“ ‘This is more than a concert,’ says Louis Langrée. ‘This is the beginning of a new era,’ ” writes David Lyman in Thursday’s (9/28) Cincinnati Enquirer (Ohio). “Langrée, the French-born music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra [is] talking about, of course, … the Oct. 6 reopening of Music Hall … after a 16-month, $135 million renovation…. Langrée says the orchestra’s long history of commissioning new works was one of the things that appealed to him about coming to Cincinnati.… In addition to Beethoven, Scriabin and John Adams, [on October 6] audiences will hear the world premiere of ‘Stories of Home,’ by Jonathan Bailey Holland.” The Cincinnati Symphony previously performed three of Holland’s works, including Equality, “one of a trio of works setting Maya Angelou poems to music. ‘Jonathan not only knows how to make an orchestra sound impressive,’ says Langrée, ‘but he has a sense of style, a sense of atmosphere and colors… We have had many great composers here … Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns, Richard Strauss, Aaron Copland, Stravinsky. When they were here, they were a part of the living society. We must do the same thing with the composers of this time.’ ”
Posted September 28, 2017
