Step into a world where the power of music transcends time and space, as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and The May Festival present a series of choral and orchestral events. From the divine resonance of Handel's 'Messiah' to the heart-stirring 'Verdi Requiem,' these performances promise an unforgettable experience. With maestros like Sir Andrew Davis and celebrated performers including Renée Fleming, these concerts offer a sublime blend of classical traditions and contemporary flair, igniting the holiday spirit through the universal language of music.

Harmony of Holidays: A Celebration of Choral and Orchestral Masterpieces

Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio blends the soaring melodies of Baroque music with the joyous spirit of the holiday season. The rich harmonies and intricate counterpoint come together in jubilant choruses and tender arias, narrating and reflecting upon the stories of the Feast of Christmas. Richard Egarr leads the May Festival Chorus and soloists in the timeless glories of music that resonates with the warmth and wonder of Christmas.   

Bach's Christmas Oratorio

The Geraldine V. Chavez Center for the Choral Arts

The trumpet shall sound. Join the CSO, the May Festival Chorus with Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson, and an all-star cast of soloists for the return of Messiah to Music Hall. Sir Andrew Davis leads a true-to-original edition of the Handel’s masterwork, bringing out the glories of movements like the Hallelujah Chorus with sparklingly highlights from the entire Orchestra — an uplifting event for making forever and ever holiday memories.

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Handel's Messiah

Cincinnati Music Hall

Conductor Marin Alsop leads the CSO in essential classics by Leonard Bernstein and Dmitri Shostakovich. The May Festival Chorus joins for Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, sacred music that illuminates a path to eternal peace, and which notably includes music cut from the Prologue of West Side Story. Shostakovich’s Leningrad martials every artistic defense, and might of the whole Orchestra, against a merciless and tyrannical siege threatening to consume all. 

Bernstein & Shostakovich

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 Kauman, before the May Festival Chorus closes the program with Gabriel Fauré’s tender and comforting Requiem.

Her Story

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.

Voices of the Earth

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.

Anthems

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.

The Creation

With prayerful music for both the living and the dead, the source of comfort in Brahms’ German Requiem is as much human as it is the divine. Louis Langrée leads the CSO along with the May Festival Chorus in Brahms’ large-scale masterpiece. Though Brahms was often discreet in nature, this is a deeply personal work. Spurred by the loss of his mother, and influenced by lingering emotions of self-doubt, he turned to his true religion – music – as a way to console not only himself, but others as well.

Brahms' German Requiem

California State University LA

Mahler called his Eighth Symphony, “the biggest thing that I have ever done…in which the most beautiful instrument in the world is given its true place.” Music Director Laureate James Conlon concludes the 150th May Festival with a work of gigantic proportions—music of triumph and transcendence that celebrates the power of the human voice, featuring the sounds of the Chorus and the CSO in the breathtaking space of Music Hall.

Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand

Celebrated maestra Marin Alsop makes her May Festival debut with a showcase of composers who crafted the American musical identity. Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is a lyrical dream of the Tennessee summer, while Aaron Copland's "The Promise of Living" rings with the hope of prosperity. The "uncanny radiance" (The New Yorker) of Robert Nathaniel Dett's The Ordering of Moses— a work the Festival premiered in 1937—returns to Music Hall.

Marin Alsop: American Voices

Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena opens the 150th Festival with world premieres by American composer James Lee III and former May Festival Creative Partner James MacMillan. Given its American premiere at the 1875 May Festival, Bach's celebratory Magnificat was described then as we would now— as "the highest form of human expression."

Bach's Magnificat

Can't wait until May? Hundreds of singers take the stage at Music Hall in February to celebrate a new alliance between the May Festival and the Cincinnati Boychoir! Featured performances by the Cincinnati Boychoir, May Festival Youth Chorus and May Festival Chorus culminate in the world premiere of a new work by Cincinnati's own Howard Helvey, commissioned for the occasion.

All Together Now

Visceral and soul-gripping, Verdi’s Requiem will rip your heart out and put it back together again. From its tender solo moments to the terrifying cries of the “Dies irae,” it’s a journey both fragile and powerful as the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra combine for this breathtaking Mass for the departed.

Verdi Requiem

Follow the unbroken path of light from sunset to sunrise as the May Festival Chorus, Chamber Choir, Youth Chorus and Cincinnati Boychoir Ambassadors illuminate Springer Auditorium through song, staging and dynamic lighting in a choral music event like never before.

CHASING THE DAWN: A Choral Journey

Glimpse into the love, life and intimacy between two of the 20th century’s most prominent artists. Celebrated soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry portray painter Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz as a montage of their lives, captured through art, photos and love letters, is revealed on a screen above the stage

The Brightness Of Light

In a performance inspired by her 2023 Grammy-Award winning album, experience the turbulence and resilience of Mother Nature's life as Renée Fleming performs music by Handel, Nico Muhly, Björk and Lord of The Rings' Howard Shore—all set against a backdrop of stunning film from the National Geographic Society.

May Festival Chorus

Feb 16, 2025

All Together Now

May 16, 2025

Verdi Requiem

May 18, 2025

CHASING THE DAWN: A Choral Journey

May 22, 2025

The Brightness Of Light

May 24, 2025

VOICE OF NATURE: The Anthropocene

6 - 7 Dec, 2024

Bach's Christmas Oratorio

6 - 7 Dec, 2024

Handel's Messiah

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