BLINK, and you might miss it. For four days every two years, the cityscape of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky comes alive with the nation’s largest festival of light, art and projections. BLINK Cincinnati dominates this week’s cultural calendar, of course, but there’s more here to enjoy – notably, a wealth of classical music events, many featuring women composers.
Wednesday, Oct. 16
The Modern Novel Lecture: Jesmyn Ward | 6 p.m. Cincinnati Museum Center, Queensgate. 513-621-0717. DETAILS: Jesmyn Ward, a two-time National Book Award-winner for “Salvage the Bones” (2011) and “Sing, Unburied, Sing” (2017), delivers the Merc’s 2024 Modern Novel Lecture. A professor of creative writing at Tulane University, Ward also received a 2017 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” for her work “exploring the enduring bonds of community and familial love among poor African-Americans of the rural South …” The event is free to members, $25 for nonmembers, and registration is required.
CSO Proof, “The Dark Night” | 7:30 p.m. Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. 513-381-3300. DETAILS: No, this has nothing to do with a Batman movie (that’s “Knight” with a “K,” of course). The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra‘s latest “Proof” concept-concert leans into the Halloween season with a Gothic (if not Gotham) dreamscape program blending Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Serenade No. 10, K. 361 (“Grand Partita”) with Aureliano Cattaneo’s spooky “La nuit sombre” (“The Dark Night,” natch), with some special and spatial effects. Matthias Pintscher, who led the premiere of Cattaneo’s work in 2021, conducts, with an ensemble of players, singers, actors and more. Listeners are invited to come in costume, too.
CCM Philharmonia, “Power Dressing” | 7:30 p.m. Corbett Auditorium, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. 513-556-4183. DETAILS: Mark Gibson conducts the Philharmonia in a fascinating program “about women scorned, forgotten and a new work by a woman on the rise.” That last bit is a reference to the U.S. premiere of the title work, “Power Dressing” for string orchestra by Aya Yoshida, who won CCM’s 2019 Zemlinsky Prize for Composition. As for women scorned and forgotten, there’s the Prelude to Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida,” Samuel Barber’s “Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance,” Richard Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten” (“The Woman Without a Shadow”) and, most significantly, the Symphony No. 2 by Louise Farrenc, a prolific 19th-century French pianist-composer – and the only woman in that century hired as a music professor at the Paris Conservatory, where she fought for and won equal pay, by the way.
Thursday, Oct. 17
BLINK Cincinnati | 7-11 p.m., numerous locations in Cincinnati, Covington and Newport. 513-579-3111. DETAILS: Cincinnati’s fourth biennial spectacle of light, art, architecture, creativity and community is indeed a BIG DEAL: More than 2 million people gazing in wonderment at 80+ light, mural and projection projects over more than 30 city blocks in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, providing a $126 million economic benefit to the region. There’s more going on here in more places than we can describe here, plus other events tied into BLINK (such as concert:nova’s “Echo Play” at Alice OTR). You can just wander around and discover things, or plan your experience. As for a digital guide to where and when to experience what: There’s the BLINK web site and map, but no official app this year – although a couple of local web developers have whipped up a “Blonk Cincinnati” app (spelling is correct) that’s available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store. BLINK continues through Oct. 20.
Sorg Opera House, “Night of the Living Dead” | 7 p.m. Sorg Opera House, 55 S. Main St., Middletown. 513-428-5529. DETAILS: If you’d rather cover your eyes in terror than BLINK, George Romero’s 1968 zombie classic, the godfather of cheesy horror (set in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, by the way), is screening at the Sorg for one night only, hosted by the Middletown High School senior class as a fundraiser for the Sorg Opera Revitalization Group.
Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, “The Divine One: Mandy Gaines Sings Sarah Vaughan” | 7 p.m. The Redmoor, 3187 Linwood Ave, Mt. Lookout Square. 513-280-8181. DETAILS: The CCJO opens this season’s Big Band Series with noted local jazz singer Mandy Gaines paying tribute to the music and legacy of the great Sarah Vaughan. Opening for Gaines and the CCJO is the Xavier University Jazz Orchestra, directed by Ralph DiSylvestro.
Friday, Oct. 18
Vocal Arts Ensemble, “The Wounded Heart: Songs of Passion and Loss” | 7:30 p.m. Christ Church Cathedral, 318 E. Fourth St., downtown. 513-381-3300. DETAILS: Composer Benedict Sheehan is the conductor for VAE’s program of impassioned choral music by women composers Maddalena Casulana, Barbara Strozzi, Laura Hawley and Anna Olson, culminating with the world premiere of Sheehan’s “The Passion of Mary,” a reworking of the Christian Passion narrative from the point of view of Jesus’ mother. “This piece is meant to be a more intimate, human and feminine perspective on the death of Jesus, rather than the more historical or dogma-focused account that one finds elsewhere,” Sheehan said.
Dayton Ballet, “Coppélia” | 7:30 p.m. Victoria Theatre, 138 N. Main St, Dayton, Ohio. 937-228-3630. DETAILS: Robert Curran’s “Coppélia,” which has been described as “visually stunning,” is set in a small Midwestern town, an updated setting for this charming classic ballet about a beautiful mechanical doll that’s mistaken for a real young woman. The story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, by the way, is closely related to one of the vignettes in Jacques Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffmann.” Through Oct. 20.
Saturday, Oct. 19
Chamber Music Network, Chamber Palooza | Noon-4 p.m. The Fountain Room, Cincinnati Art Museum, 953 Eden Park Drive, Eden Park. 513-232-0949. DETAILS: It’s back! The Chamber Music Network’s annual afternoon smorgasbord of chamber music features a wide variety of works performed by (and in some cases written by) Cincinnati-area musicians. There’s a world premiere of “Hopeful Green” by local composer Rick Sowash, a set on medieval instruments by the group Moyen Age, several chamber ensembles and an “instrumental petting zoo” where kids and grown-ups can try their hands at various instruments. It’s all free to the public.
Miami University, Daniel Pearl World Music Days Orchestra Concert | 7:30 p.m. Hall Auditorium, 101 S. Campus Ave., Oxford. 513-529-3200. DETAILS: Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded by militants in Pakistan in 2002, was a violinist as well as a writer. This concert commemorates Pearl’s birthday with the aim of encouraging “harmony for humanity.” Ricardo Averbach conducts the Miami University Symphony Orchestra in Johannes Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture” and Antonín Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony, plus a Slavonic Dance by Dvořák.
Sunday, Oct. 20
Bach Ensemble of St. Thomas, Vespers | 5 p.m. St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 100 Miami Ave., Terrace Par. 513-831-2052. DETAILS: The Bach Ensemble Orchestra, Bachtet and St. Thomas Choristers perform a Vespers program that’s mostly Johann Sebastian Bach, of course – “Jesus bleibet meine freude” (“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”) and two church cantatas written in the composer’s Leipzig years, plus the “Pater Noster” by the late Renaissance composer Jacobus Gallus.
Linton Chamber Music, “Tour de Force for Four” | 4 p.m. First Unitarian Church, 536 Linton St, Avondale. 513-381-6868. DETAILS: The Linton Series’ music directors, cellist Sharon Robinson and violinist Jaime Laredo, join forces with pianist Anna Polonsky and violist Milena Pájaro-van de Stadt to form the Espressivo! Quartet – perhaps the first chamber ensemble in history to incorporate an exclamation point! “Tour de force” is an apt term for this program: the Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-Flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who basically invented the genre; the stirring Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor by Johannes Brahms, with its foot-stomping “Gypsy Rondo” finale; and punctuating (!) things in-between, the world premiere of “Joy Steppin’ ” by Nokuthula Ngwenyama, a prize-winning virtuoso violist and composer from Los Angeles whose vibrant chamber music, championed by Robinson and Laredo, is already familiar to Linton audiences. Also 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21 at Congregation Beth Adam in Loveland.
Classical Revolution, Tilting at Tillie’s | 7 p.m. Tillie’s Lounge, 4042 Hamilton Ave., Northside. 216-407-4194. DETAILS: Classical Revolution’s monthly insurrection is usually a “Second Sunday” affair, but the organization is moving things around to visit Tillie’s in Northside for an evening of chamber music in a casual bar setting. Featured performers are the WhirlWinds woodwind trio, electric violinist Leif Fairfield and CCM’s Rubra Saxophone Quartet.
Monday, Oct. 21
Jazz at the Park, Carlos Vargas Trio | 6-9 p.m. Washington Park, 1230 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. DETAILS: Alas, the weather’s getting cooler and outdoor concert series are winding down. The next-to-last Jazz at the Park event for 2024 features guitarist-singer Carlos Vargas-Ortiz, a native of Honduras who came to Cincinnati in 2007, won a scholarship and earned two degrees at CCM, and has performed and recorded extensively with Cincinnati-area musicians.
The Ghostlight Stage Company, One Act Double Feature | 7 p.m. Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mt. Adams Circle, Mt. Adams. DETAILS: Ghostlight, a new nonprofit theater group founded by three young professional actors – Cincinnati native Alyssa Batsakis, her sister Eliana Batsakis and colleague Aiden Dalton – puts on its second annual “One Act Double Feature” with two new one-act plays: “Esther Made Me Do It” by Nell Adkins and Elizabeth Sacktor, and “Artists & Vandals” by Erin K. Considine. As part of the evening, the performers aim to “pull back the curtain to invite the audience into the creative process.”
Tuesday, Oct. 22
Ariel Quartet and Poiesis Quartet, “Power of Eight” | 7:30 p.m. Werner Recital Hall, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. 513-556-4183. DETAILS: Eight fine players, 32 strings – pretty powerful. The Ariel Quartet, CCM’s quartet-in-residence, doubles up with the student graduate ensemble Poiesis Quartet to perform – little surprise here – Felix Mendelssohn’s great Octet in E-Flat Major, which turned the double-quartet idea into a true eight-player ensemble. Also on the program: Igor Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet and Franz Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet. Very nice.
Brian Charette, Brad Myers and Jordan Young Organ Trio | 7 p.m. Caffè Vivace, 975 E. McMillan St., Walnut Hills. 513-601-9897. DETAILS: This appearance by noted (currently No. 2 on the Downbeat Critics’ Poll for organ) New York jazz keyboardist Brian Charette is a reminder of how significant the Hammond organ, invented 90 years ago, has been in American jazz and other musical genres. Henry Ford ordered six of them as soon as the patent was filed in April 1934; composer George Gershwin and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt were early enthusiasts; it was quickly adopted by thousands of churches across the country as a less-expensive alternative to the pipe organ, thus becoming a staple of gospel music; famous players range from Jimmy Smith to Fats Waller to Oscar Peterson to Count Basie to Shirley Scott to Gregg Allman to Booker T. & the M.G.’s to Paul Shaffer (of David Letterman show fame); and Mexican actor-keyboardist Ernesto Hill Olvera even figured out how to manipulate the drawbars to make the instrument “speak.” Charette will let the Hammond do the talking for his set of “funky breakbeats with slick harmony and subtle electronica,” joined by Cincinnati guitarist Brad Myers and drummer Jordan Young, a Detroit native. A $15 drink/food minimum is charged per person.
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