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Akron Symphony brings out a crowd for Carmina Burana (May 9)

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by Peter Feher

For a moment during the Akron Symphony’s season-finale performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, conductor Christopher Wilkins seemed to consider inviting the audience to sing along.

It would have been very much in keeping with the spirit shared throughout E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday evening, May 9. The orchestra winningly combined local pride and popular classics to conclude the concert year, and as if on cue, the community turned out in enthusiastic response.

With Orff as the main offering, the Akron Symphony attracted its biggest audience for a classical program in a decade, according to the organization’s own tally.

Called on as choristers, any crowd could probably manage a passable imitation of the famous opening “O Fortuna” — those fateful clashing chords that set the wheel of Carmina Burana spinning. But someone listening attentively to the piece might be tempted to join in whenever a refrain starts up.

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Akron Symphony goes for glory in Handel’s Messiah (Nov. 15)

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by Peter Feher

The holiday season got off to an early start at E.J. Thomas Hall over the weekend, with the Akron Symphony and Chorus reveling in a performance of Handel’s Messiah.

In truth, it’s tradition for this great oratorio — which embraces the New Testament theme of Jesus as savior — to arrive ahead of schedule. Handel intended the work to be presented each year during Lent, when theaters were otherwise closed and only entertainment of the most ennobling character was allowed. But in the centuries following its 1742 premiere, Messiah crept up the concert calendar to become a Christmas favorite.

Never mind that the famous “Hallelujah” Chorus comes from Part 2 of the oratorio, which recounts Christ’s death and resurrection. Part 1 includes the Nativity, and it was to this opening section that the Akron Symphony and music director Christopher Wilkins devoted themselves on Saturday, November 15.

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Akron Symphony: Mahler’s emotional rollercoaster (Mar. 1)

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by Stephanie Manning

“Welcome to Mahler’s 2nd,” read the program leaflet I was handed while entering E.J. Thomas Hall on March 1. “You’re in for an emotional rollercoaster — big drama, quiet reflection, and an ending that will shake the walls (and maybe your soul).”

The Akron Symphony’s latest program certainly delivered on that promise. Most ensembles devote the entire evening to Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, an almost 90-minute work, and Akron was no different. Conductor Christopher Wilkins led a stirring performance from the extra-large orchestra, together with the Akron Symphony Chorus, the Metropolitan Chorus of Summit Choral Society, soprano Sonya Headlam, and alto Amanda Lynn Bottoms. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony concludes season at a high point with Mozart, Boulanger & Ravel (May 11)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Unfinished works seem to be held in higher esteem for their being incomplete — the remaining music feeling more precious, conscious as we are of what else might have been lost. How to explain then, the impact of Mozart’s Mass in c, K. 427, lacking an Agnus Dei and missing half of its Credo, and yet seeming gloriously whole in its current state?

On Saturday, May 11 at EJ Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Christopher Wilkins ended its 2023-24 season at an apex with Mozart’s “Great” Mass and works by French composers Lili Boulanger and Maurice Ravel.

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Akron Symphony celebrates milestones for itself, and for E.J. Thomas Hall (Sept. 29)

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by Peter Feher

The Akron Symphony fully embraced tradition with its opening-night concert this season. In an all-out performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on September 29 at E.J. Thomas Hall, the Orchestra was recreating a major moment from its history. And at the end of the evening, as the finale of the “Ode to Joy” resounded throughout the hall, the program transformed into a complete celebration.

The choice of music had everything to do with the special occasion. E.J. Thomas turns 50 this year, and to mark that anniversary (and kick off its own 70th season), the Akron Symphony reprised the same piece it played for the hall’s inaugural concert in October 1973.

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Akron Symphony: sincerity and solace in Brahms’ German Requiem (May 13)

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by Stephanie Manning

It’s not unusual to hear Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem with chorus and piano four-hands, rather than chorus and orchestra. Music-loving Clevelanders may even have heard that version recently, as it’s been popping up on local programs. But on Saturday, May 13, the Akron Symphony Orchestra and Chorus teamed up for a performance of the work that would satisfy lovers of both versions alike.

Before the Requiem, however, the Orchestra and music director Christopher Wilkins opened the evening with Valerie Coleman’s Umoja. Best known in its arrangement for woodwind quintet, the piece gained an orchestral version a few years ago — one that uses the diverse timbres of the bigger ensemble to put a new spin on the work. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony Chorus: a conversation with assistant director Karen Ni Bhroin

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by Daniel Hathaway

Through a lucky series of encounters, Irish conductor Karen Ni Bhroin (pronounced Knee VRIN) found her way first to graduate studies at Kent State University, then to the assistant conductor’s position with the Akron Symphony Chorus, and most recently — the news came down just this morning — to her appointment as assistant conductor with the Winston-Salem Symphony.

In that second capacity, the 29-year-old conductor is preparing the Akron Symphony Chorus for its performance of the Mozart Requiem under Christopher Wilkins on Saturday evening, February 22 at E.J. Thomas Hall.

I reached Ni Bhroin by telephone to ask how that chain of events got started. “I had been freelancing in Dublin for five years after my undergraduate degree at Trinity College, and in 2013 I met Jungho Kim, who was finishing his doctorate at Eastman,” she said. “We were Facebook friends, and he posted in 2018 that he was looking for an assistant at Kent State, and that’s how it all started. I applied and I won the position. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony in “Symphonic Shakespeare” (Oct. 19)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Shakespeare is everywhere these days: not just at the roots of today’s literature, poetry, philosophy, pop culture, and theatre, but as the ultimate canonic figure in the arts. His fame helps keep him famous. Titles of novels riff on the fact that his work remains required reading; Supreme Court justices make headlines for doubting his authorship; tempests in teapots brew when people move his portrait. Classical music, with its piano-adorning composer busts, boasts figures of comparable monumentality. In presenting music on Shakespearean themes and scenarios in a recent concert, however, the Akron Symphony seized a chance to savor works of rarer vintages. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony:
“Symphonic Shakespeare”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins has long had an interest in theater. “I’ve kept my eye out for theater-related projects for years and years and years,” he said during an interview.

One of those projects was Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream interleaved with a significant chunk of Shakespeare’s play, a production ClevelandClassical.com reviewed in 2014. “I’ve also done The Tempest with the complete incidental music by Sibelius,” Wilkins said. “But these next two pieces are knockouts.”

Those would be Shostakovich’s Hamlet Film Suite and William Walton’s Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario, which make up two-thirds of “Symphonic Shakespeare,” the Orchestra’s program this Saturday, October 19 at 8:00 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall.

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Akron Symphony & Chorus in Beethoven’s “Eroica” & Mass in C (Apr. 6)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Most musicians and music history buffs recount Beethoven’s life as a three-part story of artistic progress, from early indebtedness to precedent, through the heroic rupturing of tradition, then on to strange yet sublime experiments. However, smart concert programming can remind us that this central figure of the classical pantheon, like most artists, tended to zigzag. [Read more…]

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