Why We Give
by Ken Smith
From full concerts at Music Hall to small pop-up performances in local neighborhoods and everything in between, our generous and dedicated donors, sponsors and concertgoers make it all possible. This article shares a special story about one important aspect of our Orchestra’s programming: commissioning new works. Our donors and their inspiring stories will ensure that the unique sound of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops will always resound.
You can join our family of donors online at cincinnatisymphony.org/donate or by contacting the Philanthropy Department at 513.744.3271. If you are interested in underwriting the commissioning of a new work, email development@cincinnatisymphony.org for more information.
ANN & HARRY SANTEN
When Ann Santen turned 50, Elliott Carter—then 80 years old—composed Enchanted Preludes for flute and cello in her honor. For her 80th birthday, she received Shimmer and Flow, a duet for clarinet and cello by the composer Pierre Jalbert, who had just turned 50.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that Santen brings a similar symmetry to Louis Langrée’s tenure with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. After Langrée’s inaugural appearance as Music Director with the performance of Jennifer Higdon’s On a Wire (in November 2013), which Santen and her husband Harry had co-commissioned as part of a consortium, the conductor marks his final program at the helm with the world premiere of another Santen commission: an orchestral song cycle by Anthony Davis titled Broken in Parts.
“It makes a nice bookend,” says the two-decade veteran head of WGUC-FM and stalwart champion of Cincinnati’s classical music scene. “I’d started a commissioning program at WGUC, and when I left the station in 1996 Harry and I just kept commissioning new works. After Louis came, it kind of got out of hand.”
By the end of his CSO tenure in May, Langrée will have conducted world premieres of 15 pieces commissioned by the Santens—a tally not counting the first part of Daníel Bjarnason’s tripartite symphony, which missed the original deadline and later appeared at the CSO under a different conductor, or Mark Simpson’s Piano Concerto, which still awaits its premiere. Even so, Davis’ song cycle duly celebrates Langrée’s remarkable relationship with Santen, who chaired the CSO search committee that originally recommended him for the job.
Santen traces her fascination with new music to her teenage years in Northern Kentucky, when the Louisville Orchestra launched its pioneering commissioning program, which generated dozens of new compositions each year. “It was an extraordinary project,” she still recalls, “with every composer you’d ever heard of, and major pieces still being performed today.”
Years later, after marrying and relocating to Cincinnati, Santen and her husband first dipped their toes in the new-music pond in the late 1970s by co-commissioning Ned Rorem’s Double Concerto for piano and cello—later retitled Remembering Tommy—soon after Rorem won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for Air Music (which the CSO had premiered the year before). That initial splash became a full immersion once Santen came to WGUC as music director and general manager.
After Santen stepped down from WGUC in 1996, she and her husband continued the practice, initially on a smaller scale for the Linton Chamber Music Series. Their CSO relationship began with a piece by Jeffrey Mumford to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in 2008. Then came five fanfares by various composers marking both WGUC’s 50th anniversary and former CSO Music Director Paavo Järvi’s 10th anniversary season. When Santen introduced CSO administrators to Cincinnati’s then-fledgling MusicNOW festival, the couple wound up funding another four commissions: Nico Muhly’s Pleasure Ground and David Lang’s mountain in 2014, Caroline Shaw’s Lo and Daníel Bjarnason’s Collider in 2015.
Then came the CSO’s Concerto Project. “Early on, I’d gone to Louis and said, ‘This orchestra is sounding so good under you, let’s commission a concerto for orchestra,’” Santen recalls. “He said, ‘That’s a wonderful idea! Let’s do three.’” The resulting trilogy (Sebastian Currier’s FLEX, Thierry Escaich’s Psalmos and Zhou Tian’s Concerto for Orchestra), premiered and recorded during the 2015–16 season, resulted in Grammy nominations for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Contemporary Composition.
To date, Ann and Harry Santen have underwritten the commissioning of 24 new works for the CSO—most during Langrée’s tenure as Music Director. “The creation of new works for orchestra is at the heart of our mission to seek and share inspiration,” says Mary McFadden Lawson, the CSO’s Chief Philanthropy Officer. “Underwriting these new works provides donors, like Ann and Harry Santen, a unique opportunity: to see a new piece of music come to life. Ann and Harry’s steadfast support and championing of new music has had a ripple effect—it has nurtured composers and musicians, provided the Orchestra with new artistic endeavors, and encouraged other donors to underwrite future commissions. With donors like the Santens, the CSO will continue its long legacy of performing the music of our time.”