Three brand-new orchestral works get their first-ever performances Saturday night at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, as the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra's Summermusik festival opens its 12th season with a concert built around the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The program, titled The Soundtrack of America, opens with Native American flutist and composer Darren Thompson and closes with Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, bookending a night devoted to what festival organizers describe as the country's legacy of collaboration and innovation.
Between those two poles sits the evening's centerpiece: Visions of Humanity and Unity, a collaborative work built from five composers who wrote their movements without knowing what the others were producing, according to Cincinnati Magazine. Music Director Eckart Preu proposed the project, and each composer contributed a five- to seven-minute movement for cello soloist Zuill Bailey, per the same report. Bailey, a 2017 Grammy winner for Best Classical Instrumental Solo, plays the piece on a 1693 Rosette Matteo Gofriller cello once owned by Mischa Schneider, according to the Sitka Music Festival.
The five composers — Mark O'Connor representing an Appalachian and Americana perspective, Enrico Chapela bringing a Mexican American viewpoint, Chanda Dancy offering an African American perspective, Zhou Tian drawing on Chinese American identity, and Avner Dorman contributing an Israeli American voice — each respond to the Declaration of Independence and its impact on their own cultural backgrounds, Cincinnati Magazine reports. Summermusik executive director Evan Gidley said the festival wanted to celebrate America250 through the cultural identities that make up the country, per the same account.
A Cello Piece With National Backing
The Visions of Humanity and Unity commission was not built on local funding alone. It was co-funded by a consortium of nine national music organizations, including the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony, Spokane Symphony, South Carolina Philharmonic, El Paso Pro Musica, Fairbanks Symphony, Sitka Festival, Mesa Arts Center, and Classics Northwest, according to composer Zhou Tian's website. Bailey is touring the complete multi-movement work with those participating ensemble partners.
Two of the evening's other world premieres carry their own distinct threads. The Indian American Experience, composed by Cincinnati-based Dr. Kanniks Kannikeswaran, includes spoken narration at its beginning and end and is described in Cincinnati Magazine's coverage as a respected contribution from a writer of Asian-Indian classical music. Kannikeswaran founded the Greater Cincinnati Indian Community Choir in 1993, earned the Ohio Heritage Fellowship in 2011, and has pioneered the Indian American choral movement in more than a dozen U.S. cities, according to the University of Cincinnati. His music blends traditional Indian ragas with Western choral and orchestral structures, per the same source. Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval narrates the piece.
A Meditation That Stands Apart
The third premiere, Ocean of Quiet by Montreal-based composer Simon Rivet, took a different path to the stage. It won the second-annual Kreitler Commission Competition and includes a guided meditation with the audience before the performance begins, Cincinnati Magazine reports. Unlike the other two premieres, Ocean of Quiet is not explicitly tied to the America250 theme, according to the same coverage.
The full evening also folds in “I. Cities” from Franklin Piland's Oregon Suite, offering additional repertoire context before Copland's Appalachian Spring closes the show, according to Operabase. Thompson, an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, uses his national tour performances to advocate for authentic Indigenous representation and compliance with the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts Act, according to Voice of America. The federal law prohibits non-Native performers from selling goods falsely labeled as Native American, per the same report.
Community Access Built Into the Format
Saturday's mainstage concert at the School for Creative and Performing Arts also includes pre-concert programming beginning an hour before showtime, including an Eckart Preu-led talk in the Mayerson Theatre and a 250America lobby exhibit presented by the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library, according to Summermusik. The mainstage series draws primary regional sponsorship from the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation, per Operabase's account of the festival's local backing.
The concert format reflects a broader structure the orchestra has built over the past decade. Summermusik splits its programming into three formats: mainstage orchestral concerts at SCPA, “A Little Afternoon Musik” matinees held at local churches, and informal “Chamber Crawls” at venues like HighGrain Brewing, according to the Warren County Post. The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra performs more than 80 events across Greater Cincinnati each year under that model, the outlet reports.
Founded in 1974 by conductor Paul Nadler and violinist Jorja Fleezanis, the orchestra comprises 32 to 33 professional musicians and officially shifted its summer season into the four-week Summermusik format in 2015, per the Warren County Post. Preu joined as the orchestra's fifth music director in October 2016 and, in April, ratified a collective bargaining agreement extension that secures his leadership through 2030, according to LINK nky. Preu also currently serves as music director of the Long Beach Symphony and Portland Symphony Orchestra, the outlet notes.
The Soundtrack of America takes place Saturday, August 8, at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, marking the 12th year of the region's chamber orchestra festival.
