s in my heart, I’m ready now to start, Sing and dance with me!

So much I want to do.

With loving friends like you, Who knows how far, Who knows how high, Who knows what we will be?

I can hear life knocking steady at my door.

All the world is waiting, I’m ready to explore!

I can feel my heartbeat racing as I climb.

Come and go with me.

Come and grow with me.

Come, and bring your dreams along.

Bring your dreams along, come and bring your dreams along.

From the “Book of Lamentations” written before 990 by the Armenian mystic Gregory of Narek (951–1003). Translation from the Russian version by Grigory Gerenstein.

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PROGRAM NOTES

Pēteris Vasks: Māte saule Text: Jānis Peters | Translation: Laima Berziņa

O Soleil fécond, tu parais!

Avec ses champs en fleurs, ses monts, ses bois épais, La vaste mer de tes feux embrasée, L’univers plus jeune et plus frais, Des vapeurs de matin sont brillants de rosée.

Oh, vivid sun, you appear!

With its fields in bloom, its mountains, its thick forests, The vast sea set ablaze by your fires, The universe, younger and fresher, With morning vapors are glistening with dew.

Rūgst rīts kā mīkla maizes abrā.

Pret klonu mātes soļi klaudz.

Un klaipi, kļavu lapām klāti, Uz lizes krāsnij mutē brauc.

Morning is rising like kneaded bread dough.

Mother’s footsteps clatter on the clay floor.

And loaves, covered with maple leaves, travel on the peel into the mouth of the oven.

Du soleil qui renaît bénissons la la puissance.

Avec tout l’univers célébrons son retour.

Couronné de splendeur, il se lève, il s’élance!

Le réveil de la terre, est un hymne d’amour.

Let us bless the power of the reborn sun.

With all the universe let us celebrate its return.

Crowned with splendor, it rises, it soars.

The waking of the earth is a hymn of love.

Abbie Betinis: Lumen Text: Latin Aphorisms Lumen accipe et imperti.

Do ut des.

Receive the light and pass it on.

I give that you may give.

Vēl jēri guļ ar zvaigznēm acīs, vēl dēlu sapņos arkli guļ, bet Māte Saule baltu sviestu, kā mūžību uz sliekšņa kuļ.

Lambs still sleep with stars in their eyes, ploughs still lie idle in men’s dreams, but Mother Sun churns white butter — like eternity — on the threshold.

Laiks ritēja pa saltu rasu; trīs gadsimtus vai stundas trīs.

Time rolled by through cold dew — three centuries or hours three.

Susan LaBarr: Where the Light Begins Text: Jan Richardson Perhaps it does not begin.

Perhaps it is always.

Perhaps it takes a lifetime to open our eyes, to learn to see — the luminous line of the map in the dark

Kad modāmies, jau saule gāja pa ošu gatvi debesīs.

When we awoke the sun was already stepping up through the ash trees into the sky.

the vigil flame in the house of the heart

Lili Boulanger: Hymne au Soleil Text: Casimir Delavigne

Perhaps this day the light begins in us.

We are where the light begins.

Perhaps it does not begin.

Perhaps it is always.

Du soleil qui renaît bénissons la puissance.

Avec tout l’univers célébrons son retour.

Couronné de splendeur, il se lève, il s’élance.

Le réveil de la terre est un hymne d’amour.

Sept coursiers qu’en partant le Dieu contient a peine, Enflamment l’horizon de leur brûlante haleine.

Let us bless the power of the reborn sun.

With all the universe let us celebrate its return.

Crowned with splendor, it rises, it soars.

The waking of the earth is a hymn of love.

Seven rushing steeds that the God scarcely holds back Ignite the horizon with their scorching breath.

the love so searing we cannot keep from singing, from crying out.

Stephen Paulus: Hymn to the Eternal Flame Text: Michael Dennis Browne Every face is in you, every voice, every sorrow in you, every pity, every love, every memory, woven into fire.

Every breath is in you, every cry, every longing in you, every singing, every hope, every healing, woven into fire.

Every heart is in you, every tongue, every trembling in you, every blessing, every soul, every shining, woven into fire.

Please turn page quietly MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 67

PROGRAM NOTES

Ben Parry: Flame Text: Garth Bardsley

Luther Ronzoni Vandross: Brand New Day

A flame Dispels the dark Its delicate light repels the shadows A flame alone Brings within its flicker A welcoming warmth A single flame That shares its light Is but strengthened by this splitting in two And as each flame Begets another Its life and light is multiplied To become unending Forever burning A beacon that both beckons and guides So to light the world

Every body look around ‘cause there’s a reason to rejoice you see Every body come out and let’s commence to singing joyfully Every body look up and feel the hope that we’ve been waiting for Every body’s glad because our silent fear and dread is gone Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully Just look about You owe it to yourself to check it out Can’t you feel a brand new day?

Every body be glad Because the sun is shining just for us Every body wake up into the morning into happiness Hello world It’s like a different way of living now And thank you world We always knew that we’d be free somehow In harmony And show the world that we’ve got liberty It’s such a change for us to live so independently Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully Just look about You owe it to yourself to check it out Can’t you feel a brand new day?

THANK YOU! to

Festival Director Sponsor

GINGER WARNER for her generous support of the 2025 Festival Director Renée Fleming

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THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT

THU MAY 22, 7:30 pm | Music Hall JUANJO MENA, conductor RENÉE FLEMING, soprano ROD GILFRY, baritone MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS, Matthew Swanson, director The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Cristian Măcelaru, Music Director Designate Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Serenade to Music

(1872–1958)

Igor STRAVINSKY

Symphony of Psalms

(1882–1971) Psalm 38:13–14 (King James Ps. 39:12–13) Psalm 39:2–4 (King James Ps. 40:1–3) Psalm 150 (King James Ps. 150)

INTERMISSION Kevin PUTS

The Brightness of Light

(b. 1972) Introduction Georgia O’Keeffe, author First Correspondence Alfred Stieglitz, author A Soul Like Yours Ache Georgia and Alfred (orchestral interlude) Violin Faraway Taos The Thing You Call Holy The High Priestess of the Desert (orchestral interlude) Friends Sunset

Tonight’s concert will last approximately 125 minutes.

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by Drs. Manisha Patel and Michael Curran.

The appearance of Renée Fleming in this evening’s performance is generously sponsored by Barbara Ann Feldmann.

The 2025 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors.

The 2025 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 Juanjo Mena in tonight’s performance is sponsored by Drs. Manisha Patel and Michael Curran.

The appearance of Rod Gilfry in tonight’s performance is sponsored by Ronald C. Lamping.

This evening’s pre-concert talk is sponsored by Drs. William Hurford and Lesley Gilbertson.

This evening’s lobby entertainment is made possible in part by a generous endowment gift from Mr. and Mrs. S. Charles Straus.

Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival.

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 69

MAY 22 PROGRAM NOTES RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Serenade to Music

Born: October 12, 1872, Gloucestershire, England Died: August 26, 1958, London, England Work Composed: 1938 Premiere: October 5, 1938 at Royal Albert Hall, London, conducted by the composer Instrumentation: SATB chorus, 2 flutes (incl. piccolo), oboe, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, triangle, harp, strings Duration: approx. 14 minutes

Ralph Vaughan Williams came from a prominent family whose ancestors included biologist Charles Darwin and the famous potter Josiah Wedgwood.

Born in 1872 in the Gloucestershire village of Down Ampney, Vaughan Ralph Vaughan Williams Williams was supported (Credit: E.O. Hoppé) in his love for music by his family, including his aunt, who was the first to give him piano and music theory lessons. Although he always wanted to be a composer, he struggled with his technique in school. His cousin recalled overhearing classmates talk about “that foolish young man, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who would go on working at music when he was so hopelessly bad at it.”

He continued to work diligently for many years, traveling to Berlin and Paris to study with Max Bruch and Maurice Ravel, honing his craft and searching for his voice. Upon returning home, Vaughan Williams took an intense interest in the musical traditions of his own country. During the early 19th century, England’s musical landscape was dominated by German composers such as Wagner and Brahms, who were revered for their works’ complexity and dense orchestral writing.

Vaughan Williams sought to counterbalance these influences by exploring the rich traditions of

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Elizabethan-era church music and the folk songs of rural England. This research guided his own development as a composer and contributed to his creation of a distinct national style that infused contemporary classical music with elements of England’s musical past.

In 1935, the 63-year-old Vaughan Williams completed his Fourth Symphony, a bleak and haunting work that shocked audiences with its uncharacteristic darkness. The composer was perhaps responding to his time serving in the First World War, where he transported wounded soldiers from the front lines, as well as reacting to the worsening situation in Europe. Vaughan Williams’ social activism continued throughout World War II, when his work on behalf of German refugees eventually led to his music being banned by the Nazis.

Following the Fourth Symphony, Vaughan Williams returned to his more familiar pastoral style to compose his Serenade to Music in 1938. The work was commissioned by the influential English conductor Sir Henry Wood and was premiered on October 5, 1938 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, at a concert celebrating Wood’s 50 years on the podium. Over the course of Wood’s career, he introduced British audiences to new works by composers such as Mahler, Sibelius and Bartók, and did much to promote the music of his fellow countrymen, Elgar, Britten and Vaughan Williams.

His most lasting legacy remains the founding of the Promenade Concerts in 1895, now known as the BBC Proms. This summer concert series remains a vital part of London’s cultural life to this day.

The Serenade to Music is dedicated to Wood, “in grateful recognition of his services to music,” and is written for 16 solo voices and orchestra [in tonight’s performance, sections of the Chorus and Chorus soloists will sing the solo passages]. The vocal parts were composed for specific singers, each one a star in the music scene at the time and each with connections to Wood. The score includes their names in the preface and their initials are spread across the music next to each entrance. Due to the logistics of recreating the original score as intended, Vaughan Williams made alternate versions for future performances, including one for four soloists, another for full chorus and one for orchestra alone.

PROGRAM NOTES

The text for the Serenade comes from Act Five, Scene One of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

Vaughan Williams stitched together words spoken by four characters — the lovers Jessica and Lorenzo, and Portia and her maid — as they all speak of the power of music and the beauty of the night.

The scene takes place in a moonlit garden while musicians play nearby.

The whole of the Serenade is a study in lush beauty and lyricism that evokes a summer evening. The tender opening sets a warm tone with harp arpeggios and a flowing solo violin melody. Murmuring woodwinds add to the texture with a second theme before the voices enter with soft chords that emerge seamlessly from the instrumental sound. The orchestra retreats as the first vocal solo climbs upward to join the lone violin for an intimate moment on the words “sweet harmony.” More solos follow, building to the first of two sweeping climaxes with all voices singing together.

A brisk fanfare changes the mood to introduce the text, “Come, ho! And wake Diana with a hymn!”

This is soon followed by the second climactic

moment, an outpouring of sound that perfectly depicts the words “And draw her home with music.” The brass fanfare repeats briefly before a delicate transition and the return of the solo violin melody from the opening. The work ends in quiet stillness with the violin and soprano solo again meeting in “sweet harmony.” This time, the words are echoed in serene chords sung by the chorus as the music recedes into silence.

—Catherine Case TEXT How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There’s not the smallest orb that thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn: With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear, And draw her home with music.

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THANK YOU! to

Concert Sponsor

DRS. MANISHA PATEL & MICHAEL CURRAN for their generous support of THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 71

PROGRAM NOTES

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

The reason is, your spirits are attentive: The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Music! hark!

It is your music of the house.

Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Silence bestows that virtue on it.

How many things by season season’d are To their right praise and true perfection!

Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak’d.

IGOR STRAVINSKY

Symphony of Psalms Born: June 18, 1882, Oranienbaum, Russia Died: April 6, 1971, New York City Work Composed: 1930 Premiere: December 13, 1930 in Brussels by the Société Philharmonique de Bruxelles, Ernest Ansermet conducting Instrumentation: SATB chorus, 5 flutes (incl. piccolo), 4 oboes, English horn, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 5 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, harp, 2 pianos, strings Duration: approx. 21 minutes

(Soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.)

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky was surrounded by music as a child. His father was a famous opera singer and his mother loved to play the piano.

Important composers of the day, such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Modest Mussorgsky, were frequent guests in the family’s Saint Petersburg apartment, and Igor

THANK YOU! to

Featured Performer Sponsor

BARBARA ANN FELDMAN for her generous support of Renée Fleming’s featured performances

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PROGRAM NOTES

and his three brothers regularly attended the opera and ballet at the nearby Mariinsky Theatre.

Stravinsky began college as a law student but spent much of his time studying music theory, piano and composition. He eventually became a student of Rimsky-Korsakov’s and devoted himself entirely to music. In his late 20s, Stravinsky found immediate fame when Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, chose him to write music for the company’s new production, The Firebird. The ballet was an overnight hit, and the fruitful partnership led Stravinsky to compose two more of his most famous works, Petrushka and Rite of Spring.

After World War I, he moved with his wife and children to France to be closer to the musical happenings in Europe. Stravinsky had been raised in the Russian Orthodox Church but became disillusioned as a young man. In France, he reconnected with his faith, finding comfort and inspiration in the spiritual texts. When his friend, the famed conductor Serge Koussevitsky, approached him with a commission for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 50th-anniversary season, Stravinsky turned to his long-held idea of setting psalms. He believed these poems “had been written for singing” and welcomed the chance to create a large-scale work devoted to these texts.

Koussevitsky’s request had no stipulations on form or style and Stravinsky took this to heart, with an unusual approach to instrumentation and the notion of what constitutes a symphony. He omitted the smooth sonorities of violins, violas and clarinets from the orchestra and added two pianos and extra flutes, giving the texture a strikingly austere and bright quality. The chorus is treated not as a separate entity but as an integral part of the ensemble. As Stravinsky explained, the voices and instruments “are on equal footing, neither outweighing the other.”

The work, in three movements played without pause, begins with a pronounced E minor chord.

Stravinsky manipulates this common chord of E, G and B notes by emphasizing the middle G note and spacing it within very high and low registers, leaving a wide gap in the midrange. According to musicologist Michael Steinberg, the surprising effect of this chord’s spacing makes it sound “as though it were the first triad in the history of the world.” Rushing oboes and bassoons follow this

chord with an anxious melody before the ensemble settles into an ostinato groove and the chorus enters with the ritualistic tone of a Gregorian chant on the words “Hear my prayer, O Lord.”

The opening chord repeats, punctuating the texture between statements, and the music gathers strength at the words “Be not silent.” The movement reflects the meandering solitude of the text and builds continuously, both through dynamics and lengthening phrases, to a resounding climax. The final G major chord stands in powerful contrast to the first E minor chord, with the full force of the brass commanding attention.

Stravinsky called the second movement “an upside-down pyramid of fugues,” in that it begins small, with one oboe, and gradually expands to the full force of the ensemble. The solo oboe is soon joined by the flutes, further depicting the tip of the pyramid with their high registers. The second fugue is given to voices alone, which build onto the structure with the addition of the low bass notes. The final section combines the two fugues, weaving them into a dense fabric of sound. A stunning setting of the text occurs when the orchestra drops out and the voices sing alone, “He set my feet upon a rock.” The lack of foundation from the orchestra instills the words with a delicate vulnerability. It is then all the more powerful when voices and instruments join forces at the words “He put a new song in my mouth.”

The prayer for a new song is answered with the “Alleluia” that opens the final movement. The reserved but joyful music resembles the deep tolling of church bells. After a moment of murky ambiguity, a quick rhythmic pattern is introduced, beginning a dance-like section full of exultations. Stravinsky later wrote that this section was inspired by “a vision of Elijah’s chariot climbing the heavens.” The conclusion sees the return of the slower music that opened the movement, with steady intonations of C minor. Stravinsky described the section, saying, “this final hymn of praise must be thought of as issuing from the skies; agitation is followed by the calm of praise.” A final “Alleluia” is uttered like a sigh before the work gently comes to an end, turning at the last moment from the minor mode into a bright C major chord.

—Catherine Case

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PROGRAM NOTES

TEXT & TRANSLATION Movement 1 Exaudi orationem meam, Domine, et deprecationem meam.

Auribus percipe lacrimas meas.

Ne sileas.

Quoniam advena ego sum apud te et peregrinus, sicut omnes patres mei.

Remitte mihi, ut refrigerer prius quam abeam et amplius non ero.

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and my supplication.

Hear my tears with Your ears.

Be not silent.

For I am a stranger to You, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

Forgive me that I may be refreshed before I go and be no more.

Movement 2 Expectans expectavi Dominum, et intendit mihi.

Et exaudivit preces meas: et eduxit me de lacu miseriae, et de luto faecis.

Et statuit super petram pedes meos: et direxit gressus meos.

Et immisit in os meum canticum novum, carmen Deo nostro.

Videbunt multi, et timebunt: et sperabunt in Domino.

I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my calling.

And He heard my prayers: and He brought me up out of the pit of misery, and out of the mire and clay.

And He set my feet upon a rock, and He ordered my goings.

And He put a new song in my mouth, even a thanksgiving to our God. Many shall see and fear: and they will hope in the Lord.

Movement 3 Alleluia. Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus; laudate eum in firmamento virtutis ejus.

Laudate eum in virtutibus ejus; laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis ejus.

Laudate eum in sono tubae...

Laudate eum in timpano et choro; laudate eum in chordis et organo.

Laudate eum in cymbalis benesonantibus; laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis.

Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum. Alleluia.

Alleluia. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary: Praise Him in the firmament of His power.

Praise Him for his mighty acts: Praise Him according to the multitude of His greatness.

Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet…

Praise Him with the timbrel and choir, praise Him with strings and organs.

Praise Him upon the well-tuned cymbals, praise Him with cymbals of joy.

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.

Alleluia.

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KEVIN PUTS

The Brightness of Light Born: 1972, St. Louis, Missouri Work Composed: 2015 Premiere: July 20, 2019, Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood Music Center, Renée Fleming, soprano; Rodney Gilfry, baritone; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons conducting Instrumentation: solo soprano and baritone, 3 flutes (incl.

2 piccolos), 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets (incl. E-flat clarinet), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets (incl. piccolo trumpet), 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, chimes, Chinese cymbals, claves, crotales, glockenspiel, marimba, sizzle cymbal, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, triangle, tuned gongs, vibraphone, xylophone, harp, celeste, piano, strings Duration: approx. 45 minutes

In 2015, I received the honor of a commission from my alma mater, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

The school’s orchestra was planning a trip to perform at Lincoln Center and wanted to include a new work written by an alumni Kevin Puts, ©David White composer to feature an alumni performer. The performer they had in mind was Renée Fleming and — to my great excitement — she accepted the offer, thereby initiating one of the most treasured collaborations of my career.

We wanted to focus on an iconic American woman as the subject, and I happened on a quote by Georgia O’Keeffe: My first memory is of the brightness of light, light all around.

I could imagine this line sung right at the start.

I learned that O’Keeffe had written thousands of letters over the course of her lifetime, many of them to Alfred Stieglitz, the renowned photographer and art curator who became her husband. Sarah Greenough’s indispensable twovolume My Faraway One (Vol. 2 forthcoming) includes the complete correspondence between O’Keeffe and Stieglitz from their first contact in 1915 until Stieglitz’s death in 1946. With intense emotion — and often humor — these letters chronicle O’Keeffe’s journey from a young artist enthralled by and indebted to the older Stieglitz to her complete immersion in the North American Southwest, where she lived alone for many years, finding inspiration for her best-known works.

PROGRAM NOTES

The letters themselves are the property of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, and I am deeply grateful for the right they granted me to craft a “libretto” made of excerpts from the letters. Letters from Georgia was premiered by Ms. Fleming and the Eastman Philharmonia at Alice Tully Hall on November 14, 2016, with Neil Varon conducting.

Having wholeheartedly embraced the role of O’Keeffe, Renée proposed expanding the work to include an equal part for Stieglitz. I welcomed this challenge of creating a larger work which would encompass their years both together and apart, from the first cautious exchanges between the two artists, through their impassioned and complicated relationship, to the years long after Stieglitz’s death, when I imagine O’Keeffe writing to him even still.

By design, all the music from Letters found its way into The Brightness of Light. Ironically perhaps, it was the vivid, poetic language of these two artists best known for their visual art which I found most inspiring in the creation of these works.

It has been a great privilege to work with the baritone Rodney Gilfry, who brings his tremendous gifts to the role of Stieglitz. I am grateful to Wendall Harrington for creating the projections which accompany the work, to Bette and Joseph Hirsch for their generous support of the work’s first incarnation, and to all the co-commissioners who have made its creation possible.

—Kevin Puts Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning composer Kevin Puts has established himself as one of America’s leading composers, gaining international acclaim for his “plush, propulsive” music (The New York Times), and described by Opera News as “a master polystylist.” He has been commissioned and performed by leading organizations around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Opera Philadelphia, Minnesota Opera and many more, and he has collaborated with world-class artists such as Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Marin Alsop, among others.

The Brightness of Light • Words and Music

by Kevin Matthew Puts • Copyright © 2019 UMP Classics & Screens U.S. • All Rights Reserved • Used by Permission • Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC

In March 2022, Puts’ fourth opera, The Hours, had its world premiere on the concert stage by The Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and was hailed as a “historic event...with a lush orchestration that hits you in the solar plexus” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). The Hours premiered to sold-out houses as a fully staged production at the Metropolitan Opera in November 2022, starring sopranos Renée Fleming and Kelli O’Hara and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and was called “a stunning triumph”

by Variety magazine. The opera’s revival in May 2024 played to packed houses and marked the first instance in the Metropolitan Opera’s history of a work returning the season after its premiere.

Other highlights of 2022 included the West Coast premiere of The Brightness of Light featuring Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. Written for Time for Three, his triple concerto Contact had its world premiere in March 2022 with the Florida Orchestra and continues to receive performances around the world. A recording of the piece by The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Xian Zhang was released on the Deutsche Grammophon album Letters for the Future and was awarded “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” at the 2023 Grammy Awards. Puts was named Musical America’s Composer of the Year in 2024.

Puts’ breakthrough opera Silent Night — for which he was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize following its 2011 premiere by Minnesota Opera — has been heralded as “remarkable” (The New York Times) and “stunning” (Twin Cities Examiner). In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Puts has received numerous honors and awards for composition.

Since 2006, he has been a member of the composition faculty at the Peabody Institute and serves as Distinguished Visiting Composer at the Juilliard School in the 2024–25 academic year. He also returns to his role as Director of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute in 2025. kevinputs.com

Please turn page quietly MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 75

PROGRAM NOTES

How you must suffer now...

Thank you for letting me feel I can talk to you.

A living, aching silence, I seem to want to tell you everything I know.

A living, aching silence...

Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, ©

TEXT The Brightness of Light Music by Kevin Puts Libretto by Kevin Puts, with all text drawn from the letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (GO=Georgia O’Keeffe; AS=Alfred Stieglitz) Introduction (GO) My first memory is of the brightness of light — light all around.

First Correspondence (GO) Dear Mister Stieglitz — I am the young woman whose charcoals you saw.

If you remember what they said to you — I would like to know — if you want to tell me.

(AS) Dear Miss O’Keeffe — What am I to say?

It is impossible to put into words what I saw and felt.

I do want to tell you they gave me much joy.

I do not know what you had in your mind.

But they have brought you closer to me.

With greetings, Alfred Stieglitz (GO) Mister Stieglitz — I like what you write me — maybe — I make them — just to express myself.

Things I feel and want to say.

Words and I — are not good friends at all.

On the train — New York to Virginia.

I got a telegram saying my mother is dead.

I wish you would write me.

If you want to.

Not if you don’t want to.

(AS) Dear Miss O’Keeffe — For two days I carried a letter in my pocket — addressed to you.

(GO) I am writing because I am afraid to sleep — Why did I finally tear it up?

Last night — a very bad dream about Mama.

Words are so terrible — A living, aching silence, My hands were on her face.

I know the shape so well.

Isn’t it absurd that I am afraid now?

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Maybe I can sleep now.

Goodnight.

A Soul Like Yours (AS) A greeting from Boston — taking my daughter to camp in New Hampshire.

The drawings you sent are as fine as anything I know.

I want the world to see them.

In one, I feel the powers of the night.

To look into a soul like yours — a great privilege.

I feel it roaming through space and night.

Twenty-three years ago today I got married.

You yearn for someone to understand every heartbeat of yours.

The yearn goes out — whether you wish it or not. I can never see enough into human souls.

How I understand every pulse beat of yours.

The story of those drawings — Your children — I their guardian.

A Woman’s Soul laid bare in all its beauty, crying out into the starlight night.

Goodnight, Georgia O’Keeffe.

It’s like a beautiful folk melody — the sound.

Georgia O’Keeffe.

Georgia O’Keeffe...

Ache (GO) I’ve been lying here listening for you in the dark — aching for you way to my fingers’ ends — As I came up the street into the sunset — I wondered — can I stand it — the terrible fineness and beauty of the intensity of you.

(AS) Rarest flower on earth — that has no withering.

(GO) The hot setting sun so brilliant — shining white I could hardly walk toward it — wanting you with such an all over ache — loving — feeling — all the parts of my body touched and kissed.

(AS) Light and Air — Height and Depth — the Spirit of Life, Life itself.

PROGRAM NOTES

You dearest thing that ever Breathed on earth.

Everything that’s wondrous In the world.

(GO) Maybe you don’t know how mad I seem to be growing — you will have to think for me when I can’t think for myself — all of me waiting for you to touch the center of me with the center of you — the reaching of something in the whole body for the center of heaven — (AS) I hear a song no mortal has ever heard.

I hear her voice — her spirit bathes me in light.

Georgia and Alfred (Orchestral Interlude #1) Violin (GO) Dearest — It is a wonderful night.

I’ve been hanging out the window waiting to tell someone about it — I’ve labored on the violin till all my fingers are sore — You never in your wildest dreams imagined anything worse than the noises I get out of it Faraway (AS) My Sweetestheart In her element — Faraway still right here.

It’s great to know you so terrifically alive.

You the wild child of the soil, I city-bred of the city.

Three letters from you — My hands all atremble.

When I read “Dearest — “ I toppled and burst out crying.

Still my Georgia — everything right.

Taos was in the stars.

And you are free.

Haven’t I worked all these years to set you free from me?

But our parting as we did — your steeling yourself, your letters not those of former years.

I cried into the night.

I robbed you of your faith when you were strengthening mine.

Georgia — Georgia — I’ll win back your faith.

Georgia — Georgia — You must believe.

Taos was in the stars.

And you are free.

Taos (GO) In this sun one just feels suspended in heat — expecting to disappear at any moment.

It was a really beautiful afternoon — The simple Pueblo village — all of mud — and the dancing — everyone in colors of such rich saturated pigment — the brilliant sun and blue sky.

It went on and on — the brilliancy of color — the live eyes — it is terribly exciting — and at the same time quieting like the ocean.

I want to wear a sheet and ride like the Indian men that came tearing through the Pueblo gate in a body — all riding like mad.

I just feel so like expanding here — way out to the horizon — and up into the sunshine — and out into the night.

The Thing You Call Holy (AS) The house is still.

And the morning gray and winterlike.

It was eleven years ago Sunday That you hopped off the train in Pennsylvania Station ran up to me and kissed me!

Like a happy child.

Eleven years.

I see all its phases — All the days and hours and moments of ecstasy and pain The poison of resentments The poison of jealousy — The worst poison in the world.

The growth of something very beautiful between us.

(GO) I must write you tonight, to tell you what living here means to me.

(AS) I see the studio [on] 59th Street — all the wonder and beauty and life — (GO) As yet, no particular friends — and I don’t want any.

(AS) All the terrible ordeal — the whole evolution of us.

(GO) Think of me with hands like dark brown gloves — dirty fingernails, my nose sore on top from sunburn.

(AS) But I live in the land of ghosts and can’t go on. You do not need me anymore.

I’d like to die in your arms — A black cross against a blue sky — (GO) And now you cry for the center of me That has been pushed away For so long.

Please turn page quietly MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 77

CINCINNATI OPERA at MUSIC HALL

Giuseppe Verdi

Rigoletto June 12 & 14

Studio Sessions June 17, July 10 & 17 Giacomo Puccini

Tosca

June 26 & 28 NEW PRODUCTION! Bock/Harnick/Stein

Fiddler on the Roof

July 23, 25, 26 & 27

SUMMER 2025 FESTIVAL

TICKETS START AT $36

cincinnatiopera.org Illustration: Aimee Sposito Martini

Season Funders: Patricia A. Corbett Estate and Trust

Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation

PROGRAM NOTES

(AS) You are to paint — and live — The thing you call holy.

(GO) I just want to get out where there is space and breath —

The people I visited when New York broke me down were certainly friends.

(AS+GO) That thing you call holy.

I have a new woman here to take care of me.

She may not stay.

(GO) My love to you, Little Boy.

The term “friend” is an odd word.

(AS) A black cross against a blue sky —

Goodnight, my dearest.

I am sleepy and a little cold.

GO) My love to you, Little Boy. (AS) Georgia.

That will be my final Thought and word.

(GO) What is here is very right.

(AS) Goodnight, Georgia O’Keeffe.

(GO) It is really terribly right.

The High Priestess of the Desert (Orchestral Interlude #2) (GO) Darling: it is so long and I do not write you.

Now you must realize I am old enough so that people I have called friends have died — but my dogs are here.

Friends — maybe the best — and very beautiful too.

Maybe the man who gave me the dogs is my friend.

Is the man who brings me a load of wood my friend — I give him a loaf of bread I’ve made because I know the bread is good.

Is my framer my friend?

He has been a great help to me for many years.

Sunset (GO) Tonight I walked into the sunset.

The whole sky — was just blazing — and grey blue clouds were riding all through the holiness of it — and the whole thing lit up with flashes of lightning.

I walked out past the last house — past the locust tree — and sat on a fence for a long time — looking — you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land — land that seems more like ocean than anything else I know.

It is absurd the way I love this country.

And the SKY — my dearest — you have never seen SKY — It is wonderful.

Text Credits: Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Text excerpts from the letter by Georgia O’Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz, dated June 13, 1929 (c) 2011 Yale University.

Used and reprinted by permission of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. All rights reserved.

Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Text excerpts from the letter by Georgia O’Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz, dated June 14, 1918 (c) 2011 Yale University.

Used and reprinted by permission of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. All rights reserved.

Production Credits: Projection Design, Wendall K. Harrington • Projections Programming by Paul Vershbow • Text Animation by David Biedny • Research by Susan Hormuth and Mary Recine • Typography by Bo G. Eriksson This program would not have been possible without the extraordinary archival resources and generous cooperation of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Text excerpts from the letters by Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz used and reprinted by permission of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. All rights reserved.

Images courtesy of Alamy Stock Photo • Alfred Stieglitz, An American Place, 1938(c) The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington • Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth Texas • The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY • Everett Collection Historical / Alamy • Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe / Art Resource, NY • Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York • Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, The Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Gift of Georgia O’Keeffe • LOOK Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, National Archives and Records Administration • The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY • The Museum of Modern Art / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York • Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza / Scala / Art Resource, NY • National Archives and Records Administration • The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY • The Estate of Yusef Karsh • The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 79

VOICE OF NATURE: THE ANTHROPOCENE SAT MAY 24, 7:30 pm | Music Hall

ROBERT MOODY, conductor RENÉE FLEMING, soprano MAY FESTIVAL CHORUS, Matthew Swanson, director The May Festival Chorus is endowed by the Betsy & Alex C. Young Chair

MAY FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS, Jason Alexander Holmes, director CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Cristian Măcelaru, Music Director Designate The following is accompanied by a film provided by National Geographic.

The audience is kindly asked to hold applause until the end of this first half set.

Hazel Dickens (1925–2011) arr. Kittel

George Frideric HANDEL

Pretty Bird

“Care Selve” from Atalanta

(1685–1759)

Nico MUHLY (b. 1981)

Marie-Joseph Canteloube de MALARET

Endless Space “Baïlèro” from Chants d’auvergne

(1879–1957)

Maria SCHNEIDER (b. 1960) Ted Kooser, poet

“Our Finch Feeder” from Winter Morning Walks

Tonight’s concert will last approximately 110 minutes.

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by Christy and Terry Horan.

The appearance of Renée Fleming in this evening’s performance is generously sponsored by Barbara Ann Feldmann.

The 2025 May Festival is presented by Fort Washington Investment Advisors.

The 2025 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 Robert Moody in this evening’s performance is sponsored by Poul D. and JoAnne Pedersen.

This evening’s pre-concert talk is sponsored by Drs. William Hurford and Lesley Gilbertson.

This evening’s lobby entertainment is made possible in part by a generous endowment gift from Mary and Joe Stern.

Steinway Pianos, courtesy of Willis Music, is the official piano of the May Festival.

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All is Full of Love

BJÖRK (b. 1965) arr. Ek

Heitor VILLA-LOBOS (1887–1959) orch. Rocha

Howard SHORE (b. 1946)

“Epílogo” from Floresta do Amazonas

“Twilight and Shadow” from The Lord of the Rings Evening

Kevin PUTS (b. 1972)

Curtis GREEN

Red Mountains Sometimes Cry

Burt BACHARACH

What the World Needs Now

(b. 1928) arr. David

INTERMISSION Entr’acte: Jackson Browne “Before the Deluge” (recording) Arrangement: Caroline Shaw, with Rhiannon Giddens, Alison Krauss, Renée Fleming & Yannick Nézet-Séguin, piano Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART

“Laudate Dominum” from Vesperae solennes de confessore, K. 339

(1756–1791)

Giuseppe VERDI (1813–1901)

Giacomo PUCCINI (1858–1924)

Sir Hubert PARRY (1848–1918)

Richard RODGERS (1902–1979) Oscar Hammerstein, lyricist arr. Mathes

“Brindisi, Libiamo” from Act I of La traviata (Drinking Song) “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi Blest Pair of Sirens “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel

Encore: George Frideric HANDEL “Hallelujah” from Messiah (1685–1759)

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 81

MAY 24 PROGRAM NOTES Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene When I was 14, the film Soylent Green was released, a sci-fi thriller about a dystopian future of worldwide pollution, dying oceans, depleted resources and rampant starvation. The story was set in the year 2022.

The movie has faded from memory, but one scene left a profound Renée Fleming, ©Marvin Joseph impression. An aged researcher, unable to go on, has chosen assisted suicide at a government clinic. To ease his last moments of life, he is shown videos of a world that no longer exists: flowers and savannahs, flocks and herds, unpolluted skies and waters, all set to a soundtrack of classical music by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Grieg.

This scene captured my imagination in a terrifying way. The impact increased when I later learned that the actor playing the researcher, Edward G. Robinson, was terminally ill at the time it was filmed.

Fast forward to the pandemic. After more than two decades of constant touring, usually to urban cultural centers, performances abruptly ceased, and I suddenly found myself at home. I sought comfort in long walks outside near my house. I needed this time outdoors to maintain my emotional equilibrium, and I was reminded that nature would always be my touchstone. At the same time, the news about climate change grew more alarming: the extinction of animals we took for granted when we were children, the knowledge that white rhinos had disappeared from the wild, and daily reports of heat,

fires and flooding. I realized that the crisis we had been warned of for so long had arrived.

I thought of the great legacy of song literature that I love, when Romantic-era poets and composers reveled in imagery of nature, finding reflections of human experience in the environment. I decided to record some of this music, and to juxtapose these classics with the voices of living composers, addressing our current, troubled relationship with the natural world.

The result, in collaboration with my friend Yannick Nézet-Séguin, was the album Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene. When it received the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, I was thrilled, and I had the idea to tour music addressing this theme of nature as both our inspiration and our victim.

I was incredibly fortunate to connect with the imaginative, dedicated leadership at the National Geographic Society, the global nonprofit committed to exploring, illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world. It has been so exciting to work with this universally respected, landmark institution. I am deeply grateful for the help of President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Ulica, Chief Executive Officer Jill Tiefenthaler and Producer/Editor Sam Deleon, whose expertise and vision have been instrumental in creating the video you will see in the first half of tonight’s program.

Thankfully, the stunning natural world depicted in this film still exists, unlike that movie scene so upsetting to my younger self. In blending these beautiful images with music, my hope is, in some small way, to rekindle your appreciation of nature, and encourage any efforts you can make to protect the planet we share.

Sincerely, Renée Fleming

For more information about this program, please text PROGRAM to 513.845.3024*. *By texting to this number, you may receive messages that pertain to the organization and its performances; msg & data rates may apply.

Reply HELP to help, STOP to cancel.

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PROGRAM NOTES

TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS

Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene Hazel Dickens: “Pretty Bird” Fly away, little pretty bird Fly, fly away Fly away, little pretty bird And pretty you’ll always stay Fly far beyond this dark mountain To where you’ll be free evermore Fly away, little pretty bird Where the cold winter winds don’t blow George Frideric Handel: “Care Selve” from Atalanta Care selve, ombre beate, vengo in traccia del mio cor!

Beloved forests, joyous shadows: I come in search of my heart.

Nico Muhly, text by Thomas Traherne, Robinson Meyer: “Endless Space” One of the great things about Earth as an image is that… it’s too much.

It helps me to think about how we share the planet, and the fact that it’s always half day and it’s always half night.

Your midnight is someone else’s moon.

Prompted to seek my Bliss above the Skies, How often did I lift mine Eyes beyond the Spheres!

Dame Nature told me there was endless Space Within my Soul; I spy’d its very face: Sure it not for nought appears.

What is there which a Man may see Beyond the Spheres?

Felicity.

Whether the emergencies of the coming century Arrive in the form of fires, or floods, or plagues that rise invisibly from the ground, They’re likely to become more and more extreme and less and less familiar.

Even in its quietest places, the world will become newly hostile.

No empty Space: it is all full of Sight.

All Soul and Life, an Eye most bright, All Light and Love, Which doth at once all things possess and give, Heaven and Earth, and All that therein live; It rests as quiet, and doth move; Eternal is, yet Time includes; A scene above all Interludes.

Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret: “Baïlèro” from Chants d’auvergne Pastré, dè dèlaï l’aïo a gaïré dè boun ten, dio lou baïlèro lèrô. È n’aï pas gaïré, è dio, tu baïlèro lèrô.

Shepherd across the river, you don’t seem afraid, Sing baïlèro lèrô.

Indeed, I’m not, And you, too, can sing baïlèro.

Pastré, couçi foraï, èn obal io lou bèl rîou dio lou baïlèro lèrô.

Espèromè, tè, baô çirca, baïlèro lèrô.

Shepherd, the water divides us, and I can’t cross it, Sing baïlèro lèrô, Then I’ll come down and find you, Sing baïlèro lèrô.

Maria Schneider, poem by Ted Kooser: “Our Finch Feeder” from Winter Morning Walks Our finch feeder, full of thistle seed, oily and black as ammunition, swings wildly in the wind and the finches in olive drab like little commandos cling to the perches, cling to the perches, six birds at a time, ignoring the difficult ride.

Björk: “All is Full of Love” You’ll be given love, you’ll be taken care of You’ll be given love, you have to trust it Maybe not from the sources You have poured yours, Maybe not from the directions You are staring at Twist your head around, It’s all around you All is full of love All around you All is full of love, You just ain’t receiving… your phone is off the hook… your doors are all shut…

Believe in nature…

All is full of love Heitor Villa-Lobos: “Epílogo” from Floresta do Amazonas Ah!

Please turn page quietly MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 83

PROGRAM NOTES

Howard Shore: “Twilight and Shadow” from The Lord of the Rings Ngil nin el nel Naun el kree ú a mae ú el me Síli mae nin fi li na lo me le ne Menel aduial dúr i fuin i vah mae I saw a star rise high in the evening sky, it hung like a jewel, softly shining.

An i lu na cu An i naun lui A na naun annen annen ne perónen A For what might have been, for what never was.

For a life long lived, for a love half given.

Kevin Puts, poem by Dorianne Laux: “Evening” Moonlight pours down without mercy, no matter how many have perished beneath the trees.

The river rolls on.

There will always be silence, no matter how long someone has wept against the side of a house, bare forearms pressed to the shingles.

Everything ends.

Even pain, even sorrow.

The swans drift on.

Reeds bear the weight of their feathery heads.

Pebbles grow smaller, smoother beneath night’s rough currents. We walk long distances, carting our bags, our packages.

Burdens or gifts.

We know the land is disappearing beneath the sea, islands swallowed like prehistoric fish.

We know we are doomed, done for, damned, and still the light reaches us, falls on our shoulders even now, even here where the moon is hidden from us, even though the stars are so far away.

THANK YOU! to Christy & Terry Horan for their gift in loving memory of

DR. ROBERT J. STRUB May Festival Board Member 1994–1998

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PROGRAM NOTES

Curtis Green, poem by Pearce Green: “Red Mountains Sometimes Cry” Roaring hills, a broken sight Frozen deserts dream between time And could the floods not sleep with fire And our tears, put out the light?

Red mountains sometimes cry Birds, like rain, the freckled sky Forests churn, our cities going dry Seasons now confuse the world And the flames’ wild curls confuse the night Red mountains sometimes cry Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David: “What the World Needs Now” What the world needs now is love, sweet love, It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love, No, not just for some, but for ev’ry one.

Lord, we don’t need another mountain, There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb, There are oceans and rivers enough to cross, Enough to last ‘til the end of time What the world needs now is love, sweet love, It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love, No, not just for some, but for ev’ry one.

Lord, we don’t need another meadow, There are cornfields and wheatfields enough to grow, There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine, Oh listen, Lord, if you want to know What the world needs now is love, sweet love, It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love, No, not just for some, but for ev’ry one. n

n

n

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Laudate Dominum” from Vesperae solennes de confessore, K. 339 Laudate Dominum omnes gentes; laudate eum, omnes populi.

Praise the Lord, all nations; Praise Him, all people.

Quoniam confirmata est super nos misericordia ejus, et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.

For His loving kindness has been bestowed upon us, and the truth of the Lord endures for eternity.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, Forever and ever. Amen.

—Psalm 117

Giuseppe Verdi: “Brindisi, Libiam,” from Act I of La traviata Libiamo, libiamo ne’ lieti calici, che la bellezza infiora; e la fuggevol, fuggevol ora s’inebriì a voluttà.

Libiam ne’ dolci fremiti che suscita l’amore, poichè quell’occhio al core onnipotente va.

Libiamo, amore, amore fra i calici più caldi baci avrà.

Let us drink from the goblets of joy, adorned with beauty, and the fleeting hour shall be adorned with pleasure.

Let us drink to the secret raptures which love excited, for this eye reigns supreme in my heart…

Let us drink, for with wine Love will enjoy yet more passionate kisses.

Ah! libiam, amor fra’ calici più caldi baci avrà.

Let us drink, for with wine Love will enjoy yet more passionate kisses.

Tra voi, tra voi saprò dividere il tempo mio giocondo; tutto è follia, follia nel mondo ciò che non è piacer.

Godiam, fugace e rapido è il gaudio dell’amore, è un fior, che nasce e muore, nè più si può goder.

Godiam! c’invita, c’invita un fervido accento lusinghier.

With you I can spend the time with delight.

In life everything is folly which does not bring pleasure.

Let us be happy, fleeting and rapid is the delight of love; it is a flower which blooms and dies, which can no longer be enjoyed.

Let us be happy!

Fervent and enticing words summon us.

Ah! godiamo! La tazza, la tazza e il cantico, la notte abbella e il riso, in questo, in questo paradiso ne scopra il nuovo dì.

Be happy…wine and song and laughter beautify the night; let the new day find us in this paradise.

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PROGRAM NOTES

La vita è nel tripudio quando non s’ami ancora.

Life is nothing but pleasure, as long as one is not in love.

Nol dite a chi l’ignora.

Don’t say that to one who does not know it. È il mio destin così…

That is my fate…

Ah! godiamo! La tazza, la tazza e il cantico, la notte abbella e il riso, in questo, in questo paradiso ne scopra il nuovo dì.

Be happy…wine and song and laughter beautify the night; let the new day find us in this paradise.

Giacomo Puccini: “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi O mio babbino caro, mi piace, è bello, bello; vo’ andare in Porta Rossa a comperar l’anello!

Oh, my dear papa, I like him, he’s handsome; I want to go to Porta Rossa to buy the ring!

Sir Hubert Parry, text from “At a Solemn Music” by John Milton: Blest Pair of Sirens Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav’n’s joy, Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, Wed your divine sounds, and mixed pow’r employ, Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce; And to our high-raised phantasy present That undisturbed song of pure content, Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne To Him that sits thereon, With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee; Where the bright Seraphim in burning row, Their loud, uplifted angel-trumpets blow, And the Cherubic host in thousand quires, Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms, Hymns devout and holy psalms Singing everlastingly: That we on earth with undiscording voice May rightly answer that melodious noise; As once we did, till disproportioned sin Jarred against nature’s chime, and with harsh din Broke the fair music that all creatures made To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed In perfect diapason, whilst they stood In first obedience, and their state of good.

O may we soon again renew that song, And keep in tune with Heav’n, till God ere long To His celestial concert us unite, To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light.

Sì, sì, ci voglio andare!

E se l’amassi indarno, andrei sul Ponte Vecchio, ma per buttarmi in Arno!

Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II: “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel

Yes, yes, I want to go!

And if it’s useless to love him, I’ll go to the Ponte Vecchio and throw myself into the Arno!

When you walk through a storm hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark.

Mi struggo e mi tormento!

O Dio, vorrei morir!

Babbo, pietà, pietà!

I am pining, I am tortured!

O God, I could die!

Papa, have pity, have pity!

At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone, You’ll never walk alone.

ENCORE

George Frideric Handel: “Hallelujah” from Messiah Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.

—Revelation 19:6 The Kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.

—Revelation 11:15 King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

—Revelation 19:16

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CINCINNATI MUSICAL FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS Officers Michael Curran, Chair

Eric Combs, Vice-Chair René McPhedran, Treasurer Teresa Ernst, Secretary Christy Horan, Immediate Past Chair

Directors

Drew Abbott Patricia Borger David Boyles William Henry Caldwell Chris Canarie Kelly Craver

Barbara Feldmann Lesley Gilbertson Bryan Hafertepe J. Mark Holcomb William Hurford Isaiah Hyman, Jr.* Anthony Lazzeri Robert K. Lomax Andrew Nordquist Manisha Patel Kathleen Rambo Katy Sheehan Eileen Stanisic *deceased

Directors Emeriti Susan S. Laffoon Geraldine B. Warner Honorary Directors Steven Monder Robert Porco 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 Christy Horan 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.

2025 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) $1 million to $1,999,999 Fifth Third Bank and Fifth Third Foundation $500,000 to $999,999 GE Aerospace $250,000 to 499,999 altafiber Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center The Cincinnati Insurance Companies Great American Insurance Group The H.B., E.W. and F.R. Luther Charitable Foundation, Fifth Third Bank, N.A., Trustee Western & Southern Financial Group $100,000–$299,999 Cincinnati Open Cincinnati Reds Dinsmore & Shohl LLP Duke Energy The E.W. Scripps Company and Scripps Howard Foundation The Enquirer | Cincinnati.com Greater Cincinnati Foundation The Kroger Co. Messer Construction Co. National Endowment for the Arts

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 87

OUR SINCERE APPRECIATION TO THE FOLLOWING FOUNDATIONS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT The Eleanora C. U. Alms Trust Cincinnati International Wine Festival The Corbett Foundation The Thomas J. Emery Memorial The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation Beatrice Aldrink Idema Foundation The Andrew Jergens Foundation The H. B., E. W. and F. R. Luther Charitable Foundation Matinée Musicale The Motch Family Foundation Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation Ladislas & Vilma Segoe Foundation Louise Taft Semple Foundation The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation

THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS ANNUAL FUND

THANK YOU to the following donors for sharing their love of choral music, and the power of the May Festival, with our community, and for making our region a better, more vibrant, exciting and inspiring place to live.

This list represents donations of $50 or more received between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2024. 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 or 513.744.3321.

CHORUS LEVEL Gifts of $10,000 and above

Eleanora C. U. Alms Trust, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee ArtsWave BAI Foundation Ms. Henrietta Barlag Trish and Rick Bryan The Thomas W. Busse Charitable Trust The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation Chavez Properties The Corbett May Festival Fund The Thomas J. Emery Memorial* Barbara Ann Feldmann Babs and Tom Ferrell Fort Washington Investment Advisors Christy and Terry Horan Scott and Carol Kosarko Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation The H.B., E.W. and F. R. Luther Charitable Foundation Ohio Arts Council Drs. Manisha Patel and Michael Curran Louise Taft Semple Foundation Irwin and Melinda Simon Ginger Warner The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation ENSEMBLE LEVEL Gifts of $7,500–$9,999 Patrons

Robert A. Atterton John G. Avril Family Fund Gifts of $5,000–$7,499

Anonymous The Andrew Jergens Foundation David and Elaine Billmire Chris and Beth Canarie Melanie Chavez Rozy Park and Chris Dendy Sherry and Mark Holcomb The Ladislas & Vilma Segoe Family Foundation Sherie Lynch Marek

Lois and Mel Nizny, MD Mr. Michael E. Phillips Kathy and Craig Rambo CHORALE LEVEL Gifts of $4,000–$4,999 Patrons

Cincinnati International Wine Festival Mary and Jack Gimpel Gifts of $2,500–$3,999

Dr. Rob and Ashley Altenau Family Associated Premium Corporation The Board of Directors of the Cincinnati Boychoir Eric and Jane Combs Diana T. Dwight Ann Ellison Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ernst Drs. William Hurford and Lesley Gilbertson Linda Busken and Andrew MacAoidh Jergens Mrs. Karolyn L. Johnsen Susan Laffoon Ronald C. Lamping Laskey Charitable Fund Poul D. and JoAnne Pedersen Tom and Theresa Merrill David and Vicky Motch Motch Family Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Slobodan Stanisic Margaret and Michael Valentine Jeannine and John C. Winkelmann, MD SOLOIST LEVEL Gifts of $2,000–$2,499 Patrons

Corbett Foundation Karen and David Huelsman Susan J. Lauf Whitney and Phillip Long Matinée Musicale Club Dr. and Mrs. G. James Sammarco Katherine and Tim Stautberg Nydia C. Tranter Gifts of $1,000–$1,999

Anonymous Jeff and Keiko Alexander Milt and Berdie Blersch Mark and Marie Boyle Prof. William Henry Caldwell Helen H. Chatfield Ashley and Barbara Ford Drew Gores and George Warrington Ms. Kathleen M. Grote Isaiah Hyman Tom and Sue Kirkpatrick Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Klinedinst III Mr. Anthony & Dr. Kimberly Lazzeri Ms. René McPhedran Mrs. Thomas L. Neyer Ellen Rieveschl Beth Roberts Dianne and J. David Rosenberg* The Schieve Family The Schlachter Family Fund* Bill and Lee Steenken Brett Stover Steven R. Sunderman and Mark C. Adams Jane A. Walker Rosanne Wetzel Joe White Shelby O. Wood Barry Zaslow

DUO LEVEL Gifts of $750–$999 Patrons

Pete and Melanie Boylan Carol C. Cole Nancy and Steve Donovan Charles and Barbara Glueck Hixson Architecture Engineering Interiors David L. Martin Mr. and Mrs. George Thomas Rev. Anne Warrington Wilson Gifts of $500–$749

Anonymous (1) Gerard Baillely Neil K. Bortz Mr. David R. Boyles and Mr. David Castillo Rhoda and John Brooks William L. Budde, PhD Dr. Mark Carney and Mrs. Janet Greer-Carney Michael L. Cioffi and Rachael Rowe Mark Dauner Steven and Donna Dauterman Cat and Stan Dixon Edy and David Dreith Reed and Greg Ebel First Baptist Church of Dayton Dr. & Mrs. Michael J. Gelfand Margaret E. Hagar Jim and Sally Harper Mike & MaryBeth Hockenberry Kevin Lehay and Joyce Steiner Calvin and Pat Linnemann Thomas J. and Adele G. Lippert* Carmie Maloney Fred Moore Christian and Rose Naberhaus John T. Osterman Judge Mark and Sue Ann Painter Irene and Daniel P. Randolph Family James P. and Kathleen A. Schubert Shackson Charitable Fund Dr. Matthew Swanson Michael and Evelyn Wagner Katherine Wen & Ben Li Robin and Larry Wiley TRIO LEVEL Gifts of $400–$499 Patrons

David Brashear Anita Marie Greer and William Gatian Charles and Melissa Haas Mr. and Mrs. Robert Heidenrich Spence Ingerson David Mill and Kate York Dr. Cora Ogle Ms. Barbara Seiver Weiler Family Foundation Gifts of $300–$399

Nate and Greta Bachhuber Helene Sullivan Bentley Bryan Corbett Mary Beth Hamburger Emily Hodges Mr. Henry Huber Randy and Jan Johnson Ian and Nicholle Kasman Mr. and Mrs. John Klahm Kathleen B. and Michael C. Krug* Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lomax Dr. Janet P. McDaniel Francis Lee Meyer Robert and Cynthia Muhlhauser Alice Perlman

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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, 2022, 2023 and 2024).

Ms. Henrietta Barlag Debbie Barton Winifred Beam Kessler David and Elaine Billmire Alec Brockmeier Caroline H. Davidson Barbara Ann Feldmann Mary and Jack Gimpel Margaret E. Hagar Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius W. Hauck Christy and Terry Horan Anonymous Carol and Scott Kosarko

Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence H. Kyte, Jr. Susan Laffoon Jim and Julie Laskey Thomas & Adele Lippert Mr. and Mrs. Jack W. McKee Anne M. Pohl Ellen Rieveschl Bill and Lee Steenken Nancy Steman Brett Stover Christine Wands Rosanne Wetzel Jeannine and John C. Winkelmann, MD

For more information about including the May Festival in your estate plans, please contact Cat Dixon, Director of Advancement & Engagement, at 513.744.3321. 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

THANK YOU

Christine Roediger Carol J. Schroeder John M. Shepherd Alice Skirtz Marian Stapleton Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Stucky Karen Wiltsie QUARTET LEVEL Gifts of $200–$299 Patrons

Anonymous (1) Avi and Karen Schulman-Bear Rev. and Mrs. Milton T. Berner Thomas and Sondra Copanas Stephen and Cynthia DeHoff Robert DiMartino and Drew Abbott Dale & Kathy Elifrits Barbara Erskine Barbara Esposito-Ilacqua Sterling Finkbine Turney Berry and Kendra Foster Karl and Connie Graham Jeff and Carolyn Hill Mr. Shaoming Huang and Ms. Xiaolan Cui Paul and Mary Jenks Dr. and Mrs. Scott Jolson Robert and Anne Judd Mary Judge Diana & Tim Kilfoil Mel and John Kuempel Robert and Judith C. LaChance Mitchel and Carol Livingston Catherine McGraw David and Martha Millett Mr. and Mrs. H. Scott Nesbitt Mr. Terry Parsons Stephen Phillips Drs. Michael Privitera and Marcia Kaplan

Brian T. Reilly Steven and Emily Riedell Carole and Edwin Rigaud Mr. and Mrs. Michael T. Schueler David and Judy Skiff Mrs. Cynthia M. Starr Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Stradling Mary Ann and Bill Taylor David and Christine Thornbury Dean and Mary Watkins Mark and Jennifer Weaver Mr. Steven Wilkinson Ronna and James Willis Jeff and Kelly Woodward John M. Yacher Gifts of $100–$199

Anonymous (6) Drs. Frank and Mary Albers Jane and Francis Acquaviva Leon and Jeni Barton Fred Berger Dr. Allen W. Bernard Ms. Laurie Boisclair Rev. James A. Bramlage Mr. Scott Brody Mrs. Barb Brown Dr. Ralph P. Brown Donald and Kathleen Field Burns Phillip Crabtree Ronda Deel Mr. and Mrs. William O. DeWitt, Jr. Ms. Jennifer Drydyk Darin Dugan Shelly and Steven Goldstein Dan and Sally Gray Kristina Groth J. Andrew & Martha Hadley Carl and Barbara Harcourt Dr. and Mrs. Morton Harshman Alice and John Hehman

The Heidrich Family Bill and Cathy Herring Lauren and Richard Hess HORAN Capital Advisors Dr. and Mrs. Nelson Horseman Kim P. Icsman Ms. Maite Iraolagoita Jeanine Jason Robert Jenkins Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Kanney Michael and Rian Keller Jerry N. Kirby, M.D. The Koressel Family The Kroger Company Mr. & Mrs. Lawrence H. Kyte, Jr. Russell Lascelles and Janet Schultz Ms. Megan Lawson Jennifer Leone Elaine and Lowell Lustig John E. Mahn Ms. Audrey Markovich Matt Matson Mr. Randolph McAusland William McConnell Jim and Hope Metzger Lynn Miller Marilyn and Gary Mitchner Mt. Auburn Literary Club James Muhlenkamp Dr. and Mrs. Charles M. Myer III Mrs. Norita D. Aplin and Mr. Stanley H. Ragle Laurie Roche Holly Scheper Saira Shahani Mr. Eli Shupe and Toby Ruben Linda L. Siekmann Elizabeth A. Snyder Sue and Andrew Speno Mr. Roger O. Stafford Ellen and Laurence Stillpass

THANK YOU! The May Festival is grateful to the following donors whose endowed gifts gifts provide important sponsorship support every year.

Robert A. Atterton Joan P. and Oliver L. Baily Fund Mr. and Mrs. LeRoy R. Brooks Dr. and Mrs. Morton Harshman Dr. Thomas Lesher Mr. and Mrs. S. Charles Straus Mary and Joe Stern

MAY FESTIVAL 2025 | 91



THANK YOU

Sam and Dottie Stover Mr. Dale Swisher Janet G. Todd Mr. and Mrs. Frederick D. Warren Jim and George Ann Wesner Paul and Tommy Wessendarp Stephen and Amy Whitlatch SHAREHOLDER LEVEL Gifts of $75–$99 Patrons

Robert and Janet Banks Lynn and Jim Denton William and Joan Hill Joseph and Elanor Hingtgen Mrs. Amy Perry Terry and Burr Robinson Total Quality Logistics Dr. Steve and Rev. Kristie Stricker Ms. Beth Troendly Gifts of $50–$74

Anonymous (3) Wendy Hart Beckman Sarah Buller Robert Burnett and Stacey Masneri Elizabeth Coley Michael D. and Carolyn Camillo Eagen Mrs. Caryl S. C. Fullman Georgia Gellenbeck Max and Anna Gise Robert and Christine Graeter Dr. Jack and Barbara Hahn Ms. Margaret A. Hilvert Emily and Barry Hindin Daniel J. Hoffheimer James N. Kaya and Ms. Debra Grauel Florence Koetters Mr. Joel Konzen M. Drue Lehmann Kay M. Luccasen Dr. and Mrs. John Maier David Mason Mr. Christopher Mystkowski James Norton Darice Palmier Anne M. Pohl Bav and Nedi Rivera Laura Sadler-Haperink Edward V. Schoelwer Mr. and Mrs. Richard R. Sprigg Shirley and Phil Stikeleather Mark Wert Debbie and Dick Westheimer * Denotes contributions received via the Greater Cincinnati Foundation

The May Festival is grateful to the following donors whose contributions to the Music Makers of Tomorrow Fund ensure that students will be able to attend the May Festival at no charge—every concert, every year.

Anonymous (1) Elisabeth Anger Nate and Greta Bachhuber Mrs. Maxine Berkman David and Elaine Billmire Milt and Berdie Blersch Dr. Ralph P. Brown Chris and Beth Canarie Carol C. Cole Ms. Lisa Collins Mark Dauner Michael D. and Carolyn Camillo Eagen Ann Ellison Mr. Frank Espohl Shelley and Steven Goldstein Karl and Connie Graham Ms. Kathleen M. Grote Kristina Groth Charles and Melissa Haas Dr. Jack and Barbara Hahn Mary Beth Hamburger Ms. Jane F. Hansley Carl and Barbara Harcourt Mr. and Mrs. Robert R. Heidenreich Ms. Margaret A. Hilvert Emily and Barry Hindin MaryBeth Hockenberry Emily Hodges Christy and Terry Horan HORAN Capital Advisors Dr. and Mrs. Nelson Horseman Mr. Henry Huber Isaiah Hyman Ms. Maite Iraolagoitia Robert Jenkins Paul and Mary Jenks Mr. and Mrs. Andrew M. Jergens Mrs. Karolyn L. Johnsen Dr. and Mrs. Scott Jolson Mary Judge Ms. Linda Kamperman Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Kanney

Ian and Nicholette Kasman Mr. and Mrs. John Klahm Scott and Carol Kosarko Kathleen B. and Michael C. Krug Susan Laffoon Janet & Gary Langhorst Michelle Lewandowski Ms. Linda Lin Nancy and Jonathan Lippincott Elaine and Lowell Lustig Dr. and Mrs. John Maier Kathy and Brad Mank Sherie Lynch Marek David L. Martin The Family of Marie F. Martin The Estate of Mary Ann Meanwell Leslie & Russ Metheney Mrs. Frances Lee Meyer David Mill and Kate York Lynn Miller Patty Misrach Linda Mueller James Muhlenkamp Lois and Mel Nizny, MD James Norton Alan and Tamar Oestreich Mr. and Mrs. John T. Osterman Mr. Terry Parsons Dr. Manisha Patel and Dr. Michael Curran Poul D. and JoAnne Pedersen Mrs. Amy Perry Anne M. Pohl PNC Bank Foundation Drs. Michael Privitera and Marcia Kaplan Kathy and Craig Rambo Brian T. Reilly Steven and Emily Riedell Ellen Rieveschl Carole and Edwin Rigaud Mrs. Barbara W. Robb Ellen & Eugene Saenger, Jr. The Schieve Family Mr. James P. Schubert Mrs. Elizabeth B. Schulenberg Ms. Barbara Seiver John M. Shepherd Kenneth and Alice Skirtz Smith-Dobbins Family Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Stradling Steven R. Sunderman and Mark C. Adams Dr. Matthew Swanson Janet G. Todd Nydia C. Tranter Ernest and Helen Waits Jane A. Walker Robin and Larry Wiley Charles A. Wilkinson John M. Yacher Barry Zaslow

Want to see YOUR name here? Become a part of the May Festival’s future with a gift today! Make your contribution now by visiting mayfestival.com/give or scan the QR code.

To learn about all the ways you can support Cincinnati’s Chorus, visit mayfestival.com/options or contact Cat Dixon, Director of Advancement & Engagement, at 513.744.3321 or cdixon@mayfestival.com.

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THANK YOU

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, 2023 and April 1, 2025.

In honor of the Cincinnati Boychoir’s 60th Anniversary Connico, Bryan Hafertepe & Graham Hunter In memory of R. Robert von Brüning Karen and David Huelsman In honor of Mary G. Budde William L. Budde, Ph. D. In memory of Ms. Janet Burnett Robert Burnett and Stacey Masneri In memory of Thelma Castrodale Babs and Tom Ferrell In memory of Leland M. Cole Carol C. Cole In honor of Cat Dixon The May Festival Chorus In honor of Edy Dreith The May Festival Chorus In honor of Sarah Farwell The May Festival Chorus In memory of Mary & Price Ferrell Babs and Tom Ferrell In memory of Mary Monahan Gimpel Mr. Mark Kallick and Mr. David Moore Susan Laffoon Steven Sunderman and Mark Adams Bill and Mary Ann Taylor Shelby Wood Sherie Lynch Marek In honor of HBCU Choral Legends Dr. William Henry Caldwell In honor of Mark Hockenberry Mike & Mary Beth Hockenberry In memory of Robert Howes Ms. Kathleen M. Grote In memory of Mary ‘Molly’ H. Jansen Mary Beth Hamburger The Heidrich Family In honor of Madi Kasman Ian and Nicholette Kasman In memory of Richard I. Lauf Susan J. Lauf In honor of Richard Lin Anonymous

In memory of Cynthia Pearl Scanio Emily Hodges In memory of David R. Schieve The Schieve Family In memory of John Sullivan Sarah Buller Florence Koetters In honor of Steven Sunderman Melanie Chavez Nancy & Steve Donovan Reed and Greg Ebel Family Fund* Mary and Jack Gimpel Margaret E. Hagar Sherry and Mark Holcomb Christy and Terry Horan Susan Laffoon Sherie Lynch Marek David Mill and Kate York Dr. Cora Ogle Mr. and Mrs. John T. Osterman Katherine and Tim Stautberg Brett Stover Rosanne Wetzel Wieler Family Foundation Shelby Wood In honor of Dr. Matthew Swanson Mark and Marie Boyle Dawn and Doug Bruestle The May Festival Chorus In honor of Rosanne Wetzel Dawn and Doug Bruestle Rozy Park and Christopher Dendy

WELCOME GROUPS! Verdi Requiem, Friday, May 16 Mike and Melissa Huber Friends and Family Chasing the Dawn, Sunday. May 18 Richard Gruber Friends and Family Voice of Nature, Saturday, May 24 Twin Lakes of Montgomery

Call the Group Sales Department for your group needs at 513.864.0196.

In memory of Elise Rose Metzger Jim and Hope Metzger In honor of Robert Porco Emily Hodges Robert Jenkins Shackson Charitable Fund Katherine and Tim Stautberg Dr. Matthew Swanson

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Donate to the CSO by buying yourself a new piano.* STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE For over 120 years, Willis Music and 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 (859) 396-4485 pianos@willismusic.com *Willis Music will give a donation to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for every piano that a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra patron purchases.

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 Festival, your ongoing support makes these performances possible and enables us to engage and uplift the people of Greater Cincinnati through song.

List as of April 1, 2025 for subscribers of 10 years or more

If your name is inadvertently missing or listed incorrectly, please call us at 513.381.3300 or email contact@mayfestival.com.

50+ YEARS

Donald and Kathleen Burns Debbie Bogenschutz Steven and Shelley Goldstein Ronald Lamping Susan Laffoon James and Sally Harper Stan Ragle and Norita Aplin Michael Battersby Richard Wayman Sally Lund David and M. Elaine Billmire Adele Lippert 25–49 YEARS

Louis Dauner and Geraldine Wu Nancy McNeal Poul D and JoAnne Pedersen Walter Langsam Christine Neyer Carol Schroeder Emily Hodges and Charles Spencer Avi Bear and Karen Schulman-Bear Carol Kruse Alice Skirtz Cincinnati Financial Corporation Samuel and Dottie Stover Stephen and Nancy Donovan Mel Cohen Jean Snyder Frederick and Trish Bryan Christopher and Beth Canarie Frederick and Jo Anne Warren Michael Cioffi and Rachael Rowe Judith Martin Michael Hirsch Christine Adams Geraldine and David Warner W. Burton and Roselyn Lloyd Karl and Constance Graham William Klykylo and Dorothyann Feldis Douglas and Susan Bierer Anita Marie Greer and William Gatian

Henrietta Barlag Gary and Marilyn Mitchner Robert and Julia Jolson Cora Ogle Jason and Carol Ramler Harold Eberenz G. James and Ruthann Sammarco James Thompson John and Rhoda Brooks Thomas and Dorothy Burdin George Colombel David and Virginia Motch Kathleen Krug The Castellini Foundation Edward Givens Khosrow and Julie Alamin Tamar Oestreich Brett Stover Lon Mendelsohn Jonathan and Nancy Lippincott Thomas Ferrell Irwin and Melinda Simon Timothy and Katherine Stautberg Daniel Epstein Richard and Gail Stradling Jack and Barbara Hahn Donald and Judy Mills Shelby Wood William and Lee Steenken Brad and Kathy Mank Linda Ziegler William and Joan Hill Steven and Donna Dauterman 10–24 YEARS

Randy and Jan Johnson Elizabeth Osterburg David Martin Norma Miller Neil Bortz Priscilla Prouty Susan Lauf Don and Judy Brown

John and Joanne Earls Joseph Farrell Robert and Marcia Togneri John Ellmore Thomas and Carolyn Griffin Carol Kosarko Barbara Feldmann Jerome and Robin Galvin Lynne & Elizabeth Curtiss John Yacher Harry and April Davidow John and Mary Lund James and Barbara Lambert John and Jeannine Winkelmann Alfonso and Mary Lopez H. Drewry Gores and George Warrington Milt and Berdie Blersch Joseph Schwering and Diana Fleming Melissa Cox Rodney and Mary Stucky Ivan Ivanov and Elena Ivanova Randolph McAusland Mark and Jennifer Weaver C. and Kathy Elifrits Thomas Klinedinst III and Lori Klinedinst David and Karen Huelsman Manisha Patel and Michael Curran Dale and Roxanne Johnson Gale Roberts Justin and Lauren Peter John and Alice Hehman Melanie Chavez Paule Asch Jack and Svetlana Klette Phillip and Barbara Hester Charles Wilkinson Stephen and Cynthia DeHoff Marcia Hartsock William and Dorothy Dean Eric and Jane Combs Diana Stoppiello

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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.

MAY FESTIVAL Julianne Akins Smith Executive Director

ARTISTIC PLANNING Maddie Choi Artistic Planning Intern

Kathryn Zajac Albertson Supporting Chorus Manager

Theresa Lansberry Artist Liaison

Cat Dixon Director of Advancement & Engagement

Shuta Maeno Manager of Artistic Planning & Assistant to the Music Director

Elliot Draznin Development Manager

Sam Strater Senior Advisor for Cincinnati Pops Planning

Edy Dreith Education Manager Kelly Haney Interim Chorus Manager Jason Alexander Holmes Associate Director of Choruses & Youth Chorus Director Kathleen Moran Chorus Librarian

FINANCE, IT & DATA SERVICES Deborah Benjamin Accounting Clerk Julian Cann Accounting Clerk Kathleen Curry Data Entry Clerk

MARKETING, COMMUNICATIONS & DIGITAL MEDIA JoVahn Allen Marketing Intern Charlie Balcom Social Media Manager

Amber Ostaszewski Director of Audience Engagement Tyler Secor Director of Communications & Content Development

Leon Barton Website Manager

Alexis Shambley Audience Development Marketing Manager

KC Commander Director of Digital Content & Innovation

Lee Snow Digital Content Technology Manager

Maria Cordes Video Editor

Patron Services Representatives Ellisen Blair, Lead Hannah Blanchette, Lead Talor Marren, Lead Lucas Maurer, Lead Matthew Wallenhorst, Lead Andy Demczuk Craig Doolin Mary Duplantier Ebony Jackson Monica Lange Gregory Patterson Kathleen Riemenschneider

Jon Dellinger Growth Marketing Manager Drew Dolan Box Office Manager

Elizabeth Engwall Accounting Manager

Kaitlyn Driesen Digital Media & Label Services Manager

Matt Grady Accounting Manager

Jensen Fitch Publicity Manager

Sharon Grayton Data Services Manager

Mya Gibson Communications Intern

Marijane Klug Staff Accountant

Gabriela Godinez Feregrino Publications Manager

PRODUCTION Laura Bordner Adams Director of Operations

Shannon May Accounting Clerk

Stephanie Lazorchak Graphic Designer

Michelle Camargo Production Intern

Kristina Pfeiffer Director of Finance

Daniel Lees Assistant Box Office Manager

Alex Magg Production Manager

Felecia Tchen Kanney Vice President of Marketing, Communications & Digital Media

Judy Simpson Director of Finance

Michelle Lewandowski Director of Marketing

Isabella Prater Production Coordinator

Tara Williams Data Services Manager

Anthony Paggett Vice President of Artistic Planning

Tina Marshall Director of Ticketing & Audience Services

Brenda Tullos Director of Orchestra Personnel

HUMAN RESOURCES & PAYROLL Megan Inderbitzin-Tsai Director of Payroll Services

Wendy Marshall Group Sales Manager

Rachel Vondra Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager

Matthew Swanson Director of Choruses SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM Robert McGrath President & CEO John Clapp Vice President of Orchestra & Production Rich Freshwater Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Kyle Wynk-Sivashankar Vice President of Human Resources EXECUTIVE OFFICE Shannon Faith Executive Assistant to the President & CEO

Natalia Lerzundi Human Resources & Payroll Coordinator

Madelyn McArthur Audience Engagement Manager

Jenny Ryan Human Resources Manager

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.

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AU D I T I O N for the May Festival Chorus & Youth Chorus AUG 2025

There are no costs associated with singing in May Festival Choruses, such as dues or fees for participation.

The May Festival provides uniforms, parking, voice lessons, and musical scores to all singers at no charge.

Plus, singers receive FREE or discounted tickets to CSO and May Festival performances!

mayfestival.com/join