May As Well Sing
If you believe the legend, Music Hall was built because Reuben R. Springer, a Cincinnati businessman and philanthropist, wanted the city to have a proper place to hear choral music after a hailstorm ruined a performance of Lohengrin during the Cincinnati Musical Festival.
From that evening, the May Festival and Music Hall grew to become beloved Cincinnati institutions, placing the city on the choral and cultural map. With an all-volunteer chorus of 130 members, renowned guest performers Elliot Madore, Davóne Tines and Joélle Harvey, along with the incomparable Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the May Festival returns to the Music Hall stage once again.
“Because choral singing has been identified as one of the riskiest activities during the pandemic, choral singers and audience members have been almost completely without opportunities to sing in person together or attend live performances for the past year,” says Cat Dixon, director of advancement and engagement for the May Festival. “There is definitely excitement about coming back to Music Hall for the May Festival this year–It feels like a first step back to normal.”
The 2021 May Festival will present five performances between May 21 and 30. Nearly every work programmed will be a Festival premiere, and many of the soloists, Sara Couden, Elliot Madore, Sophia Burgos, Sasha Cooke, Davóne Tines and Joélle Harvey will be making their May Festival debuts.
Fittingly for this uncertain time, the May Festival brings to the stage a number of heartfelt works for its opening weekend on May 21 and 22. Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, sung by baritone Elliot Madore, explores loss and love. The May Festival Chorus will reunite to perform three of Holst’s hymns on texts from the Rig Veda, the oldest scripture of the Hindu religion.
“Chorus members speak of the May Festival as their second family, and I know they are aching to be back with the whole group,” says Dixon. “We’ve kept them in touch with each other by hosting virtual meetings and holiday parties. Robert Porco (May Festival director of choruses ) has personally called every member of the chorus at least twice over the course of the pandemic – just to check in and see how they are faring.”
If You Go
Opening Weekend
Friday, May 21 and Saturday, May 22,
7:30 p.m.
Juanjo Mena, conductor
Sara Couden, contralto
Elliot Madore, baritone
Festival Tenor and Bass Ensemble
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Anton Bruckner: Adagio from String Quintet in F Major
Julia Perry: Stabat Mater
Gustav Mahler, arr. Schoenberg: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (“Songs of a Wayfarer”)
Gustav Holst: Selections from Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Group 4, H. 100
Voice and Verse
Friday, May 28, 7:30 p.m.
Robert Porco, conductor
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano
Sophia Burgos, soprano
Davóne Tines, baritone
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Aaron Copland: Selections from Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson
John Adams: The Wound-Dresser
Maria Schneider: Selections from Winter Morning Walks
Hearts and Voices Soar
Saturday, May 29, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 30, 2:30 p.m.
Juanjo Mena, conductor
May Festival Soprano and Alto Ensemble
Joélle Harvey, soprano
Paul Appleby, tenor
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Gustav Mahler: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
Benjamin Britten: The Illuminations
Franz Schubert: Selected Songs
Gustav Holst: Selections from Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Group 2, H. 98
Reena Esmail: Selections from I Rise: Women in Song.
For the Voice and Verse program on Friday, May 28, Davóne Tines, an inspiration to composers like John Adams, expertly connects the composer’s music with Walt Whitman’s timeless perspective on loving and caring for others, The Wound Dresser. Two-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke sings the words of Emily Dickinson, a poet who lived in near total isolation from the outside world, an isolation that may feel all too familiar for many people after the past year.
“I definitely think that the return of the May Festival feels like a return to community, but it has a deeper meaning for our Chorus,” says Dixon. “Singers are there for each other through births, marriages, deaths, and everything else, and the past year has been no different. But, it’s just harder without the regularly weekly rehearsals we had before the pandemic.”
During the closing performances, Hearts and Voices Soar on May 28 and 29, the heartfelt works continue as Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena and the CSO join the May Festival. A famous love letter here, some of Schubert’s spellbinding songs there, and the soprano Joélle Harvey tackling Benjamin Britten’s mystical work The Illuminations. The May Festival will conclude with the sopranos and altos of the May Festival Chorus joining together to sing two ethereal hymns from Holst’s Rig Veda and selections from Los Angeles composer Reena Esmail’s I Rise: Women in Song, inspired by female authors whose words, thoughts and actions have shaped our world.
“Coming together to sing is a monumental step in reconnecting people,” says Harry Cecil, May Festival 2020 choral conducting fellow, who is singing in this year’s festival. “Despite our differences in ideas, backgrounds, and cultures, singing the same note at the same time evokes a harmony beyond the designated music, it evokes what could and should be--living in harmony together.”
–Tricia Suit