Summermusik Festival Celebrates Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary

In 2015, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra launched Summermusik, an annual music festival featuring concerts and events throughout August, traditionally a downtime for most music series.

Nine years later, Summermusik is an anticipated part of the summer music schedule, and this tenth season celebrates the CCO’s 50th anniversary with a spectrum of music ranging from world premieres to earworms, performed at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, bars and new venues throughout the city.

The celebration begins on July 31 with “Notes on Neon” at the American Sign Museum,  curated by CCO violinist David Goist, the first of Summermusik’s wildly popular Chamber Crawl series with music inspired by the low hums neon signs emit.

The legendary Canadian Brass takes over opening weekend with their newest member, CCO’s principal trumpeter Ashley Hall-Tighe. With 138 recordings, three Grammys and countless international appearances, Canadian Brass plays it all, from Baroque to contemporary. The Summermusik program is exactly that, going from a Bach-Vivaldi arrangement to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and ending with W.C. Handy’s rousing “Beale Street Blues.”

CCO music director Eckart Preu says the Canadian Brass has always been on his bucket list.

“They’re a perfect fit for us! They have such an enormous range of repertory and so do we.”

On Sunday, Aug. 3, Canadian Brass kicks off A Little Afternoon Music at Crestview Presbyterian Church in West Chester. No program is listed but expect the unexpected and a boost from the Cincinnati Brass Band for the finale.

The next weekend, Shakespeare rules with actors from the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company contributing their talents. CCO’s concertmaster Celeste Golden Andrews is the featured soloist in Bernstein’s West Side Story Suite for Violin and Strings . Other selections include Erich Korngold’s rollicking incidental music for Much Ado About Nothing and a suite of incidental music for Hamlet by Shostakovich.

The concert includes the world premiere of John Henry Kreitler’s Symphony No. 2 The Voices of God , which will serve as a poignant tribute to the composer, who died earlier this year.

Kreitler attended CCM and went on to score several television series, racking up ten Emmy awards. He moved to Northern Kentucky several years ago and began attending Summermusik.

“John approached me about establishing a concerto competition for young composers,” recalls Evan Gidley, Summermusik’s executive director. “He joined the board and helped raise money to get it started.

“And then he offered to write a symphony for us for free! Shortly after he began work on it, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and completed the symphony just a few weeks before he died.”

The five-part symphony is based on poetry by Elaine Hewes, a poet and Lutheran minister from Maine.

The concerto competition is now named for Kreitler and drew 237 applicants from 18 countries. Colorado-based Matt Browne is the first recipient of the commission prize. His concerto will have its world premiere during Summermusik’s 2025 season.

Music inspired by poetry continues on Sunday, Aug. 11 at Westwood Presbyterian Church with music by Schubert, Debussy, Vaughan Williams and Walton. Poet Kimberly “DuWaup” Bolden hosts a poetry showcase prior to the concert and Thomas Dreeze joins the musical ensemble in selections from “Façade,” Walton’s quirky settings of Dame Edith Sitwell’s equally quirky poems.

The following weekend, dive into the “Many Colors of India,” with music from India and Indian music influenced by Western European composers, like Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor. When asked why they chose that symphony, Preu explains the first movement’s famous theme was adapted into the score for Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1961 film Chhaya and was an immediate hit.

“It’s become a classic song in India,” Preu says. “Everyone knows it!

“Our goal was to explore the fascinating connections between Western European music and Indian music, Bach and Mozart especially,” he continues. “And fortunately, we have an expert on Indian music embedded here in Cincinnati.”

Dr. Kanniks Kannikeswaran — who goes by his first name — is a composer, conductor and educator based in Cincinnati. Kanniks founded the Greater Cincinnati Indian Community Choir in 1996 and created similar ensembles throughout the U.S. His compositions for chorus and orchestra are performed internationally.

Kanniks’ overture for the Tamil film Tirai-Isai and selections from his massive choral work Shanti are on the program, featuring the Greater Cincinnati Indian Community Choir and classical Indian dancers.

Other works are Reena Esmail’s Meri Sakhi Ki Avaaz (My Sister’s Voice) with Hindustani vocalist Vidita Kannicks and soprano Jackie Stevens. Tenor Jason Vest sings Evening Song from Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha and works by Edward Elgar and Muthuswami Dikshitar.

Kannicks returns the next day with more film music at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, including selections from Slumdog Millionaire, Bombay Wedding, Maine Pyar Kiya and a closer look at India’s music connections with Bach and Beethoven.

Beethoven provides the fitting celebratory finale to Summermusik’s golden anniversary season with Symphony No. 9 in D. The CCO will use the standard arrangement “but with a smaller string section, a smaller choir and additions to our winds and brass,” Preu explained.

“It will be more transparent with more details than you’d hear from a larger orchestra. It will be a more intimate experience but just as powerful.”

The 32-voice choir is being prepared by CCO’s associate conductor Daniel Parsley and soloists are soprano Kala Maxym, mezzo-soprano Lauren McAllister, tenor Jason Francisco and baritone-bass Musa Ngqungwana.

“It’s so important to start and end with a bang,” Preu chuckled.

Two of the Chamber Crawls are sold out and others are close to capacity. Check online for availability.

Summermusik is now the official name of the organization with the CCO as its resident ensemble. “It’s in keeping with major music festivals and we will maintain our commitment to the ‘We Are One’ series we began in 2022,” Preu said. “Partnerships will always be at the heart of what we do. It’s what makes us unique.”

The Summermusik festival runs from July 31-Aug. 24 in various locations throughout Cincinnati. More info: summermusik.org .

This story is featured in CityBeat's July 10 print edition.