W
e expect the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to perform great music that will entertain and inspire audiences. But this weekend’s concerts are the culmination of an annual project that goes well beyond the presentation of Classical music: One City, One Symphony is a collaborative initiative using music to bring together citizens from across the Tristate. Since 2012, the CSO has collaborated annually with community organizations for preparatory events that will crescendo with concerts at Music Hall on Friday morning and Saturday evening.
Isaac Thompson, the CSO’s director of artistic administration, says he believes the project is unique in the world of Classical music. “We take a holistic view of our entire community, involving many partners,” he says. “We are eager to have a community conversation inspired by music. It is a cornerstone of the orchestra’s efforts to be as relevant as possible to the entire community.”
As 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, One City, One Symphony’s theme is freedom, inspired by the legacy of poet Maya Angelou. She appeared with the CSO in November 2013 to narrate Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait during Louis Langrée’s first concert as the orchestra’s 13th music director.
Angelou’s engagement profoundly moved the community and the orchestra. A quartet of CSO musicians performed at her memorial service when she passed away six months later. Her memory is being honored at One City, One Symphony with the world premiere of three new musical works inspired by her poems: “Equality,” “Forgive” and “Elegy.” The theme of freedom resonates in the closing lines of “Equality”: “Hear the tempo so compelling,/hear the blood throb through my veins./Yes, my drums are beating nightly,/and the rhythms never change.” The poem’s powerful refrain, repeated six times, is “Equality, and I will be free.”
The CSO will perform pieces by three young composers — Jonathan Bailey Holland, Kristin Kuster and TJ Cole — this weekend, narrated by award-winning actress and playwright Regina Taylor.
The freedom theme permeates the orchestral program, also featuring Beethoven’s “Leonore” Overture No. 2 — written for an opera about a man unjustly imprisoned for political reasons — and
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’s melodic Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”
The Czech composer’s 1893 composition, written during his tenure with the American Conservatory in New York City, is imbued with themes and harmonies of folk songs and spirituals from the young American nation. While the symphony does not employ melodies of slave songs or Native American culture, it reflects
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enthusiasm for the spirit and tonalities he found in America.
With a nod to Angelou’s messages and the anniversary of the 13th Amendment that extended freedom to many more Americans, a poetry competition on the theme of “What does freedom mean to you?” was undertaken. Local residents were invited to submit poems of 25 lines or less; adults and high school students crafted nearly 350 entries. A panel of judges, including Jori An Cotton, spoken word instructor at Elementz, a Cincinnati Hip Hop youth center, narrowed the field. “It was a big deal,” Cotton says. “We had a lot of poetry to go through.”
Winning poets were announced last week: Grand prizes went to high school student Dana Schneider from Edgewood, Ky. for “Is Freedom Just Not That Into Me?” and adult poet Mark Flanigan of Cincinnati for “The Bell Ringer’s Song.” Their poems and four other prizewinners had readings at the Corryville branch of the Public Library and the Main Library downtown. They will also be posted in Music Hall’s lobby this weekend.
The One City, One Symphony initiative also involved leaders from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and CSO musicians at five “listening parties,” designed to explore and discuss the events’ music and themes at locations in Walnut Hills, Avondale, Madisonville, Covington and Price Hill. They discussed
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symphony and how it musically illustrates the themes of freedom.
“We speak to the works of music and their historical and cultural moorings in ways relevant to things we think about today,” says Freedom Center President Dr. Clarence Newsome, “including the contributions of diverse segments of our society.” The programs help attendees understand why and how music connects to issues in today’s world.
Newsome grew up listening to Leonard Bernstein’s televised Young People’s Concerts in the 1960s — programs that inspired him to work with the CSO on this project. At a young age, he considered a musical career as a French horn player. He went in other directions, but music remains an important element in his life.
“At the Freedom Center,” Newsome says, “we share the stories of freedom’s heroes, past and present, to inspire courageous steps for freedom today. This community-wide initiative connects the music that moves us to the history of freedom.” The listening parties focused on how music illustrates and enlightens the ongoing struggle for freedom.
Newsome points out that
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sought “to build a distinctive American Classical musical style inspired by African and Native American themes and sounds.” He adds that Angelou’s poetry is “just right for the development of music to continue the vision
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had in mind.”
“Freedom and music go hand-in-hand,” says Freedom Center provost Dr. Michael Battle. “From the spirituals sung by the enslaved before the end of the Civil War to the protest songs of the Civil Rights movement, music has inspired generations of individuals to share experiences, express hardships and cry for freedom throughout history.”
Another partner in this event has been Classical music station WGUC FM 90.9, which has shared
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’s symphony in a series of recent broadcasts. The last of those airs 6 p.m. Thursday, a CSO recording conducted by former music director Paavo Järvi.
One City, One Symphony is a true harmonic convergence of a collection of committed organizations on a theme central to America, past, present and future.
ONE CITY, ONE SYMPHONY takes place Friday and Saturday at Music Hall. Tickets/more info: cincinnatisymphony.org/onecity.
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2015.
