I was given these three radishes by my grandmother for luck this year.  You’re supposed to leave them out somewhere in your house and they slowly dry out over time.  I think I was given some last year and I don’t remember where I put them.  Oh well, I guess that explains last year!

The picture pretty much sums up Super Bowl XLII.  The Patriots go from being the best team to the biggest disappointment ever.  It’s an amazing accomplishment to win 18 straight games, but not being able to close out the Super Bowl is going to haunt them even more than any other Super Bowl loser.  They seemed to be a team of destiny, able to will themselves to victory at the end of the game.  You never got the feeling that they were going to lose.  But, the Super Bowl was different.  Tom Brady was different.  In the third quarter you could see something different in Tom Brady’s eyes.  Almost a look of confusion.  It’s something I had never seen before.  But, still they followed pattern and took the lead with 3 minutes left.  The last drive usually goes the Patriots’ way as the quarterback usually makes an error and throws an interception that ends the game.  But not this game.

I mocked Eli Manning’s Citizen Eco-Drive Unstoppable ad in an earlier blog entry.  He’s still not unstoppable.  Now that Tom Brady has been stopped, no one is “unstoppable”.  It’ll be interesting to see where Eli Manning goes from here.  Has he finally turned the proverbial corner or has he just had an extended hot streak?

At the Shell gas station on Liberty in Over the Rhine, you’ll hear classical music piped over the speakers, not to entertain patrons like me, but as an audible youth repellent.  Classical music hasn’t met the changing times and the audiences continue to grow older and older.

But, Concert:Nova, a new dynamic ensemble group changes that.  Cool and fresh, Concert:Nova fuses the classical with the contemporary that rejuvenates the art form.  Performed in a non-traditional setting, with unique visual twists, Concert:Nova is a fun, relaxed, hip evening of music that is a much needed expansion of the musical scene in Cincinnati.

Concert:Nova is the creation of Ixi Chen, a clarinetist in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  She has assembled a highly talented group of musicians from the Cincinnati Symphony and Chamber Orchestra.  The choice of instrumentation in the pieces are unique and fun.  Instead of a traditional lead musician playing a violin, you’ll hear it in the flute or even a trombone.   The advantage of a small ensemble performance is that you can truly hear the beauty in the music and the expertise of the performers.  At the symphony, you’re separated farther from the performers and with so many musicians it’s harder to appreciate the individual skills of the players.  But, in an intimate setting, you can see the musicians draw their breath and phrase as they feel the music that they’re performing.

Concert:Nova also seeks to bring talented new musicians to town.  In their last performance on December 3, 2007, Nico Abondolo, Double bass, and Nadine Sierra, a soprano were the featured guest soloists.


Nadine Sierra is an up and coming 19 year old soprano.  Recently reviewed in the NYTimes, they described her as:

“Already she possesses something that can hardly be taught: a commanding stage presence, complete with flashing eyes, a winning smile and unmannered gestures.”

Seeing her perform up close you could see her power and her beauty.  I believe that the next time she comes to town she’ll be performing on a much bigger stage.

Nico Abondolo brought humor and a human face to music.  Nico spoke a bit about his experiences performing in many motion picture soundtracks in film.  Nico brought the house down with his performance of a very non-traditional piece called “Failing: a very difficult piece for solo bass”.

Concert:Nova closed the performance with Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man”.  Truly a great night of music.
I’d tell you to go to see Concert:Nova to support Cincinnati music, but that would be selling Concert:Nova short.  You should go because it’s great a blend of music performed by world class musicians in a jazz like environment.  What more could you ask for?
All concert images copyright Concert:Nova.  Used with permission.