CCM Wind Orchestra Celebrates Contemporary American Music on April 12

CCM’s Wind Symphony. Image by UC Photographic Services.

CCM’s Wind Orchestra presents a historical survey of significant contemporary American composers at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 12, in UC’s Corbett Auditorium.

The eclectic program will include music by American composers with a variety of backgrounds:

• Samuel Barber (1910-1981), Pulitzer Prize winner known for, among other works, his wildly popular Adagio for Strings.
• German-born Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970), who settled in Los Angeles and was a conductor, critic and pianist, playing for Hollywood films and working with artists such as Victor Borge and Benny Goodman.
• Warren Benson (1924-2005), known for his dynamic works for percussion and winds, who was a professional musician by age 14 and who went on to play timpani in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
• Michael Daugherty (b.1954), Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance whose often-performed works are influenced by popular culture, Romanticism and Postmodernism.

CCM Director of Wind Studies Glenn D. Price conducts this performance, which closes out the Wind Orchestra’s 2012-13 concert series.

CCM Slideshows: The Magic Flute

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CCM’s acclaimed 2012-13 Mainstage Series comes to a close this week with a colorful new production of Mozart’s beloved comedic singspiel The Magic Flute. This production runs April 4–7 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium.

The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Janelle Gelfand recently visited CCM to take a behind-the-scenes look at The Magic Flute‘s costumes, wigs and make-up designs. Watch her exclusive video preview here.

Renowned Pianist and Conductor Leon Fleisher to be Honored by the University of Cincinnati

Renowned pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher will receive an honorary doctorate at UC’s Commencement Ceremony on April 27.

Legendary pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music at the University of Cincinnati Commencement Ceremony at 9 a.m., Saturday, April 27, in Fifth Third Arena.

Fleisher is widely recognized as one of the world’s truly great artists. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Chair of Piano served as Great Master Instructor for a residency at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music last October.

Fleisher recently discussed his CCM residency with Suzanne Bona on WVXU’s Around Cincinnati. You can listen to the full interview here.

Tchaikovsky Competition Winners Itamar Zorman and David Geringas Join James Tocco in Concert on April 11

CCM Eminent Scholar in Chamber Music and Artist-in-Residence James Tocco.

CCM’s 2012-13 Eminent Scholars Concert Series comes to a close at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 11, in UC’s Robert J. Werner Recital Hall with a performance by Eminent Scholar in Chamber Music James Tocco, piano, and distinguished guest artists and Tchaikovsky Competition Award Winners Itamar Zorman, violin, and David Geringas, cello.

Admission to this performance is free. Reservations are not required.

The centerpiece of this concert will be Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50. The program will also include Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Sonata No. 2 in G Minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 63; and Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Violin No. 1, Op. 31.

The Ariel Quartet’s Inaugural CCM Concert Series Concludes on April 9

The Ariel String Quartet at CCM. Courtesy of The Enquirer/ Liz Dufour.

The internationally acclaimed Ariel Quartet brings its first season in residence at CCM to a conclusion with a concert at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9, in UC’s Robert J. Werner Recital Hall.

The Quartet will be joined by distinguished guest artist David Geringas, cello, for Anatolijus Senderovas’ David’s Song for Cello and String Quartet and Alexander Glazunov’s String Quintet in A Major, Op. 39.

The program will also feature Beethoven’s Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18.

Tickets are on sale now.

CCM Hosts Ethnomusicology Conference April 12 and 13

For the first time in nearly two decades, CCM will host the Midwest Chapter Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (MIDSEM). The conference comes to CCM Village on Friday, April 12, and Saturday, April 13, with events held in the Baur Room of the Corbett Center for the Performing Arts and in room 3250 of Mary Emery Hall.

More than 100 scholars and students will be traveling from throughout the Midwestern United States to participate in the conference. In addition, students and faculty from a variety of programs at UC (including Musicology, Music Education, Anthropology, Sociology and International Programs and Services), as well as local community members, will be participating in the conference as presenters, volunteers and attendees.

Discussing ‘The Magic Flute’ Costume Designs with CCM Professor Dean Mogle

From left to right, Tara Deieso (who sings the role of First Lady in CCM’s production of ‘The Magic Flute’), Assistant Costume Designer Kaitlyn Munro, Professor Dean Mogle and Draper/Dressmaker Christie Peitzmeier.

CCM Professor of Costume Design Dean Mogle recently gave CCM Public Information Assistant and Arts Administration student Sara Kissinger a behind-the-scenes tour of the costume shop, which is in full swing in these last crucial weeks before the opening of The Magic Flute. All photography by CCM Arts Administration student Shawn Kelly.

Sara Kissinger: Dean, thank you so much for inviting me to visit the shop today. The Magic Flute is an iconic work in opera repertoire – have you designed for this show before?

Dean Mogle: I have not designed a production of Flute before. The last time CCM did Flute was the 1986-87 season, before I joined the faculty.

SK: Did you have a specific concept for your design?

DM: There were two major influences on the design. The first is the 18^th century influence, which is a nod back to when Mozart wrote the opera. This is the Queen of the Night’s world. It’s midnight: there are a lot of blues and everything is deep and dark and rich. The second influence is a sort of modified Egyptian style, which is Sarastro’s world. The costumes are warm colors – gold and bronze.

Dean Mogle shares the original costume rendering for the Queen of the Night.

SK: What was the process of making the costumes like?

CCM Musical Theatre and the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center Present Tony Award-Winning ‘Parade’ Next Month

The Carnegie presents ‘Parade’ april 5 – 21, featuring Collin Kessler (front), Matt Hill, Jenny Hickman, Noah Ricketts and Alison Bagli (rear, L to R). Photography by Matt Steffen.

Next month, the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington, Kentucky, presents Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s Parade, the 2000 Tony Award winner for “Best Book” and “Best Score.” This transformational story of a country at odds with its declarations of equality is brought to life by the remarkable talent from CCM’s Department of Musical Theatre!

Running April 5 – 21 in the Carnegie’s Otto M. Budig Theatre, Parade is directed by Ed Cohen and Dee Anne Bryll with musical direction by Stephen Goers.

CCM’s 2012-13 Mainstage Series Concludes With ‘The Magic Flute’

Jacqueline Echols as Pamina and Yi Li as Tamino in CCM’s ‘The Magic Flute.’ Photography by Mark Lyons.

CCM proudly presents Mozart’s beloved comedic singspiel The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, 1791) from April 4–7 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium. The fourth most frequently performed opera worldwide, this production will be sung in German with English dialogue (with supertitles displayed). Mark Gibson conducts with stage direction by Steven Goldstein.

Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, this beloved opera offers something for everyone: a hero and heroine questing for true love, evil villains, a comical sidekick and a whole range of beastly creatures. According to Goldstein, The Magic Flute is a sort of vaudeville variety show of the 18th century. However, this iteration isn’t all about the slapstick comedy. “My charge to the performers,” Goldstein explains, “is for the comedy to come from somewhere genuine. There is a real play back and forth between light-heartedness and deep morality in Flute and our goal is to find the truth inside of it.”

Two Free ‘Music in the Gorno Library’ Concerts Showcase CCM Talent This April

Join UC Libraries at two upcoming concerts to be held in the Albino Gorno Memorial Music (CCM) Library Reading Room.

• 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 3: The CCM Philharmonia will perform Haydn’s Symphonies 6, 7 and 8 (“Morning, Noon and Night”) conducted by CCM graduate student Aik Khai Pung.
• 2 p.m. Sunday, April 14: The inaugural concert on the CCM Library’s 1888 Steinway Parlor Grand piano will feature music arranged by Clara Schumann, edited by CCM faculty member Jonathan Kregor, associate professor of composition, musicology and theory. The music will be performed by students of CCM’s Michael Chertock, associate professor of keyboard studies, and Awadagin Pratt, associate professor of keyboard studies. Dr. Kregor will give remarks about the music.