As the last traces of snow melt into the ground – for the last time this season, we hope – the arts calendar continues to heat up with a bloody good “Macbeth,” some hot jazz, the warmth of Brahms’ “Requiem,” an Irish Mardi Gras celebration and more, much more …
Wednesday, Feb. 26
Music in the Museum, organist Jean-Baptiste Robin | 7:30 p.m. Cincinnati Museum Center, Queensgate. 513-287-7000. DETAILS: The Music in the Museum series, which highlights the sound of Union Terminal’s Skinner Symphonic Organ, continues with guest artist Jean-Baptiste Robin, organist of the Royal Chapel at the Palace of Versailles and a noted composer for the instrument. The Xavier University Concert Choir joins him in this richly diverse program with a decided French accent (not to mention plenty of accent marks): Claude Debussy’s “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune,” selections from Maurice Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé” and “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” Olivier Messiaen’s “Apparition de l’Église éternelle” and works by César Franck, Felix Mendelssohn, Johann Sebastian Bach, Alexander Scriabin and Hans Zimmer (“Cornfield Chase” from the film “Interstellar”).
Dayton Live Broadway Series, “Peter Pan” | 7:30 p.m. Schuster Center, Dayton, Ohio. 937-228-3630. DETAILS: This family-friendly musical production, a new adaptation by playwright Larissa Fasthorse as directed by Emmy winner Lonny Price, tells the story of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, the dreaded Captain Hook and all the rest with familiar songs such as “I’m Flying,” “I Gotta Crow” and, of course, “I Won’t Grow Up!” If you haven’t been up to the Schuster Center, just drive up I-75 to Dayton, exit at First Street and look for the second star to the right … Through March 2.
Thursday, Feb. 27
Jewish & Israeli Film Festival, “Ain’t No Back To A Merry-Go-Round” | 7 p.m. National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, The Banks. downtown. 513-761-7500. DETAILS: The Mayerson JCC’s 2025 Jewish & Israeli Film Festival closes with a powerful documentary by Ilana Trachtman about a 1960 civil rights protest at an amusement park in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. Tickets to the film showing include a closing-night reception.
Cincinnati Opera Young Professionals, Singers & Spirits | 6 p.m. Revel OTR Urban Winery, Over-the-Rhine. 513-768-5524. DETAILS: Here’s a chance to see and hear emerging opera singers perform close up, in the cozy confines of Revel OTR’s upstairs loft (Note: accessible via staircase only). Tickets to the Cincinnati Opera Young Professionals social event include admission and a drink. Revel OTR specializes in small-batch wines, such as its Sangiovese and Sauvignon Blanc.
Friday, Feb. 28
(Photo by Tina Gutierrez for Moves & Makers)
Revolution Dance Theatre, “‘N Concert” | 8 p.m. Jarson-Kaplan Theater, Aronoff Center, downtown. 513-621-2787. DETAILS: Revolution Dance Theatre, directed by David Choate and dedicated to “reshaping cultural narratives” and promoting African American excellence, returns to the Aronoff with a program combining dance, music and storytelling by local artists such as P. Ann Everson Price, Shantell Hankerson, Trinity & the Band, Cleocrt and Siri Imani.
Cincinnati Shakespeare Co., “Macbeth” | 7:30 p.m., Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Over-the-Rhine. 513-381-2273. DETAILS: This is about as straightforward as it gets, right? A Shakespeare company doing “The Scottish Play”? (According to backstage lore, you’re not supposed to say “Mac—-,” you know, out loud.) Well, not quite. This production reimagines William Shakespeare’s 1606 scorcher on power and prophecy in an updated early Cold War-era setting that, according to Cincy Shakes, “blurs the boundaries between free will and control, immersing audiences in a world where the edge of insanity is closer than it appears,” as opposed to that other modernized version set in the Cincinnati Zoo with the Thane of Maynard. Through March 23.
Cincinnati Black Theatre Company, “Paul Robeson” and “The Lincoln vs. Douglass Debate” | 7:30 p.m. National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, The Banks, downtown. 513-241-6060. DETAILS: An interesting double-bill evening pairs a portrayal of singer-civil rights icon Paul Robeson, here played by the very resonant-voiced former Cincinnati City Council member Wendell Young, with a deftly dramatized dialogue between President Abraham Lincoln and famed abolitionist/author Frederick Douglass, who met on several occasions – the first in August 1863, when Douglass said he pushed his way up the White House stairs “past all the angry white office seekers” to confront the president on the conditions Black soldiers faced during the Civil War. Also 2 & 7:30 p.m. March 1.
Saturday, March 1
Taft Museum of Art, “J.M.W. Turner: Watercolor Horizons” | Sinton Gallery, Taft Museum of Art, Lytle Park, downtown. 513-241-0343. DETAILS: Observing the 250th anniversary of famed British watercolorist Joseph Mallord William Turner’s birth, the Taft opens an exhibition bringing together Turner landscapes from its own collection and that of the Cincinnati Art Museum. His paintings depict outdoor scenes reflecting his travels throughout Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, England and Scotland. This is a rare chance to view many of these works, which often are kept in storage to protect the delicate paints from light. Taft hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Monday; admission is free for Taft members, military and youth ages 17 and under, and free for everybody on Sundays and Mondays. The exhibit runs through June 15.
Vocal Arts Ensemble, “Voices in Exile” | 7:30 p.m. Christ Church Cathedral, downtown. 513-381-3300. DETAILS: Elena Sharkova returns as guest conductor for this VAE program drawing on the choral music of Russian composers who either were driven from their country or stayed to create works in an atmosphere of government repression – Alfred Schnittke, Georgy Sviridov, Sofia Gubaidulina and others – interspersed with poems by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Akhmatova and other writers.
Playhouse in the Park, “English” | 7:30 p.m. Rosenthal Shelterhouse Theatre, Mt. Adams. 513-421-3888. DETAILS: The Playhouse brings this 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Sanaz Toossi to Cincinnati, a story set in Iranian classroom in 2008 where four people are gathered to learn English, struggling not only with the language but with questions of culture and identity. Through March 30.
Sunday, March 2
(Photo by Michael G. Stewart)
Jazz@First Series, Jammin’ with NEA Jazz Master Jamey Aebersold | 2 p.m. First Unitarian Church, Avondale. 513-280-8181. DETAILS: Famed jazz saxophonist and music educator Jamey Aebersold, recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Master Award, brings his quartet to the Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra’s Jazz@First Series for an afternoon of classic jazz, with songs such as “Summertime,” “Misty, “The Girl from Ipanema,” “It Had to Be You,” “Now’s the Time,” “Groovin’ High” and “Unforgettable.” Tickets include complimentary wine and cheese at intermission.
(Photo by Tina Gutierrez for Movers & Makers)
CCM Faculty Recital, pianist Polina Bespalko | 2 p.m. Werner Hall, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. 513-556-4183. DETAILS: Russian-born pianist Polina Bespalko, who received her doctorate and Artist Diploma at CCM, teaches at CCM and directs the Xavier University Music Series as a faculty member there, offers a can’t-miss program of great Russian piano music: Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons.” And it’s free to the public. Learn more about Polina courtesy our David Lyman.
LOOKING AHEAD: Another high-interest piano recital is on tap, this one by local favorite Conrad Tao for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Recital Series at 7:30 p.m. March 5 in Music Hall. Tao will perform both books of Claude Debussy’s Preludes, along with pieces by Robert Schumann and Tao himself, plus the famous version of Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow” by jazz great Art Tatum.
Monday, March 3
Jazz at the Memo, Daniel Bennett and the Dirty Shirleys | 7 p.m. Memorial Hall, Over-the-Rhine. 513-977-8838. The Cincinnati-based group makes its Jazz at the Memo debut playing what’s described as the “hip, kitschy, cocktail-sipping soundtrack” to 1950s and ’60s lounge life. (A “Dirty Shirley,” fyi, is a spiked Shirley Temple, which is kind of missing the point, don’t you think?) Daniel Bennett is the vocalist, with bassist John Toedtman, guitarist Will Toedtman, saxophonist Joe Auger and drummer Bart Foster.
Woodward Cinema, Remembering David Lynch: “Lost Highway” | 7:30 p.m. Woodward Theater, Over-the-Rhine. 513-345-7981. DETAILS: To honor the accomplishments of the late film director David Lynch, who died in January, Cincinnati World Cinema is collaborating with the Woodward Theater to screen four of Lynch’s most significant films. This evening, it’s the enigmatic 1997 “neo-noir” film “Lost Highway.” The set concludes March 5 with “Blue Velvet” at the Garfield Theatre, downtown.
Tuesday, March 4
CCM Concert Orchestra, Brahms’ “Requiem” | 7:30 p.m., Corbett Auditorium, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. 513-556-4183. DETAILS: Local choral forces – including the CCM Chamber Choir, CCM Choral and guest ensemble Musica Sacra – join the orchestra for a performance of Johannes Brahms’ luminous masterpiece “Ein deutsches Requiem.” Brett Scott conducts the program, which opens with the world premiere of a new work by Siyuan Kang, winner of the 2023-24 CCM Composition Competition.
Mardi Gras Celebration with Burning Caravan | 7 p.m. Irish Heritage Center, Columbia Tusculum. 513-533-0100. DETAILS: Sure and begorrah, Mardi Gras is as Irish as … well, never mind. There are plenty of options for celebrating Fat Tuesday, but this show by the local gypsy jazz/swing band – which performs music by everyone from Django Reinhardt to Cole Porter to Fats Waller to Pokey LaFarge, sounds especially fun. So how do you say “Laissez les bons temps rouler” in Gaelic?
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