Category Archives: Uncategorized

2012-2013 Season
League of Cincinnati Theatres Award Nominees
SPECIALIZED CONTRIBUTION, FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY

• Drew Fracher | THE THREE MUSKETEERS | Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

$27,000 Awarded in Arts Scholarships

CINCINNATI, OH – The Cincinnati Arts Association is pleased to announce the winners of its 2013 Overture Awards Scholarship Competition, held on Saturday, March 2, 2013 at the Aronoff Center’s Jarson-Kaplan Theater. The competition annually awards $3,000 scholarships to six area students for post-secondary education, with 18 runners-up each winning $500 scholarships. Students are nominated by their schools to compete in one of six disciplines: Creative Writing, Dance, Instrumental Music, Theater, Visual Art, or Vocal Music. The scholarship program is the largest of its kind in the United States and was developed to recognize, encourage and reward excellence in the arts among Tri-state students in grades 9-12. There are three levels of competition: Regional, Semi-Final and Final.

2013 Overture Awards Scholarship Winners

CREATIVE WRITING: Olivia Linn – Wyoming High School, grade 11
HOMETOWN: Wyoming, Ohio – Olivia has been writing since she was in the third grade, when she began her involvement with Women Writing for a Change. She attributes her love of writing and strength of voice to this organization. Olivia plans to pursue writing in college and hopes to see the world outside of the Midwest.

DANCE: Angela Vettikkal – Cultural Centre of India / William Mason High School, grade 11
HOMETOWN: Mason, Ohio – Angela loved to dance as a child, starting with ballet and tap at age four and Indian Classical dance from age eight. She studies at the Cultural Centre of India and Shree School of Dance. Angela volunteers at a hospital and hopes to use her talents to serve the community.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC: Jacqueline Tso – Sycamore High School, grade 11
HOMETOWN: Loveland, Ohio – Jacqueline Tso studies violin with Almita and Roland Vamos in Chicago. Jackie is the concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra. She was the winner of the Overture Awards in 2011; BAMSO (Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony Orchestra) Concerto Competition in 2008, 2009, and 2012; and participated in the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition in 2012.

THEATER: Reginald Hemphill – Walter Pool Studio / School for Creative and Performing Arts, grade 12
HOMETOWN: Mt. Airy, Ohio – Reggie is a drama and vocal major at SCPA, and studies voice with Walter Pool. He performs with three ensembles: Jazpel, Meridian 8, and Tremelo. During his time at SCPA, he has appeared as King Duncan in Macbeth, The Lion in The Wizard of Oz, and the Stage Manager in Our Town. He was a Corbett Mayerson Scholarship Finalist at SCPA. He is also an Eagle Scout with Troop 591. He plans to study theater at Miami University, Northern Kentucky University, Ohio Wesleyan, or the University of Cincinnati in the fall.

VISUAL ART: Abigail Koch – Lakota West High School, grade 12
HOMETOWN: West Chester, Ohio – In addition to her classes at Lakota West, Abigail has taken private art classes at Schain Studios for two years. Her passion lies not just in visual art, but also theater, and she is involved with both school and community theater groups on and off-stage. She plans to pursue fine arts in college.

VOCAL MUSIC: Matthew Pearce – Walter Pool Studio / Larry A. Ryle High School, grade 12
HOMETOWN: Union, Kentucky – Matthew has spent his whole life singing and playing instruments at school and church. He is currently studying with Walter Pool and is preparing for college where he will be a Vocal Performance major. He is the tuba section leader, tenor section leader, and choir president at Ryle High School. He also sings in a choir and a praise team, plays in a brass group, and plays hand bells at church.

The Overture Awards Regional Competitions were held on January 12 at the Aronoff Center for the Arts, Immanuel United Methodist Church (Lakeside Park, KY), Saint Ursula Academy, University of Cincinnati – Blue Ash College, and Xavier University. The top 20 percent of competitors in each discipline advanced to the Semi-Finals, which were held at the Aronoff Center on January 18 and 19. Twenty-four finalists (four in each discipline) competed in the Finals Competition at the Aronoff Center’s Jarson-Kaplan Theater on March 2.

Now in its 17th year, The Overture Awards was launched in 1996 by the Cinergy Foundation (now Duke Energy) and Leadership Cincinnati (a program of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce). The Overture Awards is funded and administered by the Cincinnati Arts Association, which operates and manages the Aronoff Center and Music Hall. The Overture Awards also relies on hundreds of volunteers from the community who help raise funds, adjudicate and manage the competitions, and nurture the program.

Overture Awards Program Sponsors: Carey Digital; Citi; The Eleanora C.U. Alms Trust, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee; Ft. Washington Investment Advisors

Scholarship Sponsors: Arthur Murray – Cincinnati; Doreen Beatrice; Bonita Brockert; Cincinnati Ballroom; Dare to Dance; The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation; Step-N-Out Studio; Stock Yards Bank & Trust; Summerfair Cincinnati; The William O. Purdy, Jr. Foundation; Western & Southern Financial Fund.

Competition Sponsors: Buddy Roger’s Music, Immanuel United Methodist Church (Lakeside Park, KY), Pebble Creek Group, St. Ursula Academy, University of Cincinnati – Blue Ash College, Xavier University.

The 2013 Overture Awards Finalists
Winners listed in bold.

CREATIVE WRITING

• Sarah Dorger – Indian Hill High School, grade12
• Jordan Lenchitz – Indian Hill High School, grade 11
• Olivia Linn – Wyoming High School, grade 11
• Deborah Rocheleau – Rocheleau Home School, grade 12 

DANCE

• Jordan Betscher – Just Off Broadway / Home school, grade 9
• Ally Garcia – McGing Irish Dancers / Campbell County High School, grade 11
• Megan Kernan – Just Off Broadway / Turpin High School, grade10
• Angela Vettikkal – Cultural Centre of India / William Mason High School, grade 11

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

• Isabella Geis – Walnut Hills High School, grade 9
• Vivian Tong – Walnut Hills High School, grade 11
• Jacqueline Tso – Sycamore High School, grade 11
• Joseph Vaz – Practice to Prosper Piano Studio / Sycamore High School, grade 10 

THEATER

• Elliot Handkins – Sycamore High School, grade 12
• Reginald Hemphill – Walter Pool Studio / School for Creative and Performing Arts,grade 12
• Jo Ellen Pellman – Walnut Hills High School, grade 11
• Megan T. Urz – Calvary Christian School, grade 12 

VISUAL ART

• Kevin Butler – Kings High School, grade 12
• Abigail Koch – Lakota West High School, grade 12
• Sandra Mattingly – School for Creative and Performing Arts, grade 12
• Whitney Ransdell – St. Henry District High School, grade 12

VOCAL MUSIC

• Abigail Hellmann – Ursuline Academy, grade 12
• Gabriel Montefiore – McCready Voice Studio / Walnut Hills High School, grade 12
• Matthew Pearce – Walter Pool Studio / Larry A. Ryle High School, grade 12
• Elisabeth Yates – Ross High School, grade 12

As part of CCM’s year-long Kurt Weill Festival, Musical Theatre students explore Weill’s early work in Berlin along with his Broadway successes in America with an original evening of cabaret-style entertainment on March 3 and 10.

CINCINNATI, OH — The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) continues to study and celebrate the work of composer Kurt Weill with Into a Lamplit Room: The Songs of Kurt Weill presented by CCM’s Department of Musical Theatre at 7 p.m. on both Sunday, March 3, and Sunday, March 10.

Devised and directed by CCM Distinguished Chair of Musical Theatre Aubrey Berg with musical direction by Julie Spangler and musical staging by Joey Dippel, this evening of cabaret-style entertainment offers a compilation of Weill songs in the intimate setting of UC’s Cohen Family Studio Theater.

Raised in Dessau, Germany, Weill experienced early success in Berlin, including several notable collaborations with playwright Bertolt Brecht. Weill fled the new Nazi leadership in March 1933 and continued his indefatigable efforts, first in Paris (1933-35), then in the U.S. until his death in 1950. Certain common threads tie together Weill’s career: a concern for social justice, an aggressive pursuit of highly regarded playwrights and lyricists as collaborators, and the ability to adapt to audience tastes no matter where he found himself.

Into a Lamplit Room draws on Weill’s work in both Berlin and the United States. “The best-known revue of Weill music, Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill, was performed Off-Broadway at the Theatre de Lys in 1972,” Berg explains. “That work presents Weill’s songs in chronological order to create a biographical portrait of the composer. Into a Lamplit Room arranges the works thematically, freely mixing songs from Weill’s Berlin period with songs from his Broadway successes.”

CCM’s revue begins at Weill’s funeral in 1950, after he suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 50. Senior Greg Kamp plays the role of Weill in this production (Kamp also plays Tiger Brown in CCM’s production of Weill and Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera), which looks back at the composer’s relatively short life and the topics that featured repeatedly in his works. “Into a Lamplit Room mixes well-known songs such as ‘Mack the Knife,’ arranged by Julie Spangler in the style of the Manhattan Transfer, with obscure songs that Weill wrote for revues supporting the American war effort,” says Berg.

This production’s title comes from a quotation etched on Weill’s gravestone at the Mount Repose Cemetery in Haverstraw, N.Y. The text comes from the song “A Bird of Passage” from Weill and playwright Maxwell Anderson’s 1949 musical Lost in the Stars, itself adapted from a quotation from the Venerable Bede:

“This is the life of men on earth:
Out of darkness we come at birth
Into a lamplit room, and then –
Go forward into dark again.”

Speaking at Weill’s funeral, Anderson remarked, “I wish, of course, that he had been lucky enough to have had a little more time for his work. I could wish the times in which he lived had been less troubled. But these things were as they were – and Kurt managed to make thousands of beautiful things during the short and troubled time he had … .”

According to Berg, “’Into a Lamplit Room’ gives us a glimpse of those ‘beautiful things.’”

This production runs concurrently with CCM’s Mainstage Series production of Weill and Brecht’s iconic The Threepenny Opera (Feb. 28 – March 10). These two productions share many of the same cast members, and both are made possible by the generous support of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc.

Performance Times

• 7 p.m. Sunday, March 3
• 7 p.m. Sunday, March 10

Location

Cohen Family Studio Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Purchasing Tickets
Tickets to Into a Lamplit Room are $15 for adults, $10 for non-UC students and free for UC students with valid ID.

Tickets can be purchased in person at the CCM Box Office or over the telephone at 513-556-4183.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.

About the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music
The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music Inc. administers, promotes and perpetuates the legacies of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. It encourages broad dissemination and appreciation of Weill’s music through support of performances, productions, recordings and scholarship; it fosters understanding of Weill’s and Lenya’s lives and work within diverse cultural contexts; and, building upon the legacies of both, it nurtures talent, particularly in the creation, performance and study of musical theater in its various manifestations and media. Learn more about the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music by visiting www.kwf.org.

Into a Lamplit Room is a contin­uation of a year-long festival funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music. Other upcoming festival events include the CCM Chamber Choir and Brass Choir’s performance of Weill’s Kiddush (Prayer for Sanctification) at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 10, and the CCM Chorale will perform “Ho Billy, O!” from Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s 1948 musical Love Life at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12.

Funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York, NY

The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation: Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor

ArtsWave: Community Partner

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is recognized both nationally and internationally as one of the leading conservatories for the performing and electronic media arts, composition, scholarship and pedagogy. 

CCM is the largest single source of performing arts events in Ohio with an annual calendar of nearly 1,000 performances and presentations, ranging from solo recitals to full-scale opera and musical theatre performances. 

All event dates and programs are subject to change. For a complete calendar of events or to view CCM’s 2012-2013 season brochure visit our website at http://ccm.uc.edu. 

UC’s College-Conservatory of Music – The Sound of Synergy