Schedule:

March 23, 2024

Bob's Big Sing: A May Festival Reunion

Celebrate Bob Porco’s birthday and 35th year with the May Festival in a gathering of good food, conversation and memories with May Festival friends & family. Tickets are $35 (for 35 years!) and include an Italian meal at 12:00 PM in the Music Hall Ballroom, followed by an informal rehearsal of beloved choruses by Bach, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Handel, at 2:00 PM in Springer Auditorium.

All are welcome!

Ticket: $35

Buy Ticket

May 17, 2024

Program

HAYDN: The Creation

Artists

Robert Porco, conductor

Camilla Tilling, soprano

Nicholas Phan, tenor

Alexander Brich Elliot, baritone

May Festival Chorus

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

As the May Festival enters a new era of artistic innovation and collaboration, it seems only fitting to begin the 2024 Festival with a work symbolizing creation. Few works of sacred music are more cheerful and joyous than Haydn's The Creation. It exemplifies Haydn’s own personal faith and optimism in humanity, as well as his profound belief in music’s ability to edify, uplift and inspire. Through the inspired use of soloists, full chorus and orchestra, The Creation depicts and celebrates the creation of the earth, and all of its flora and fauna, as narrated in Biblical passages from Genesis and Psalms, as well as from John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Buy Ticket

May 18, 2024

Program

Julia WOLFE: All that breathes (May Festival Commission; World Premiere)

David LANG: the national anthems

Julia WOLFE: Pretty

VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS: Dona nobis pacem

Artists

Stephanie Childress, conductor

Camilla Tilling, soprano

Daniel Okulitch, bass-baritone

May Festival Chorus

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Anthems can represent freedom from suffering or victory in war, celebrate nations, sow peace or even pump up a crowd from the rock ‘n’ roll stage. What they all share in common is the power to unite and remind us of our shared humanity. This program of four unique anthem interpretations opens with the world premiere of Julia Wolfe’s choral work All that breathes, which embraces the massive sound of collective breath and exhalation, while David Lang‘s the national anthems reminds us that freedom is fragile, delicate and easy to lose. Julia Wolfe’s Pretty is a raw and raucous feminist anthem of work rhythms - thwarting notions of what pretty can mean. Closing out the program is Vaughan Williams’ beloved anthem for peace, Dona nobis pacem, written and premiered just a few years prior to the start of World War II. 

Buy Ticket

May 23, 2024

Program

Michael GORDON: Natural History

Julia WOLFE: Anthracite Fields

Artists

Teddy Abrams, conductor

Steiger Butte Singers of Chiloquin,

Oregon

Bang on a Can All-Stars

May Festival Chorus

May Festival Youth Chorus

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Celebrating the natural wonders of earth and the perseverance of miners in Pennsylvania coal country, this program reflects both the beauty and tragedy of humanity’s relationship with our planet. Natural History is a collaboration between composer Michael Gordon and the Steiger Butte Singers. Written and commissioned to mark the centennial of the National Park System, the piece poses the question: If Crater Lake National Park were a symphony, what would it sound like? The result is a surround-sound celebration of nature and the park’s spiritual connection to the surrounding community. In contrast, Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthracite Fields is a haunting and powerful oratorio that captures not only the sadness of lives lost in the anthracite coal fields at the turn of the 20th century, but a way of daily life now also lost. The Bang on a Can All-Stars lend their ferocity to this profound work alongside the May Festival Chorus.

Buy Ticket

May 25, 2024

Program

Julia WOLFE: Her Story  

FAURÉ: Requiem

Artists

François López-Ferrer, conductor

Liv Redpath, soprano

Lorelei Ensemble

May Festival Chorus

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Julia Wolfe’s Her Story invokes the words of historical figures and the spirit of pivotal moments in history to pay tribute to the centuries of ongoing struggle for equal rights and representation for women in America. From the letters of Abigail Adams to words attributed to Sojourner Truth, Her Story, as explained by Julia Wolfe, “captures the passion and perseverance of women refusing subordination, demanding representation and challenging the prejudice and power structures that have limited women’s voices.” The dynamic vocal artists of the Lorelei Ensemble join the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for this immersive and visual presentation, with staging by Anne Kauffman, before the May Festival Chorus closes the program with Gabriel Fauré’s tender and comforting Requiem.

Buy Ticket

Date: March 23, 2024 - May 25, 2024

Location:

Cincinnati Music Hall -

1241 Elm Street

Cincinnati, OH 45202

Click here for more Information