Classical Concert Reviews Cinci

@vaecinci continued its 2025-26 season with a uniquely creative program titled An Italian Christmas. While the program was mostly focused around music by Giovanni Gabrieli and other composers of the period like Claudio Monteverdi, it did stray by the end into more modern music but it was a delight nonetheless.
What made tonight’s program more creative than other Christmas concerts by this group is that it featured a healthy mix of solo, choral and instrumental pieces, a repertoire not typically encountered in most concert venues today.This included stellar performances by Michael Unger of solo organ works by Olivier Messiaen and Louis Vierne, a setting of Duo Seraphim from Monteverdi’s Vespers wonderfully performed by solo tenors Eric Riedel, B. Michael Perry and Andrew Miller and short brass canzonas featuring sackbuts, a Duncan and cornetto, instruments Cincinnati audiences never get to hear. Perhaps the best choral moments of the evening came in a set of five works interspersed across all three parts.
An 11 part setting of Jubilate Deo by Gabrieli and a double choir setting of O magnum mysterium demonstrated that Italian renaissance music works incredibly well for this group. An arrangement of the Hugo Jüngst melody How Great Our Joy was joyful enough to suddenly veer into jazz (which too few choral composers seem to do these days). A new arrangement of the French carol Noël Nouvelet by Cincinnati-based composer Ben Owen was perhaps the most enjoyable piece of the night (having helped premiere the piece last year with @cincinnaticamerata I can attest to this). And a gorgeous setting by Swedish composer Fredrik Sixten of Silent Night was the perfect way to ring in the season.
From the first luscious notes of Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina’s 5-voice setting of Ave Maria and Giovanni Caccini’s Puer Natus in Bethlehem, it was abundantly clear that Vocal Arts Ensemble is in outstanding hands under the leadership of its newly appointed artistic director Joe Miller. Consisting primarily of students and alumni of @uc_ccm as well as a handful of longtime members, they truly understand how fundamental choral music is to the City That Sings, Bravo to all!