The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra will be playing live in Music Hall for the first time since mid-March — and for the first time since the CSO announced the cancellation of the remainder of its 125th-anniversary season.
This special performance — "Live from Music Hall" — will be streamed on Facebook, YouTube and cincinnatisymphony.org at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 16.
“This is a deeply meaningful moment, signaling the beginning of our return to Music Hall. Of course we would love all the musicians of the Orchestra to be able to perform, but we understand that we must be patient until it is possible again,” says Music Director Louis Langrée in a press release. “In the meantime, we want people to know that the heart of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is still beating. Though it is a bonsai version of what we normally do, the streaming program honors the CSO’s legacy and continuum of tradition and innovation."
The program will feature four, socially distant musicians performing Mahler's Piano Quartet in A Minor. Led by Langrée, the show will also include the premiere of Matthias Pintscher's work for The Fanfare Project, "vitres (frament...)".
A press release says, "Saturday would have been the grand finale of the CSO’s 125th Anniversary season — a season that paid tribute to the CSO’s legacy as champions of new work and its history of working with important composers of the day. The Live from Music Hall event honors the spirit of the original program; a world premiere by Julia Adolphe, written for the full orchestra, is replaced by the world premiere of 'vitres (fragment...)' for solo oboe by Matthias Pintscher, performed by Principal Oboe Dwight Parry. And, Mahler’s Piano Quartet in A Minor represents Mahler’s Third Symphony, which was given its U.S. premiere by the CSO in 1914 as part of the annual Cincinnati May Festival."
The Fanfare Project is inspired by Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, which the CSO premiered in 1943. The CSO says that work was "commissioned by CSO Music Director Eugene Goossens in 1942 in support of Allied efforts and as a testament to the American spirit during World War II." The Fanfare Project, from the CSO and Cincinnati Pops, has asked more than a dozen composers (so far) to write short, one-minute "fanfares" for solo musicians to play "as a commentary on the COVID era."
