“Humanity in Harmony.”
It’s a phrase that you’ll see often in the upcoming weeks. The May Festival has adopted it to promote its 2026 Festival.
Remember those words, because “Humanity in Harmony” is more than just a catchy tagline. It’s a philosophical turn of phrase that signals a shift in the way the May Festival hopes to connect with the community.
“I think the May Festival is entering a new era,” said Executive Director Julianne Akins Smith. “We’re not reinventing the May Festival. We don’t need to do that. But I think there is a sense that we have so much opportunity to build on the amazing traditions that we already have.”
The idea, she says, is to focus less on the four concerts that anchor the festival and focus more on what she calls “festivality.”
Feel free to be skeptical. Tossing around words like “festivality” can make this sound like so much marketing gobbledygook.
One thing you need to know is that the new leaders of the May Festival are not trying to re-invent or redefine the festival. If anything, they are seeking to recreate some of the community fervor that brought the May Festival into existence in 1873.
“Think of it as broadening our palette of color,” said Ben P. Rosenfield, director of marketing. “We know that not everybody wants to come to Music Hall. Not everybody can come to Music Hall. So this year, we are adding more satellite events – events at Memorial Hall, for instance, and at Christ Church Cathedral.”
There was also to be a concert at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center on April 23, three weeks before the festival officially opens at Music Hall.
Adding experiences, not weeks
The point is, if you are going to grow the May Festival, there are a couple of ways you can do that. You can add weeks to the festival, which may happen someday, but no one seems to have an appetite for that at the moment. Or you can add more performances and activities during its existing nine-day span.
“One of the things we’ve learned in the years since the pandemic is that people not only want music and performances, but they also want experiences,” said Tyler Secor, director of communications and content development.
“You can see that in huge festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. People are interested in the artists,” Secor said. “But a large part of the appeal is the experience of going with friends and being in the middle of a big event. This is just another type of opportunity for us.”
It’s an elusive concept. And it’s even more difficult to engineer experiences so that they are “special” or “unforgettable.” It’s not without precedent, though.
Remember the World Choir Games in 2012? There was a sense that vocal music was everywhere you turned in Greater Cincinnati. For 11 days, it seemed that every small space had something going on. Even if it wasn’t a formal performance, it wasn’t uncommon to sit in a restaurant and have the members of a choir from some place you’d never heard of break into song.
How about the original LumenoCity performance in 2013? Washington Park was filled to overflow and beyond. The CSO was introducing Louis Langrée and the city to one another. It felt like a charmed event. The weather was perfect. The sense of goodwill was all-encompassing. It was dazzling.
Both of those were massive gatherings, far larger than the May Festival. But there is something to be admired about creating an event that will be remembered as much for its kinship as by its musicality.
It’s a philosophy not unlike that of the original May Festival in 1873, when thousands of singers gathered to sing. It was a community-driven event, a spring festival that revolved around a shared love of vocal music. Long before Cincinnati adopted “The City That Sings” as an unofficial slogan, Cincinnati was already singing. A lot.
“We want to highlight that this really is a festival,” said Amber Ostaszewski, director of audience engagement.
She notes that there are already dozens of tangential events tied to the main performances – preshow talks and area choirs performing in the lobby.
“Sometimes they are high school choirs, other times they are groups like the YPCC (the Young Professionals’ Choral Collective),” Ostaszewski said. “We have such an amazing singing community here in Cincinnati and we want to include as many of them as possible as part of our festival.”
Youth programs promote singing
What may be the May Festival’s most robust outreach activities are its multi-faceted youth programs.
The May Festival Youth Chorus, with 35-40 members, is the best-known of these. The group performs not only during the festival, but has become a mainstay of the Cincinnati Pops’ “Holiday Pops” concerts.
Despite its relatively high public profile, the MFYC is the smallest of the youth programs. The largest is called the May Festival MiNis. Begun in 2022, MiNis are aimed at kids who are 12 and under. It even offers programs for babies.
An ambitious program, it had interactions with 9,500 young people last year. Until very recently, it was a one-person operation, led by Edy Dreith, the festival’s education manager.
“It’s a mobile program,” says Dreith, “so I will go to almost any public space; a museum, an arts center, schools, hospitals – wherever I can find willing kids.”
Meanwhile, MFYC director Jason Alexander Holmes is a regular visitor to area high schools. Sometimes, he’s there to provide an assisting ear to a music teacher. Other times, he’ll coach choir members. The one consistent element is that he is constantly sharing information about the MFYC.
The goal of all of this is not selling tickets – not directly, at least. A few of these young people may end up becoming professionals. Some may grow up to be festivalgoers.
But the primary goal is a simple one – to promote singing.
Picnic in the park
This year introduces another special event that harkens back to the May Festival’s 19th century roots. Called “Dîner en Fleur,” it is an opening night picnic. There’s no cost to participate, though you do have to pre-register. You bring your own food, show up and stake out one of the many tables that will be set up throughout Washington Park. The event is 5-7 p.m. May 15.
You don’t even have to be a May Festival patron to participate. This is an event about coming together and sharing a bit of camaraderie. And if you choose to cross Elm Street and experience “An Eclectic Opening Night,” all the better.
Given the May Festival’s policy of having a different festival director every year, it’s inevitable that there will be changes. Julia Bullock, this year’s director, has brought her musical aesthetic to the programming, just as Renee Fleming did last year.
This is nothing new. The May Festival has always prided itself on offering a mix of relatively unknown music and choral warhorses.
“We’re not changing the core of the May Festival,” marketing director Rosenfield said. “What is changing is that we are trying to find ways to encourage more people to get involved, to attend concerts, whether they are at Music Hall or at one of our satellite activities. We just have to make sure we eliminate as many barriers as we can to people attending. What I can definitely commit to is that we will continue to try new things. And we will experiment with what May Festival means to people.”
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