Summermusik (Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra)

We’re kicking off our 50th anniversary season with a neon-themed chamber crawl! If you have ever listened closely, you will have noticed that the old neon signs exhibited at the museum have a ‘hum’ to them. Using this as a springboard, our string quartet performs selections that incorporate or mimic this electrical sound to create an atmospheric experience for the audience.

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $25 for Young Professionals Under 40, $10 for Students and Children
General Admission Seating; Festival and Flex Pass holders receive preferred seating.
One drink included in the price of admission!

138 recordings. Over 2 million albums sold. Three Grammy and Juno Awards and numerous other international awards and nominations. 52 years in the making—the opening fanfare to the 2024 Mainstage series brings you a true heavyweight of the brass world: Canadian Brass. The world-famous ensemble—with Ashley Hall-Tighe, our principal trumpet, as their newest member—teams up with Summermusik for a program that weaves freely across musical genres in what promises to be an exhilarating evening.

Single Tickets: $45-55 for Adults, $20 for Students and Children

Join Summermusik Director Eckart Preu for a pre-concert talk in the Mayerson Theatre at 6:45pm
Wine and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase.

Prepare to be blown away! World-renowned Canadian Brass will air out a mind-blowing program full of surprises with some tunes known, some unknown, and some practically unheard of. For the grand finale, Canadian Brass teams up with the Cincinnati Brass Band, and their combined brass power promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime roof raising event.

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $10 for Students, Free for Children Under 13

Preconcert music provided by the Cincinnati Brass Band beginning at 3pm.

With Principal Oboe Jessica Smithorn at the helm and her mates in the woodwind quintet keeping the ship in the winds, it will be smooth sailing through this Caribbean-themed event featuring music by Latin American composers. Enjoy your favorite fruity summer drinks on the open water and be sure to scan the horizon just across the railing for Captains’ Jack and Morgan to take you home tonight.

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $25 for Young Professionals Under 40, $10 for Students and Children
General Admission Seating; Festival and Flex Pass holders receive preferred seating.
One drink included in the price of admission!

Tonight, we perform 10-time Emmy-winning composer John Henry Kreitler’s second symphony—his final oeuvre which he composed right before his passing in January 2024 in celebration of the Chamber Orchestra’s 50th anniversary. The program also features works that took inspiration from the greatest bard of all—William Shakespeare, with readings from members of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company.

Single Tickets: $30-40 for Adults, $10 for Students, Free for Children Under 13

Join Summermusik Director Eckart Preu for a pre-concert talk in the Mayerson Theatre at 6:45pm
Wine and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase.

Join our concertmaster Celeste Golden Andrews and her fellow Summermusik musicians as they present works inspired by literature. Debussy and Vaughan Williams found their inspiration in poems by Stéphane Mallarmé and George Meredith, respectively. Walton’s musical setting of Edith Sitwell’s poetry was intended as an accompaniment of a recitation of Façade. Schubert used his incidental music to Helmina von Chézy’s play Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus for his A minor quartet, and returned to Matthias Claudius’s poem, which he had previously used for the song of same title (D. 531).

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $10 for Students, Free for Children Under 13

Join us in our tribute to Jethro Tull, the English agricultural pioneer who brought about agricultural reforms and invented the horse-drawn seed drill and the horse-drawn hoe. Oh dear! Apologies all around, wrong Jethro Tull! Get ready to rock with a tribute to the band Jethro Tull!

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $25 for Young Professional Under 40, $10 for Students and Children
General Admission Seating; Festival and Flex Pass holders receive preferred seating.
One drink included in the price of admission! Additional beverages and food available for purchase.

Join us in our tribute to Jethro Tull, the English agricultural pioneer who brought about agricultural reforms and invented the horse-drawn seed drill and the horse-drawn hoe. Oh dear! Apologies all around, wrong Jethro Tull! Get ready to rock with a tribute to the band Jethro Tull!

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $25 for Young Professional Under 40, $10 for Students and Children
General Admission Seating; Festival and Flex Pass holders receive preferred seating.
One drink included in the price of admission! Additional beverages and food available for purchase.

Join us as we venture to the world’s most populous country, India, and delve into its rich culture. Eastern classical music and Western classical music related to India’s history meet in our first-ever collaboration with members of the Indian community. With the help of artistic advisor and local composer Kanniks Kannikeswaran, we created an orchestral exploration that offers a peek into India’s fascinating and colorful culture, along with a tabla player, Indian dancers, and the Greater Cincinnati Indian Community Choir.

Single Tickets: $30-40 for Adults, $10 for Students, Free for Children Under 13

Join Summermusik Director Eckart Preu for a pre-concert talk in the Mayerson Theatre at 6:45pm
Wine and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase.

For part two of our deep dive into Indian music, we explore the connection of Indian ragas to the music of Bach and Beethoven with music from Mumbai’s Hindi cinema, or ‘Bollywood’, works by local composer Kanniks Kannikeswaran, and arrangements of traditional Indian music by Vidita Kanniks. Hindi cinema is one of the largest centers for film production in the world, selling over 340 million tickets in India in 2019.

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $10 for Students, Free for Children Under 13

Starring Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, and David Wenham, this 2016 biographical drama tells the life story of Saroo. As a five-year-old, Saroo unwittingly winds up in Calcutta. Not understanding the local Bengali language, he begins to wander the streets of Calcutta before he is placed in an orphanage. Eventually, he is adopted by an Australian couple and 20 years later begins to trace his roots to find his biological family. During the process, Saroo finds out that his real name is ‘Sheru’, meaning ‘Lion’. The film earned six Oscar nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Patel), Best Supporting Actress (Kidman), and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film is rated PG-13.

Single Tickets: $12

The penultimate evening of our celebration has Mandy Gaines and our crew throw the book at you, figuratively speaking. The Great American Songbook is not an actual book, but a loosely defined canon of significant 20th-century American jazz standards, popular songs, and show tunes. Many of them will get their turn tonight as Mandy leafs through the book, again figuratively speaking.

Single Tickets: $40 for Adults, $25 for Young Professionals Under 40, $10 for Students and Children
General Admission Seating; Festival and Flex Pass holders receive preferred seating.
One drink included in the price of admission! Additional beverages available for purchase.

Oh, the joy! 315 years of birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate in one sitting. We hope you are party-hardened! So, here it is: 200 years of Ludwig’s Ninth, 50 years of your favorite orchestra, 10 years of the Summermusik festival, and … ah, but we won’t tell you that last one just now. It’ll be a surprise! So, we close the festival with a birthday party, but we are mostly the guests. It is YOU, our audience, that we’ll be celebrating, because without your support of 50, 10, or any number of years, tonight would not have been possible.

Single Tickets: $30-40 for Adults, $10 for Students, Free for Children Under 13

Join Summermusik Director Eckart Preu for a pre-concert talk in the Mayerson Theatre at 6:45pm
Wine and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase.