May Festival Highlights Include:
Selections from the Good News Mass by Carlos Simon;
New Choreography to Stravinsky’s Les noces and Orff’s Catulli Carmina from the Cincinnati Ballet’s Second Company - CB2;
Festival Finale: Porgy and Bess featuring the May Festival Chorus, the Classical Roots Community Choir, the May Festival Youth Chorus and Julia Bullock as Bess
CINCINNATI, OH (October 16, 2025)—The Cincinnati May Festival has announced programming for the 2026 May Festival under this year’s Festival Director, Julia Bullock. The 2026 May Festival revisits works from the history of the Festival in combination with new works never performed by the May Festival Chorus before, as well as new visual elements and collaborations with local performing arts groups, including the Cincinnati Ballet and the Classical Roots Community Choir. As the oldest choral music festival in the Western Hemisphere, the 2026 May Festival will feature the most works by Black Americans, as well as pieces from the most diverse composers over the span of the four main concerts. The May Festival Chorus will perform pieces ranging from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess to selections from Carlos Simon’s Good News Mass. They will sing alongside Grammy-winning classical singer and curator Julia Bullock and be joined on stage by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director, Cristian Măcelaru, conductor Matthew Swanson and guest conductor Anthony Parnther.
The 2026 May Festival is co-curated by this year’s Festival Director, Julia Bullock, and May Festival’s Director of Choruses, Matthew Swanson. As the third Festival Director, Bullock brings a distinguished international career marked by acclaimed performances, innovative curatorial projects and recognized leadership in social advocacy within the arts to the one-year role. Her solo album Walking in the Dark won the 2024 Grammy Award for “Best Classical Solo Vocal.” She has also performed on three Grammy nominated recordings and showcased her talent in lead roles of John Adam’s El Niño and Antony and Cleopatra at the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to her performances and being artist-in-residence at preeminent art institutions around the world, Bullock is also responsible for launching three signature projects that have flourished nationally and beyond. This includes a multimedia ethnographic anthology called “History’s Persistent Voice,” which focuses on the influence of pre-emancipation voices across generations, emphasizing that era’s poetic musical traditions while centering the multifaceted identities of the Black American experience, realized through art. Bullock also devised El Nino: Nativity Reconsidered with contributions from conductor, and her husband, Christian Reif, and conceived Perle Noire: Meditations for Josephine in collaboration with director, Peter Sellars.
“After almost a year of research and conversations, I am thrilled to share our key programming for this year’s May Festival,” said Bullock. “Historically, the festival has focused on gathering together local arts communities and performers, commissioning new work, and presenting unexpected repertoire side-by-side. I’ve followed that same ethos in planning this year’s music and events and am excited that these four core programs so clearly represent the May Festival in all its breadth and flair. Additional announcements will follow over the months ahead.”
“It has been invigorating and inspirational to plan the 2026 May Festival with Julia Bullock. We are fortunate to welcome her as both a world-leading performer and an acclaimed curator,” said Matthew Swanson, Director of Choruses. “The members of the May Festival Choruses and I eagerly invite our entire community to join us for this unique Festival.”
2026 May Festival
Opening night of the 2026 May Festival takes place on Friday, May 15 with a performance conducted by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director, Cristian Măcelaru. The concert begins with Anton Bruckner’s Psalm 150, a dynamic and compelling showcase for chorus and orchestra, which will be performed by classical singer Julia Bullock. A dialogue in song follows as the works of Alexander von Zemlinsky and Margaret Bonds — based on texts written by Langston Hughes — are intertwined. This concert concludes with an “Eclectic Mass;” a compilation of movements from various composers that, together, complete the Mass ordinary. The “Eclectic Mass,” curated by Julia Bullock and Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson, contains selections from Carlos Simon’s Good News Mass and Sanctus, Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina’s Missa Assumpta est Maria, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata No. 191, Margaret Bonds’ Credo and ends with a gospel-inspired arrangement of a May Festival staple, the Hallelujah Chorus from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, entitled, “Soulful Hallelujah.” The “Eclectic Mass” is heightened as Carlos Simon, for the first time with the Cincinnati May Festival, improvises on the Hammond Organ and Associate Director of Choruses, Jason Alexander Holmes, plays the role of the preacher.
The Festival continues Saturday, May 16 with music inspired by the power and mystique of water. Under the baton of Cristian Măcelaru, the CSO performs Duke Ellington’s, The River, a first for the Cincinnati May Festival. Recounted in Ellington’s 1973 autobiography, The River recounts the journey of water as an allegory for life and spiritualty. The May Festival Chorus takes the stage alongside the CSO for the second half of the program in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 1, A Sea Symphony, which also focuses on the power of the sea as a metaphor for life and the journey into death’s unknown.
The following week, on Thursday, May 21, for the first time in the May Festival’s history, Cincinnati Ballet’s Second Company will join the May Festival Chorus on stage for a night of music and movement. Cincinnati Ballet’s Yoshihisa Arai will create new choreography for two renowned and rarely performed ballets: Igor Stravinsky’s Les noces (“The Wedding”) and Carl Orff’s Catulli Carmina (“Songs of Catullus”). Also new to the May Festival program, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s percussion section and four pianists take center stage in performing Les noces alongside guest artists soprano Victoria Okafor, contralto Sara Couden, tenor Nicholas Phan and bass-baritone Yannis François.
On Saturday, May 23, in a celebratory conclusion, the May Festival Chorus joins forces with members of the Classical Roots Community Choir, the May Festival Youth Chorus, classical singer Julia Bullock and baritone Alfred Walker for the Festival Finale: Porgy and Bess. This final performance features Alfred Walker as Porgy and Bullock as Bess in her own personal selections from Porgy and Bess. This performance also features the first collaboration between the May Festival and the Classical Roots Community Choir. To wrap up the Festival, the program features Plain-Chant for America by William Grant Still, the first African-American composer to have a work performed by a major American orchestra. In addition, the program includes Stephen Paulus’ Prayers & Remembrances and Leonard Bernstein’s “Make our Garden Grow” from Candide. In a nod to honoring tradition, the 2026 May Festival will end with Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” from Messiah.
“To witness the design of this year's May Festival, co-created by Julia Bullock and Matthew Swanson, has been incredible. Each piece has been carefully selected to take returning and new guests alike on a transformative musical journey throughout the Festival,” says Julianne Akins Smith, Executive Director of the Cincinnati May Festival. “We are eager to reveal more details on additional experiences, performances and social gatherings — all inspired by the traditions and music of this year's May Festival. With so many can't-miss moments, from season opener to festival finale, this year is a true celebration of music inspired by the one instrument that connects us all — the human voice!”
TICKETS
New this year: Festival Passes to the 2026 May Festival are now on sale. Festival Passes include access to every concert, first access with discounts to extra events, including a recital featuring Julia Bullock and a collaborative performance with Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble and more. Passes may be purchased online by visiting the May Festival website, calling the Box Office at 513.381.3300 or by visiting the Music Hall Box Office at 1241 Elm Street, Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Single tickets will go on sale to the general public on February 3, 2026. To receive the latest information on the 2026 May Festival, sign up here.
BIOGRAPHIES
Julia Bullock, Matthew Swanson, May Festival
The May Festival gratefully acknowledges support from:
