Telling Her Story
2024 May Festival Event Schedule
The Creation
Friday, May 17, 7:30 p.m.
Franz Joseph HAYDN The Creation
Anthems
Saturday, May 18, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
Julia WOLFE All that breathes (World Premiere, May Festival Commission)
David LANG the national anthems
Julia WOLFE Pretty
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Dona nobis pacem
Voices of the Earth
Thursday, May 23, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
Program:
Michael GORDON Natural History
Julia WOLFE Anthracite Fields
Her Story
Saturday, May 25, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
Program:
Julia WOLFE Her Story
Gabriel FAURÉ Requiem
Subscription ticket packages for the 2024 May Festival and Bob’s Big Sing: A May Festival Reunion are available at mayfestival.com.
Following a monumental 150th anniversary celebration and as part of its vision to become the most exciting force in the choral world, the Cincinnati May Festival introduces Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe as May Festival’s inaugural Festival Director.
Inspired by Wolfe’s body of work for chorus and orchestra, as well as decades-long collaborations with composers and performers across genres and media, the May Festival features the world premiere of All that breathes, a new choral fanfare that Wolfe composed especially for the Festival, alongside her compositions Her Story, Anthracite Fields and Pretty. The festival also has works by her longtime collaborators and Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon and David Lang plus treasured works from the repertoire.
The May Festival Chorus (Robert Porco, director) and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Louis Langrée, music director) will be conducted by Teddy Abrams, Stephanie Childress, François López-Ferrer and Robert Porco. Featured guests will include soprano Camilla Tilling, tenor Nicholas Phan, and ensembles Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Lorelei Ensemble (Beth Willer, artistic director), the Steiger Butte Singers of Chiloquin, Oregon and the May Festival Youth Chorus (Matthew Swanson, director).
“The May Festival has evolved through many changes and adjustments over 150 years into its current iteration, but one thing that has never wavered is its artistic excellence and commitment to the choral repertoire,” said May Festival Executive Director Steven Sunderman. “This new artistic model embraces our traditions and advances our vision. It combines acclaimed artists from all disciplines who are at the top of their craft with the talents of the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to create new and exciting experiences for all. This new artistic model will build upon the legacy and success of the May Festival, and we are thrilled that Julia Wolfe will join us as our first-ever Festival Director.”
The new artistic leadership model aims to invigorate all aspects of artistic planning and preparation through the close collaboration between two artistic leads: an annual Festival Director and the May Festival Director of Choruses.
In this newly created role, Wolfe draws upon decades of collaboration and interdisciplinary artistry to devise a program that exhibits the full breadth of the chorus as a musical medium. Through several contemporary works that highlight the chorus—including three vocal works of her own—Wolfe exposes common ground with the May Festival’s celebrated classical offerings, creating contrasts and unexpected synergies that resonate across centuries of musical history.
Julia Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. She draws inspiration from folk, classical and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them.
Wolfe saw three major orchestra premieres in the 2022-23 season. Pretty was premiered in June 2023 by conductor Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic. Co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Pretty is a raucous celebration — embracing the grit of fiddling, the relentlessness of work rhythms, and inspired by the distortion and reverberation of rock and roll.
UnEarth, commissioned and premiered in June 2023 by the New York Philharmonic, is a large-scale work for orchestra, men’s chorus and children’s chorus that addresses the climate crisis. Performed in three movements, the 40-minute piece is realized with spatial staging and scenic design projected on a large circular screen.
Her Story, a 45-minute semi-staged work for orchestra and women’s chamber choir, received its world premiere in September 2022 with the Nashville Symphony, conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, the vocal ensemble Lorelei, and stage direction by Anne Kauffman. Co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and National Symphony Orchestra, Her Story invokes the words of historical figures and the spirit of pivotal moments to pay tribute to the centuries of ongoing struggle for equal rights and representation for women in America.
In addition to receiving the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Wolfe was a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. She received the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music and was named Musical America’s 2019 Composer of the Year. Julia Wolfe is co-founder/co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can, and she is Artistic Director of Music Composition at NYU Steinhardt.
Her music is published by Red Poppy Music and G. Ricordi & Co., New York (ASCAP) and is distributed worldwide by the Universal Music Publishing Group.
“I am thrilled to be working with the forward-looking May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to bring powerful musical narratives to the historic May Festival,” said Festival Director Julia Wolfe. “Pairing new with old, the works resonate together across time and space to share the powerful vehicle of music—expressing who we were and who we are today.”
“I love Julia’s music. It is imaginative, interesting and eclectic,” said May Festival Director of Choruses Robert Porco. “I was particularly drawn to her piece Anthracite Fields, since my father worked in the steel mills for 41 years. The quotes within the piece drawn from people who worked in the coal mines resonated with me. Her music is fascinating and extraordinary, and I look forward to sharing it with everyone here in Cincinnati.”
Sunderman added, “Our vision here at the May Festival is to become the most exciting force in the choral world. Julia Wolfe is a prolific composer with a substantial body of work for full orchestra and chorus. Her music includes theatrical and multimedia elements that are integral to her works, and she expertly uses the artform to tell relevant stories on a variety of subjects. Julia’s achievements are unique, and as the May Festival lays the foundation for its next 150 years, Julia is the perfect person to serve as our inaugural Festival Director in this new model.”