For the penultimate entry of this year’s May Festival in Cincinnati, a cornerstone of the choral repertoire was paired with a world premiere. Composer Julia Adolphe, no stranger to the festival, was commissioned to write a new work for the occasion, resulting in the 15-minute Crown of Hummingbirds. During her pre-concert conversation with conductor James Conlon (who served as May Festival music director from 1979-2016), Adolphe spoke of her fondness for writing for the voice, and noted that the present work counts as her first foray into melding choir with orchestra.
Crown of Hummingbirds sets a poem of striking imagery by Jamaican writer Safiya Sinclair. Adolphe made effective use of large orchestral forces, cultivating a musical language bracing and direct. Her employ of a diverse array of percussion in the orchestration further captured one’s attention. A passage for harp, answered by the piano, heralded a segment for the women of the choir in an inward, touchingly beautiful moment. The work’s title was intoned in resplendence, colorfully painting the image in music, and this was that rare combination of a work that bears the composer’s individual stamp while nonetheless being readily approachable.
Mozart’s Requiem was certainly more familiar territory, a mainstay at Music Hall since its first May Festival performance in 1882. Hollow winds of the Cincinnati Symphony opened, and the expanse of the May Festival Chorus, under the direction of Robert Porco, gathered mass and vigor, deeply felt from the onset. The contrapuntal rigor of the Kyrie was a thrill, as was as the fire of the Dies irae. The Tuba mirum put the soloists in the spotlight, first from the clarion brass, and then the generally very fine quartet of vocalists. A booming bass from Michael Sumuel was suitably countered by the more lyrical tenor of Joshua Blue. The fluttering soprano of Erica Petrocelli served as a highlight, as did Kate Lindsey’s amber alto.
The harmonious blend the quartet achieved certainly evidenced the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, a chemistry further explored to great effect in the Recordare. The Confutatis maledictis is a segment of extremes from the demonic to the angelic, a contrast which Conlon was keen to emphasize. A radiant Sanctus was marked by the brilliance of the brass, but perhaps most affecting was the closing Lux aeterna, bringing to light Petrocelli’s richly lyrical soprano, and an orchestral and choral heft replete with crackling counterpoint.
