Woodwinds were front and center on the second night of the 2011 Constella Festival..

It’s not every day that you can hear 13 world premieres on the same program or see an exhibit of art works designed to complement them.

Ghost-Writer a gem of a yarn about the mysteries and miseries of creative writing, with three characters, one of which is dead.

The inaugural Constella Festival of Music and Fine Arts featured the acclaimed violinist, Hilary Hahn, accompanied by pianist Valentina Lisitza. Constella consists of 13 performances over the next three-plus weeks intended to showcase the “breadth and depth” of artistic life in Cincinnati by presenting international and local “stars” in concert at a wide variety of area venues.

September, 2011

Thom Mariner
Co-publisher, Express Cincinnati & EXP/arts
Cincinnati and Santa Fe – at first glance, cities at opposite ends of the spectrum. Here in the Ohio Valley, we often wear our air like a fresh coat of paint. Santa Fe’s desert atmosphere sucks the moisture out of your skin like a magnetic field. Cincinnati is [...]

by Cynthia Osborne Hoskin
Alice Frieder Weston is by no means an obscure figure now nor has she been over the many years she and husband, Harris Weston, encouraged and supported the arts and other causes in Cincinnati. Entering her living room, as she says “Good morning”, one is greeted by an expanse of Carl [...]

Looking ahead to the World Choir Games and the revitalization of Music Hall after the 2013 Festival, perhaps this is prime time to take a look at some opportunities for May Festival to keep things fresh.

We may not realize it yet. We may not notice until about halfway through next season. Suddenly, in the midst of a CSO concert with someone else conducting, the thought will come to us that something is missing.

There is a lot of debate these days about government support of the arts, most of it revolving around efforts by some newly-elected members of Congress to restrict or even eliminate federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

The performance – indeed the entire concert — was a powerful argument for the sheer fun that music-making can be. The feeling conveyed itself strongly to the audience, which stood to the last person and cheered loudly at the end — it almost felt like a sports arena at one point — requiring repeated bows from Järvi and the CSO.