Culture FIX: May 20-26

We say Greater Cincinnati offers a cultural feast. With Memorial Day earlier than usual, though, the warm season overlaps the traditional season. That means twice the fun and enlightenment this week, whether it’s eclectic music across an entire neighborhood, fresh sounds at a classical festival or a literal feast to kick off summer. Grab your spork and read on.

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TOO BIG FOR ONE DAY

Taste of Cincinnati | Friday-Monday. East Fifth St., downtown. DETAILS: Are you hungry? You’d better be, because Greater Cincinnati’s premier festival of food is bigger than ever this year. The weekend gourmand-apalooza is for the first time spilling back into Friday, kicking off at 4 p.m. (sorry, downtown commuters). It’ll fill the four blocks of Fifth Street east of Walnut through 8 p.m. Monday with bites from more than 50 restaurants – plus nearly 20 food trucks, 30 beverage options, from smoothies to margaritas, and even a dozen or so retailers. Live entertainment runs the whole time from three stages. With so much to choose from, we recommend planning your attack in advance:

• Make sure you know when and where you’re going and what street will be closed.
• Peruse the list of vendors and their offerings. (The Best of Taste winners can help with that, assuming they’re posted soon.)
• Check out what musical acts you might want to hear.
• Cross reference the plan on the downloadable festival map. You can’t storm the castle without a map.

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Cincinnati Song Initiative, Fellowship of the Song | Various venues. DETAILS: The second go-round for this celebration of the art song concludes with events through Friday. Check the website for academic-leaning events – classes, workshops, roundtables. The big performances are:

• “Die Winterreise”: The Cost of Isolation | Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. 513-977-8838. Staged adaptation of Franz Schubert’s masterpiece song cycle in which the protagonist is progressively more deeply traumatized by his isolation. Baritone Jonathan Bryan and pianist Lyndsi Maus perform.
• Fellows’ Closing Concert | Friday, 7:30 p.m. Werner Recital Hall, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. DETAILS: All 10 fellows (singers and pianists) in this year’s festival perform songs by Leslie Adams, Harry Burleigh, Lena McLin, Undine Moore and Robert Owens.

Get tickets through the websites, including Fellowship passes, which give you access to recordings of all Fellowship 2026 events.

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May Festival | Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. 513-381-3300. DETAILS: Credit to the May Festival for its rotating music director model: The oldest choral festival in the Western hemisphere is sounding young and fresh thanks to a wide range of repertoire that either would not have been heard a few years ago or puts familiar works in new perspectives. Witness this year’s final pair of concerts, assembled under the aegis of soprano Julia Bullock:

• “On Love and Lust” | Thursday 7:30 p.m. After his three, early, lushly orchestrated ballets, Igor Stravinsky wanted to do something different. He wrote his ballet-opera hybrid “Les Noces” (The Wedding) in 1917, but he orchestrated it three times over six years before he was satisfied. He settled on a mechanical sounding ensemble of elaborate percussion and four pianos – plus four vocal soloists and chorus. The usual May Festival forces are joined Friday by CB2, Cincinnati Ballet’s second company, in the work. Soprano Victoria Okafor, alto Sara Couden, tenor Nicholas Phan and bass David Soar handle the solo duties; Matthew Swanson, May Festival director of choruses, conducts. The aesthetic of “Les noces” strongly influenced Carl Orff in his three cantatas on love. For once, we get to hear the second one, i.e., not “Carmina burana.” Instead, it’s “Catulli Carmina” (Songs of Catullus). Orff picked some spicy poems for this piece; the concert even comes with a PG-13 warning.
• “Porgy and Bess” | Saturday, 7:30 p.m. The festival finale features excerpts of America’s most famous opera, “Porgy and Bess,” by George and Ira Gershwin, and DuBose and Dorothy Heyward. Bullock takes to the stage herself, along with bass-baritone Alfred Walker. Rounding out the program are William Grant Still’s “Plain-Chant for America,” a 1941 setting of poetry by Katherine Garrison Chapin against fascism; two movements from Stephen Paulus’ “Prayers & Remembrances;” and “Make our Garden Grow,” the finale from Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide.” And you can all sing “Hallelujah” at the end.

Thursday, May 21

Mercantile Library: “The London Club” | 6:30 p.m. Mercantile Library, 414 Walnut St., downtown. 513-621-0717. DETAILS: Did you, like me, grow up on British import TV? Were you intrigued whenever a character said offhandedly, “I’ll be at my club”? Perhaps especially when it was one of the Holmes brothers heading to the Diogenes. Author Andrew Jones and photographer Laura Hodgson share our fascination, and they have catalogued the architecture and interiors 46 of London’s clubs, some centuries old, others recently founded. Both will be on hand at the Mercantile Library to discuss their book, titled simply “The London Club,” and sign a copy if you’d like. Reception starts at 5:30 p.m. If only Alistair Cooke were still around to introduce the evening.

Friday, May 22

ADC Fine Art, “Wild Whimsy” | 5-7 p.m. 1013 York St., West End. 513-723-1222. DETAILS: This new exhibition at the gallery run by Art Design Consultants is a celebration of color, storytelling and unexpected artistic expression. “Wild Whimsy” features work by Zahn du Plessis, a native South African who reimagines wildlife through bold and playful paintings, and Andrzej Karwacki, born in Poland and now based in the San Francisco Bay area. Karwacki creates layered mixed-media collages inspired by pop culture, texture and vibrant color. The artists will be in attendance at the opening reception.

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Cincinnati Shakespeare, “Emma” | 7:30 p.m. Budig Theater, 1195 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. 513-381-2271. DETAILS: Rejoice, local “Bridgerton” fans: Cincy Shakes leaves the Elizabethan behind for a Regency romp – Kate Hamill’s witty adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma,” the story of a destructively oblivious matchmaker who’s convinced she can’t fall in love. Sayeth the universe: “Hold my champagne.” Ernaisja Curry takes on the title role; A.J. Baldwin plays her friend Harriet. Through June 14.

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Great Parks, “Spark in the Dark” | 8 p.m. Miami Whitewater Forest, 9001 Mount Hope Road, Harrison. 513-367-4774. DETAILS: You know how everyone does light shows around Christmastime. It’s really pretty, but it’s really cold. Great Parks has the solution: Light up Miami Whitewater Forest Lake and the night at “Spark in the Dark.” Float on illuminated pedal boats on the glimmering water. Then explore the mysteries of space with the Cincinnati Astronomical Society and experience a night hike under the stars. Preregistration not required. Continues at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Saturday, May 23

North by Northside 2026 | 4:30 p.m. until… Multiple venues, Northside. 513-620-4573. DETAILS: If you have time to check out another music-centered festival, more than a dozen venues – from the Comet to Urban Artifact to the Blue Jay Restaurant – have united to present a moveable feast in sound as diverse as the performance spaces. Performers run the gamut from pianist Polina Bespalko to the Comet Bluegrass All-Stars to Nineball to New Downbeat. There’s even comedy for a breather. Acts start different times at different places, so check the schedule before you go. Also runs from noon Sunday.

Sunday, May 24

White Water Shaker Village open house | 2-5 p.m. White Water Shaker Village, 11813 Oxford Road, Harrison. DETAILS: The last Shakers left the White Water Shaker community (founded in 1823) in 1916. Great Parks acquired the surviving buildings – there are about 20 – in the late 1980s and early ’90s and has stabilized them. While they are not often open to the public, the site’s friends group, which has pledged to restore the buildings, offers us a handful of opportunities each year to experience the village. Your next chance is Sunday, for the annual Memorial Day open house.

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Ars Perpetuum | 3 p.m., First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, 536 Linton St., Mount Auburn. 513-381-6868. DETAILS: There are creative collective nouns for many things – a parliament of owls, etc. – but I don’t know of one for sackbuts, and don’t you think there should be? That ancestor of the trombone sounds at the core of Ars Perpetuum, an ensemble dedicated to historically informed performances of 16th- and 17th-century music, particularly using period brass instruments. Sunday’s program serves up “Musical Delights of the 17th Century Germanic Courts,” with Adam Bregman and Sean McGhee making up the bray (think it’ll catch on?) of sackbuts. It’s cool stuff.

Monday, May 25

Spring Grove Cemetery Memorial Day | 11 a.m.-3 p.m. 4521 Spring Grove Ave., Spring Grove Village. 513-681-7526. DETAILS: With the number of soldiers buried there, from Civil War generals to 20th-century privates, it’s no wonder that Cincinnati’s most historic cemetery each year offers a full day of events to honor the service members whose remains it cares for. Ceremonies technically kick off on Thursday, when Cub Scouts place flags at Civil War soldiers’ graves and the Ohio Military Band offers a 7 p.m. concert in the Rose Garden Gazebo. On Friday, a veterans tribute at the Norman Chapel opens (it runs through Monday). Monday’s events include:

• 11 a.m. The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War will scatter flowers over the graves of Union Civil War soldiers. (Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day.)
• 11:45 a.m. Steve Ball Civil War Music performs music of the 1860s, specializing in the music of Stephen Foster, who lived for a time in Cincinnati.
• 12:30 p.m. An Abraham Lincoln reenactor gives a presentation.
• 1:30 p.m. Docent-led Civil War walking tour.
• 3 p.m. Sounding of taps.

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Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony Orchestra | 7 p.m. Tom Stone Amphitheater, 4309 Cooper Road, Blue Ash. DETAILS: Music Director Michael Chertock leads BAMSO’s annual Memorial Day concert, this year dubbed “This We’ll Defend.” The program reflects on, celebrates and honors the sacrifices of those who have fallen in defense of the country. Works include Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and “Lincoln Portrait.”

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Woodward Cinema, “No Picnic” | 7:30 p.m. Woodward Theater, 1404 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 513-345-7981. DETAILS: If you’re looking for an non-Memorial Day kind of experience, check out Philip Hartman’s 1987 black-and-white homage to New York’s pregentrified East Village. Macabee Cohen (David Brisbin) is a past-prime rock musician who travels the city in a beat-up VW bus, supplying records to local juke boxes. As his neighborhood and personal life are turned inside out, he becomes obsessed with finding a mysterious woman in a striped dress – “someone to save,” he says, “to save myself.”