Classical Concert Reviews Cinci

What a fabulous end to @vaecinci’s 2025-26 season, pairing two masterworks by Dietrich Buxtehude and Caroline Shaw under the collective title To The Hands: Cutting Edge Art. As art was central to the program, video projections by artists Sharon Huizenga and lighting design by Lucas Inman were an integral part of the evening, presented as the story of an everywoman and her son portrayed in as three distinct pairs: “immigrants coming to America through Ellis Island, Mary and Jesus, and a present-day mother and son” in the words of stage director Audrey Chait. Both were acted passionately and expressively by featured artists Danielle Cozart Steele and her son Sullivan.
Under the direction of music director Joe Miller, the 18-voice ensemble assembled for this evening, accompanied by string quintet and continuo (in varying combinations) gave a thoughtfully engaging, transcendent and powerful performance that struck an emotional chord with many in the audience at the ballroom of Cincinnati Music Hall.
Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, a set of seven short cantatas meditating on different aspects of the body of Christ, was the perfect piece to evoke the images of a mother and son’s struggles, even if it was performed incomplete. Standout moments included gorgeous solos from sopranos Olivia Knutsen, Sophia Santiago, Kiev Schneider and Maren Hrivnak, alto Rachel Feldman and bass Sergei Tkachenko.
Caroline Shaw’s choral work To The Hands, written as a companion piece to the Buxtehude, was performed with a level of grace and elemental beauty that might be unparalleled in the United States. This was expressed most profoundly in the opening prelude and third movement “Her Beacon-Hand Beckons”. Both pieces invited the message that everyone of all stripes is welcome in America and the world, even if there are people in power that would argue otherwise at the expense of politics and ideology.
I eagerly anticipate any future projects like this from VAE and throughput the US, as well as a rare opportunity to hear Rossini as part of this year’s May Festival with his Petite Messe Solennelle.