Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble Reveals 2023-24 Season Lineup

Cincinnati’s Vocal Arts Ensemble (VAE), led by Music Director and Grammy Award-winning artist Craig Hella Johnson, has announced its 2023-2024 season. The season includes Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor conducted by Craig Hella Johnson; an evening of contemporary, choral, gospel and folk music conducted by Grammy Award-nominated gospel music artist Isaac Cates; an intimate VAE Christmas celebration with Cincinnati’s own Queen City Cabaret, conducted by VAE member and acclaimed conductor Trevor Kroeger; and a brand-new VAE Salon Concert Series comprised of two 45-minute programs curated and conducted by VAE members Lauren McAllister and Christin Sears.

“All of us look forward to welcoming you to hear the exceptional vocal artists of Vocal Arts Ensemble in a variety of settings,” said Johnson. “Each of the vocalists in VAE is a soloist in their own right — this season you will have the opportunity to hear their vibrant artistry both when they perform as an ensemble and when they sing in more intimate settings as soloists and as chamber music artists.”

On Saturday, December 16 at Christ Church Cathedral, the Vocal Arts Ensemble led by acclaimed conductor and VAE member Trevor Kroeger will bring audiences a reimagining of its past candlelight holiday concerts. Joined by Cincinnati’s own vintage jazz duo, Queen City Cabaret, the program celebrates the season with fresh arrangements of beloved holiday classics.

In the New Year on January 27, 2024, at Zion Baptist Church, Grammy Award-nominated conductor and composer Isaac Cates will lead a program of music spanning several genres, including contemporary, choral, gospel and folk music traditions. Born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas, Cates has traveled the world singing, teaching music, directing choirs and serving as a clinician for international music seminars. The selections on the program will be united by the stories that have shaped Cates’ life and music career.

In two performances on Saturday, March 9 and Sunday, March 10, 2024 at Christ Church Cathedral, VAE Music Director Craig Hella Johnson returns for Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental Mass in B Minor. Widely regarded as one of the supreme achievements of the classical music repertoire, this will be VAE’s fifth performance of the work.

VAE Salon Concerts

The VAE season will be bookended by two brand-new VAE salon concerts that will take place at Music Hall’s Harry T. Wilks Studio. On Saturday, October 28, VAE member Lauren McAllister will conduct a musical exploration of the many roads people take to self-actualization. The program will include musical selections from Romantic era composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and one of the most celebrated American composers of the 20th century, Samuel Barber. The program also includes works by more contemporary composers, including Cleveland, Ohio native H. Leslie Adams and one of the most prominent and prolific composers of today, Stephen Paulus. Musical selections will be joined with poetry by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, American poet M.C. (Mary Caroline) Richards and Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, considered the greatest writer in modern Indian literature.

The season concludes on Thursday, April 4, 2024, with VAE member Christin Sears leading a VAE salon program centered on universal human experiences of life, longing, love and loss. The program will span music from 19th century British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to today’s Jamaican-British R&B recording artist Laura Mvula.

“I am thrilled to have been joined by VAE members Lauren McAllister, Christin Sears and Trevor Kroeger to curate our new salon concerts and a very distinctive and intimate holiday program,” said Johnson. “Additionally, we’re excited to have the gifted Isaac Cates, an internationally renowned gospel music leader who is equally at home on the classical music stage, as the guest conductor for the Harmony Across Traditions program. And, of course, I am thrilled to return to Cincinnati to conduct performances of J.S. Bach’s monumental masterpiece, his Mass in B Minor. These performances will feature VAE singers both within the ensemble and as soloists, and I look forward to bringing this profound and probing work to life again for our cherished VAE audiences. We welcome everyone to this joyful new season.”

Tickets for Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble’s 2023-2024 season are now available online at vaecinci.com or by calling 513.381.3300. For more information, visit vaecinci.com.

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