“The Cincinnati Pops show in Music Hall on Saturday night was almost like old times. Except it wasn’t,” writes Janelle Gelfand in Sunday’s (1/24) Cincinnati Business Courier (OH). “With the Covid-19 pandemic still ongoing, the evening of hits from Broadway musicals offered, as Pops conductor John Morris Russell said, ‘hope and inspiration.’ I would add that there was also a definite note of optimism. We were the first live audience to hear a concert in Music Hall since March of 2020. Just 300 seats were sold out of 2,400 in the usual Pops audience. In addition, the concert was live streamed…. Many precautions were in place…. There was no intermission in the hour-long show…. The hall is using Merv 13 filters for its state-of-the-art air filtration system. And yet, just like old times, there sat the Pops musicians in their red blazers, playing wonderfully through a string of Broadway chestnuts. They, too, were distanced on the stage, and the winds and brass were separated by Plexiglas shields. For his return to Music Hall, Russell brought a trio of excellent singers: Broadway veterans Jessica Wendy and Melvin Tunstall III and rising artist Veronica Stern.”
Change font size
