“Shrieking fans, long lines snaking to the bars, a crush of people surrounding a band in the lobby—those are things you wouldn’t expect at a concert of the 120-year-old Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,” writes Janelle Gelfand in Saturday’s (3/14) Cincinnati Enquirer. “But this wasn’t any concert. The orchestra’s second annual collaboration in Music Hall with Cincinnati’s MusicNOW Festival, founded by Bryce Dessner a decade ago, included the debut of Dessner’s indie-rock band The National with the Cincinnati Symphony. It was a first for both the orchestra and the Grammy-nominated band. Together, they played a set of a half-dozen of The National’s songs after intermission. Music director Louis Langrée sat in on celesta for the encore, ‘Fake Empire,’ from their 2007 album, ‘Boxer’ (later used by Barack Obama in his election campaign). To be expected, the crowd skewed younger than on most symphony nights. But there was something else extraordinary: Before intermission, more than 3,400 people in the sold-out crowd also stood and cheered for new music. The inventive classical program included a world premiere violin concerto, ‘Lo,’ by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, Dessner’s ‘Lachrimae,’ and music by Varèse, Christopher Rouse and John Adams.”
Posted March 16, 2015
Pictured: Louis Langrée conducts members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as they perform along with The National. Photo by David Sorcher
