Constella Festival presents huge variety of artists

5:20 AM, Oct. 9, 2011  |  

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Violinist Hilary Hahn

Written by

Janelle Gelfand

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• Arts
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• Fifth Third Bank
• University Of Cincinnati

Constella Festival events

Thursday - Classic Gems and Contemporary Miniatures featuring Hilary Hahn, violin, and Valentina Lisitsa, piano, 7:30 p.m., Memorial Hall.

Friday - Queen City Connections featuring Liang Wang, New York Philharmonic principal oboist, with musicians Tatiana Berman, Nathaniel Chaitkin, Jasmine Choi, Dwight Parry, Anna Reider, Yael Senamaud-Cohen and Matthew Zory, 6:30 p.m., Fifth Third Bank Theater, the Aronoff Center.

Saturday - Piazzolla, Prokofiev and Pointe Shoes featuring concert:nova musicians and dancers from the Cincinnati Ballet, 6 p.m. (note time change), Mickey Jarson Kaplan Performance Studio, Cincinnati Ballet Center.

Next Sunday - Russian Romantic Piano featuring Alexander Toradze and Friends, piano, 7:30 p.m., Patricia Corbett Theater in the Erich Kunzel Center for Arts and Education, home of the Cincinnati School for Creative & Performing Arts.

Oct. 18 - Chamber Music Cincinnati presents: St. Lawrence String Quartet, 8 p.m., Robert J. Werner Recital Hall, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. The program includes quartets by Mozart's Quartet in D Minor, K. 421, Erich Korngold's Quartet No. 3 and John Adams' Quartet No. 2, which he wrote for them in 2008.

Oct. 21 - Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players presents Russian Rhapsody, 7:30 p.m., Mayerson Theater at the Erich Kunzel Center for Arts and Education.

Oct. 22 - Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble presents American Icons at 100. Works celebrate the centennials of composers Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti. 5 p.m., Memorial Hall.

Oct. 23 - Linton Chamber Music presents Menahem Pressler and Friends. Legendary pianist Pressler will be joined by violinist Alexander Kerr, former concertmaster of the CSO and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, violist Paul Neubauer, member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and former CSO principal cellist Eric Kim in best-loved piano quartets by Mozart, Turina and Dvorak. 4 p.m., First Unitarian Church, Avondale.

Oct. 23 - Classical Revolution. A national movement featuring professional musicians and conservatory students who perform contemporary and classic works in bars and cafés. 8 p.m., Northside Tavern.

Oct. 28 - Catacoustic Consort presents Michael Maniaci. Opera superstar Maniaci, a countertenor, joins the early music ensemble led by Annalisa Pappano in Baroque arias of love and passion by Handel, Purcell and Bach. 7:30 p.m., Church of the Advent, Walnut Hills.

Oct. 29 - Double Deal: String + Jazz Quartets featuring Ted Nash, saxophone, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., The Blue Wisp Jazz Club, Downtown.

Oct. 30 - Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra presents an evening with Philippe Quint. 2 p.m., Mayerson Theater, Erich Kunzel Center for Arts and Education.

Nov. 8 - An Evening with Joshua, featuring Joshua Bell, violin, and Sam Haywood, piano, 7:30 p.m., Memorial Hall.

Tickets: Prices vary for each event. To buy:www.constellafestival.org; 513-621-2787; or at the box office, Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut St., Downtown.

An adventurous new festival, which aims to highlight the breadth and depth of the arts in our region, launches this week. The Constella Festival of Music and Fine Arts will present 13 unique performances between Thursday and Nov. 8 in what founder Tatiana Berman, 31, of Hyde Park, hopes will be a "mini-Spoleto Festival."

The collaborative events will merge music, visual art, film and dance in settings throughout the region, from venues such as Memorial Hall to the Blue Wisp Jazz Club.

"I think it's very exciting that there is such a huge variety of artists involved - it really is the breadth and depth of Cincinnati art - and includes dance, choral, solo and ensemble literature," said Donald Nally, music director of the Vocal Arts Ensemble.

"Just the existence of the festival gives Cincinnati an opportunity to experience in a concentrated week what is there all season long and can be heard and seen from coffee shops to churches to Music Hall. We're thrilled to be in such good company."

The festival is anchored by classical superstars such as violinists Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn, pianist Alexander Toradze, New York Philharmonic principal oboist Liang Wang and jazz saxophonist Ted Nash. The festival has also folded in established Cincinnati organizations, such as the Vocal Arts Ensemble, Chamber Music Cincinnati, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players, concert:nova, Cincinnati Ballet, Linton Chamber Music and Catacoustic Consort.

Programs will merge traditional concerts with other arts. For instance, an evening of Russian piano music with renowned virtuoso Alexander Toradze and five of his students, next Sunday in the Erich Kunzel Center for Arts and Education at the School for Creative & Performing Arts, will include an exhibition of art from 5th Street Gallery, Downtown. Performers from Toradze's studio include Nikita Abrosimov, this year's gold medalist of Cincinnati's World Piano Competition, and Sangwon Kim, who won the event last year.

The festival's repertoire will range from traditional to cutting-edge. Saturday's concert, "Piazzolla, Prokofiev and Pointe Shoes," with members of Cincinnati Ballet and the adventurous classical ensemble concert:nova will include the world premieres of two works choreographed by Heather Britt, James Cunningham, Andrew Hubbard, Stephen Jacobsen and Missy Lay Zimmer.

And the Oct. 29 program at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club will include a new work for string and jazz double quartet by jazz composer Ted Nash, commissioned by the Constella Festival.

The idea, said Berman, a classical violinist, is to showcase the range of arts that the Cincinnati region has to offer. And Berman is already thinking ahead to expand the festival with more organizations and top-flight artists, as well as with educational programs.

"I hope that audiences will come away from the festival events energized and inspired by the creativity and the spirit of collaboration from artists of the highest caliber," she said.