In Sunday’s (1/27) Cincinnati Enquirer, Janelle Gelfand writes, “Louis Langrée’s first season as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra will be celebratory and include a few surprises. The conductor’s inaugural concert will feature the American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou as narrator in Aaron Copland’s ‘Lincoln Portrait.’ It will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 as well as the cutting-edge group eighth blackbird playing a new work by Jennifer Higdon. ‘I’m eager to share both music everyone loves and cherishes, and also pieces we’ll discover together,’ said Langrée, as he prepared to make his Berlin Philharmonic debut last week. … Langrée will conduct six programs of the 20-concert season in 2013-14. Because of commitments made before his appointment as the Cincinnati Symphony’s 13th music director, his inaugural weekend will take place Nov. 8-10, rather than on opening weekend in September. Celebratory events surrounding the launch of his tenure will be announced later. His first season will have the star power of legendary violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, who will make her Cincinnati debut in the orchestra’s gala concert on Sept. 28. … Angelou’s narration of Copland’s ‘Lincoln Portrait, a work given its world premiere by the Cincinnati Symphony in 1942, will hail the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, from which much of the text is taken.”
Posted January 28, 2013
