The Cincinnati May Festival has announced five-time Grammy Award winner and celebrated soprano Renée Fleming as its 2025 Festival Director, the second ever in the May Festival’s innovative artistic leadership model launched in 2024.

The Cincinnati May Festival, Vocal Arts Ensemble (VAE) and Cincinnati Boychoir have announced the appointment of Julianne Akins Smith as their new Executive Director following a national search. With an extensive background in performing arts management and a passion for youth education, attracting new audiences and community engagement, Smith is set to lead the organizations into an exciting new era of choral music.

Matthew Swanson, 35, has been a fixture of the May Festival Chorus since 2012, when he joined the ensemble as a tenor. In the intervening years, he’s worked for the organization at multiple levels: in the box office for two years, as a Festival Conducting Fellow in 2015, and as Associate Director of Choruses, leading the Festival’s special projects and conducting the May Festival Youth Chorus.

The Cincinnati Boychoir and Cincinnati May Festival have announced a strategic alliance of their two organizations. Effective July 1, 2024, the organizations will begin operating under the May Festival organizational structure while preserving the Boychoir identity, brand, programming, and independent non-profit status.