Press Room

April 6, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Rodger Pille, piller@cincymuseum.org, (513) 287-7054

Music in the Museum concert series features British-American

concert organist Carlo Curley with the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus

April 23, 2007 at 7:30 p.m.

CINCINNATI, OHIO—Acclaimed British-American Concert Organist Carlo Curley will perform at Cincinnati Museum Center on the famous E. M. Skinner Symphonic Concert Pipe Organ.

Curley, an American organist living in England, has made many appearances for the BBC including organ spectaculars from the Cathedrals at Ely, Lichfield, Norwich, Guilford and Gloucester. He has played before numerous crowned heads of Europe and toured widely including the Americas, the Far East and throughout Europe. 

Press reviews include: “All he interprets bears the inimitable stamp of his larger-than-life personality,” and “This is an artist who shares his musical joy with others and with personal charm.”

The world-renowned Cincinnati May Festival Chorus, formed in 1880 and directed by Robert Porco since 1989, is the core artistic element of the Cincinnati May Festival. This talented group of volunteers devotes countless hours to rehearsals and performances all year long. In addition to May Festival performances, the Chorus has sung at Carnegie Hall, toured Europe and regularly appears with the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras.

The program on April 23 will include works of Bach, Beethoven, Davies, Dvorák, Franck, Gardiner, Handel, Lindblad, Parry, Stanley and Wagner.

The “Music in the Museum” concert series of Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal features internationally acclaimed concert organists performing on the renowned 1929 E. M. Skinner Symphonic Concert Pipe Organ in the lush, reverberant acoustic of the Museum Center Rotunda.

“The Skinner instrument in the Museum Center is of world class – and – because of the acoustics – one of the truly greatest organs of the world,”  writes Dr. Charles Callahan, author of The American Classic Organ, composer and concert organist.

“This organ is, without question, one of the finest examples of Skinner’s few surviving masterpieces.   Each stop—even the quietest of ranks—beautifully ‘couples’ with the room itself, so that each individual voice may be fully appreciated on its own. This organ can certainly produce a convincing traditional plenum sound—a brilliant classic organ forte—yet it also has a rich palate of orchestral color, making it a transcription player’s dream instrument,”  writes Wanamaker Grand Court Organist  Peter Richard Conte.

Tickets are $18 each. Order by phone by calling (513) 287-7001 or 1-800-733-2077, on-line at www.cincymuseum.org, or at Museum Center Box Office.

Cincinnati Museum Center gratefully acknowledges operating and capital support from the City of Cincinnati, Hamilton County and the State of Ohio.

Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal is home to the Cincinnati History Museum, Duke Energy Children's Museum, the Museum of Natural History & Science, the Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX® Theater, and the Cincinnati Historical Society Library. It is a nationally recognized educational and research resource and one of the top cultural attractions in the Midwest. Cincinnati Museum Center serves more than 1.47 million visitors annually, reaching out to almost 200,000 young people through hands-on exhibits and programs. Originally built in 1933 as the Union Terminal train station, the building is a national historic landmark and was renovated and reopened as Cincinnati Museum Center in 1990. For information, call (513) 287-7000 or 1-800-733-2077 or visit www.cincymuseum.org.

# # #