Thanks for the memories

It’s been a privilege. I can truthfully say I have loved every minute of writing about the arts in Cincinnati for the Cincinnati Enquirer. I am thankful to you, the readers of both print and digital, the people who have called me, written letters, followed me on social media, come up to me at Music Hall to say hello or to talk about music, and who have taken my OLLI class, “Behind the Scenes in the Arts.”

It has been a wonderful, totally unexpected ride that became 26 years almost overnight.

From the first day that I walked into the newsroom, never having taken a journalism course, I was starstruck by the people who worked there. What talent and creativity! In those days, I filed a review right after the symphony concert on Friday nights, which meant I raced to my car behind Music Hall, tore Downtown to the Enquirer building while forming the opening lines in my head, and wrote on a deadline of 45 minutes with a copy desk editor barking, “Where’s that review?” Loved those late-night editors, who would fix my typos and write the headlines. The best one described a pianist, to be nameless here, who slogged through a bizarre performance of Rach 2: “(Pianist) phones it in — From Mars.” I was usually home by 2 a.m. and the review was in the morning paper.

With James Conlon and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus at Carnegie Hall, May 2014; photo provided by Spring for Music, Steve Sherman

But besides the reviews, I have loved writing stories about people. Sometimes I think that the whole artistic world has passed through Cincinnati. I’ve interviewed and met opera stars, violin legends, conductors, composers, crooners, rockers and movie stars. I couldn’t believe going backstage at the Met to interview Cincinnati’s own James Levine, who had pictures of his childhood home behind his desk. He knew everything happening in the Queen City. His mother, Helen, it turned out, had been sending him all of my clippings.

Then there was Rosemary Clooney. Driving down to Augusta, Kentucky, with photographer Craig Ruttle to spend time in her home was unforgettable. Later, John Kiesewetter, Jim Knippenberg and I covered her funeral. Yes, there were Hollywood stars. But more touching were the folks of Maysville who came out to bring their “girl singer” back home.

With rocker Peter Frampton in his studio at his Indian Hill home talking about his gig with the Pops.

With Rosemary Clooney and her husband, Dante DiPaolo

When Erich Kunzel died in 2009, I was proud that Reds announcer Marty Brennaman mentioned during the game the next day that The Enquirer had done a nice job on his obituary.  Early that morning, I was interviewed on NPR about the Cincinnati Pops maestro, and the force of nature that he was. And about a week later, I was on tour in Japan with the CSO.  On a day off at the mountainous shrine of Nikko, a man in my tour group said as we ate lunch, “Cincinnati. I heard you just lost a conductor there.” He’d heard my interview, 6,000 miles away.

In a recording session with Paavo Järvi and Bob Woods of Telarc at Music Hall

I was privileged to take six international tours with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, including Japan and China. For me, they were hard-working tours, which involved filing a story late after a concert and getting up early to travel to the next city.  (I always arranged my own hotels and found my own way to the cities and concert halls.) Besides hearing our orchestra play in spectacular concert halls around the world, there were memorable days off. One of my favorites was taking a train to the Alexander Horn factory in Mainz, Germany, with the CSO’s horn section, and getting a special tour because I could ask for it auf Deutsch. I’ll never forget Charles Bell’s comment as we toured:  “It’s basically just plumbing.”

On tour with the CSO, Suntory Hall, Tokyo

My job has allowed me to play keyboards from the Emery Carillon in Mariemont to the calliope on the Mississippi Queen. (Both were loud.) I sang in a rehearsal with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I had the joy of covering Cincinnati’s ATP tennis tournament (now Western & Southern Open) one summer for the sports section. I covered the 2012 World Choir Games in 100-degree heat, mostly by myself, save for my intrepid editor, Julie Engebrecht. And I traveled with the cast of Cincinnati Opera’s “Margaret Garner” to the Kentucky farm where Garner had been enslaved. It was, for me, the most powerful moment of my career.

At the ESPN desk with tennis legend Cliff Drysdale

I have loved digging into Cincinnati’s musical history. We all knew that Aaron Copland wrote “Fanfare for the Common Man” for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. But did we know the whole story? What a privilege it was to see and touch his original manuscript in the Library of Congress, and to work with talented Enquirer photo-journalists Meg Vogel and Carrie Cochran, editor Amy Wilson  — and CSO trumpeters — to produce, altogether, a masterpiece about Copland’s masterpiece. Thank you.

Then there’s jazz. I finally met Dave Brubeck backstage at Music Hall after interviewing him by phone for many years. And what fun it was to be on Carmon DeLeone’s show, “Sunday Morning Music Hall” (WARM 98), eating cookies and listening to Brubeck. How amazing it was to witness an impromptu jam session by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at the now-defunct Blue Wisp Jazz Club after their show at the Aronoff.

With Dave Brubeck at Music Hall

I’ve written countless stories about the wealth of culture that exists in this region. But I’m also proud to have been, with support from good editors, the kind of “watchdog” reporter who calls for transparency from organizations that receive public funding. I’ve covered the renovations and openings of major concert halls — Music Hall, Chicago, Cleveland, Dayton and Miami — and reported on all of the arts institutions’ finances, in good times and bad.

Playing calliope on the Mississippi Queen on the Ohio River

Besides the big stars, I have enjoyed writing about you, the people who play in bands and community orchestras, who usher at Music Hall or who comfort patients at Children’s Hospital as music therapists. About the teachers who guide the stars of the future at the University of Cincinnati’s CCM and the School for Creative and Performing Arts, and who teach at-risk kids in Price Hill how to play Beethoven in an orchestra.

About a Bengals coach who takes piano lessons. Or about the woman who is the last of her generation from the family that established the Baldwin Piano Company, and she still plays her Baldwin pianos in her home.

In Cincinnati, there will always be wonderful stories about the arts to tell.

Last Tuesday, I left the Enquirer.

It’s been a privilege.