Freeze

Cincinnati has succumbed to another episode of freezing rain, exactly 363 days since the last time the city shut down for ice. Most of my office is working from home today.

The past weekend featured the Fine Arts Fund sampler, a weekend of over 100 performances/exhibitions by the many arts groups that benefit from the largesse of the city's citizens who contribute millions to the fund each year.

On Saturday, I was privileged to attend "Origami Meets the Price is Right," Jonathan Heart's delightful show for children, at the Cincinnati Art Museum, which was followed by "Long Lost Stories," a production of the Madcap Puppets. A quick tour of the Cincinnati Wing of the museum followed, as my companion had not yet been there. The Rookwood pottery collection, as well as the marvelous furniture hand-carved by 19th Century Cincinnati women were the highlights of the visit.

Sunday's performane of the Cincinnati May Festival Youth Chorus and the May Festival Chamber Choir went well. We (the Chamber Choir) sang 8 of the 15 pieces of Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil.

Tonight the full May Festival Chorus will rehearse John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, for which Adams won the Pulitzer prize. It is a reminiscence of those lost in the devastation of New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Adams will conduct the chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the work on February 22 and 23 at Cincinnati's Music Hall.

The piece is moving and will be devastating for the audience. The text is taken from memories of the lost, printed in the New York Times, and from posters seen on the street in the weeks following the tragedy.

It will be especially poignant for many members of the Chorus and Orchestra, who performed Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at Carnegie Hall 3 weeks after September 11. That performance, planned months in advance of the concert, left the hall in near silence upon its completion. Some of the audience members could be heard crying. It had been only two days since American forces had invaded Afghanistan.

This just in: the word has arrived that tonight's rehearsal has been cancelled due to the weather, and our director, Robert Porco, halfway here from Cleveland, is turning around and heading home. Next week will be a busy one, with extra rehearsals so that we can work with the Cincinnati Children's Choir before Mr. Adams arrives.