With its gothic architecture, a façade modeled after Notre Dame in Paris, and one of the largest stained-glass windows in the world, the beauty of Covington’s Cathedral-Basilica of the Assumption is staggering. Join the May Festival Chamber Choir and May Festival Youth Chorus for a tradition that began over 40 years ago—music in a sacred space where voices bloom.

Music Director Juanjo Meno opens the 150th Festival with world premieres by American composer James Lee III and former May Festival Creative Partner James MacMillan. Given its American premiere at the 1875 May Festival, Bach's celebratory Magnificat was described then as we would now— as "the highest form of human expression."

Celebrated Maestra Marin Alsop makes her May Festival debut with a showcase of composes who crafted the American musical identity. Samul Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is a lyrical dream of the Tennessee summer, while Aaron Coplants "The Promise of Living" rings with the hope of prosperity. The "uncanny radiance" (The New Yorker) of Robert Nathaniel Dett's The Ordering of Moses— a work the Festival premiered in 1937—Returns to Music Hall.

Conductor James Conlon, the beloved former Music Director of the May Festival whose 37-year tenure as artistic leader remains the longest in Festival history, returns to lead a new work by American composer Julia Adolphe and Mozart’s famous music for a Requiem mass. First performed by the May Festival in 1882, the Requiem radiates fearless brilliance—sacred music for The Last Judgement that touches on the sublime.

Mahler called his Eighth Symphony, “the biggest thing that I have ever done…in which the most beautiful instrument in the world is given its true place.” Music Director Juanjo Mena concludes the 150th May Festival with a work with gigantic proportions—music of triumph and transcendence that celebrates the power of the human voice, featuring the sounds of the Chorus and the CSO in the breathtaking space of Music Hall.