Program and Description

FRI MAY 28 • 7:30 pm — This concert has passed.

AARON COPLAND: Selections from Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson
JOHN ADAMS: The Wound-Dresser
MARIA SCHNEIDER: Selections from Winter Morning Walks
View the composer notes about this piece.

Robert Porco, conductor
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano
Sophia Burgos, soprano
Davóne Tines, baritone
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

View the digital program.
View the poems from this program.

The second weekend of the May Festival 2021 season opened with vocal firebrands performing music inspired by poetry we could all relate to, particularly during a time of social distancing. Two-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke “unleashed the full power and glory of her voice” (Cincinnati Business Courier) singing the words of Emily Dickinson, a poet who lived in near total isolation from the outside world.

The program also included Maria Schneider’s “hauntingly beautiful” (NPR) piece following a poet’s road to recovery after cancer treatment, found on early morning walks near his Midwestern home. And Davóne Tines, an inspiration to composers like John Adams, delivered Walt Whitman’s timeless perspective on loving and caring for others “simply and directly, yet with powerful depth of feeling” (Cincinnati Business Courier).

Aaron Copland’s Selections from Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson, including dramatic interpretations of Dickinson’s poetry by local artist Julie Coppens, will available to view online starting late September. Subscribers to the 2021 May Festival and donors who have given at least $50 since July 1, 2020, will have UNLIMITED access to all of May Festival’s online concerts through April 2022.

Not sure if you qualify for access? Make your gift to the May Festival TODAY.

View a dramatic reading by local actor Darnell Pierre Benjamin of Walt Whitman’s The Wound-Dresser – poetry set to music by John Adams and performed at Music Hall in our live Voice and Verse concert.