PERSPECTIVE — James Conlon served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival from 1979 through 2016 — one of the longest tenures for any artistic leader of an American classical-music institution.
It was a time of significant growth and success for what is said to be the oldest choral festival in the Western Hemisphere, but afterward, its leaders wanted a bold, new artistic direction. As a kind of counterpoint to Conlon’s leadership constancy, they agreed after an interim period to adopt a structure of rotating directors, each programming one season of concerts.
“We ultimately decided that we would benefit from having an annual infusion of creative energy into the festival that would give us the flexibility to lean into the full potential of what choral music has to tell us about the 21st century,” said Robert McGrath, president and chief executive officer of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and part of a committee that shaped the new direction.
This year’s festival director is Julia Bullock, a Grammy Award-winning American soprano, who succeeds composer Julia Wolfe and soprano Renée Fleming in the role. She has made her name in part as a muse to composer John Adams, starring in the world premiere of two of his operas — Girls of the Golden West (2017) and Antony and Cleopatra (2022).
Bullock sheepishly admits that she had never heard of the festival when she was invited to take over its creative helm for a year, but she did her research and quickly discovered its 153-year history and its stature in the international choral community.
“It being the oldest music festival in the Western Hemisphere really interested and delighted me,” said Bullock via email, “because it shows not only a musical commitment but a cultural commitment to those living in this city. But what surprised me was how supported I would come to feel as a partner as I undertook the wonderfully intense role as festival director.”
She started working three years ago on the 2026 line-up, which runs May 15-23 with four main programs and an array of subsidiary offerings.
“I took my time researching and sending proposals,” Bullock said, “and from there, we were able to determine what was possible and who to engage. But essentially everything I proposed was incorporated into this season’s festival in one way or another. And I cannot wait for us all to take part!”
Drawing on the strong tradition of English and German singing societies in Cincinnati, Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, a prominent Cincinnati arts patron and the founder of the Rookwood Pottery company, began organizing what would become the Cincinnati May Festival in the early 1870s. She managed to persuade conductor Theodore Thomas (founder of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) to lead the event’s inaugural installment if Storer could put together a “guarantee fund” of $50,000 — about $1.2 million today — that would assure it would take place, and she did.
Thomas went on to serve as the event’s music director through 1904, with other prominent conductors taking on the role in subsequent years, including Eugène Ysaÿe (1918–1920), Eugene Goossens (1931–1946), Josef Krips (1954-1960), and James Levine (1974-78). An early artistic coup for the festival came in 1906 with British composer and conductor Edward Elgar leading three of that season’s concerts.
A leaky roof and other problems with the festival’s original venue led railroad tycoon Reuben Springer to donate $125,000 (about $3.2 million today) toward the construction of what became known as the Cincinnati Music Hall, now the home of the city’s symphony orchestra, ballet, and opera. The May Festival, which became an annual event in 1967, inaugurated the structure in 1878, and it has taken place there since.
“There is nothing like the May Festival,” said Matthew Swanson, the festival’s director of choruses since 2024. “It is unique in our country, and really from my point of view, around the world.” To back his claim, he pointed to its four entirely different programs of symphonic choral repertoire in a span of eight days or so — a density of repertoire that just a handful of other festivals in the world can muster.
The heart and soul of the May Festival is its 145-voice volunteer chorus, which draws singers from some 90 zip codes in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, some driving more than an hour to take part in rehearsals and performances. New members are added each year through auditions, and existing participants are required to re-audition every two years to ensure the continuing quality of the ensemble.
“We are a great champion of volunteer choruses,” Swanson said. “Since its beginning in 1873, the May Festival has been about gathering a group of people together from the community to perform these works. And to do that with an orchestra of the caliber of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is a great thing.”
What sets Cincinnati apart from many other cities in the United States is the close interaction between its major performing arts organizations. “All of this developed over time, dating back to the 1800s in ways that allows a community like Cincinnati to have a performing arts scene that outperforms the market size of the metropolitan area,” McGrath said.
The Cincinnati Symphony, for example, serves as the pit orchestra for the Cincinnati Ballet and Cincinnati Opera, and the May Festival Chorus acts as the house chorus for the symphony and the Cincinnati Pops. But ties between the symphony and the May Festival go even deeper, with many of the orchestra’s staff in realms such as production, human resources, and finance working as shared employees, dedicating five to 15 percent of their time to the festival.
“How amazing to have those two components in the same eco-system in the same city connected to related organizations so we can be very strategic about how we are bringing in new audiences and cultivating their relationship with classical music and singing, too — that’s powerful,” said Julianne Akins Smith, the festival’s executive director.
The recent rotating system of directors has allowed the festival to inject new perspectives and excitement into its offerings. The three visiting leaders so far have been a composer and two singers, but festival administrators say that a conductor or other kinds of musicians could serve in the role as well. A committee of board members, chorus members, orchestra musicians, and festival singers is tasked with finding each season’s festival director, working about three years in advance.
“It introduces a sense of broadness to it,” Swanson said. “We get to welcome and invite ideas from across the country and around the world — that person’s particular taste and artistic interests, projects they want to share and collaborators they bring with them.”
Bullock sent festival organizers a highly detailed list of ideas for the 2026 festival, including works she really wanted to see represented like Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, all of which can be found on the festival’s programs. She even had suggestions for supporting activities, including what became the May Festival Flower Project, with festival-inspired flower installations in the Music Hall during the run of the festival. Partners for that endeavor include the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and Clifton Cultural Arts Center.
The season line-up was assembled through a highly collaborative process in which Bullock’s artistic aspirations were balanced with such practical parameters as rehearsal limitations and technical limits. Taking part in the artistic planning beside Bullock, Smith, and Swanson were Jason Alexander Holmes, associate director of choruses, and Anthony Paggett, the Cincinnati Symphony’s chief artistic officer.
A particular stand-out on this year’s line-up is the May 15 kick-off program, which is aptly titled An Eclectic Opening Night. It includes Bruckner’s Psalm 150, selections from Zemlinsky’s Symphonische Gesänge, and songs by Margaret Bonds, one of Bullock’s must-have composers. Culminating the lineup will be what is billed as the Eclectic Mass, a group of works from past and present curated by Bullock and the festival artistic team. It includes assembled excerpts from Bond’s Credo, Carlos Simon’s Good News Mass and Sanctus, and Palestrina’s Missa Assumpta est Maria.
“It took months of back and forth as we decided on the repertoire,” Bullock said. “And because we gave ourselves a lot of lead-in time, there was no rush. Will it work as a musical statement? We shall see… But the intention is there.”
As for what comes next at the May Festival, the announcement of its 2027 director will be made during this season’s final concert on May 23. “I really like the idea of focusing hype on that finale,” Smith said. “You need to be there in person to hear it first.”
