47 minute read
Transformational Support
The DSO is grateful to the donors who have made extraordinary endowment investments through the DSO Impact Campaign or multi-year, comprehensive gifts to support general operations, capital improvements, or special programs.
FOUNDING FAMILIES
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Julie & Peter Cummings The Davidson-Gerson Family and the William Davidson Foundation The Richard C. Devereaux Foundation Erb Family and the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation The Fisher Family and the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation
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BENEFACTORS
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS IN SOUTHWEST DETROIT
On February 9, the DSO held a free community concert at St. Hedwig Catholic Church in Southwest Detroit. It was an inspired performance by our world class orchestra in an exquisite venue, but that wasn’t the only thing that made the evening special. This event was a hallmark moment for an effort that has been ongoing since the development of the DSO’s Social Progress Initiative in 2017. The initiative affirms a commitment to continuous dialogue and action that leverages the power of music to improve the quality of life for the people of Detroit and beyond. This aspirational vision has since coalesced into specific actions—like the St. Hedwig concert—that comprise the DSO’s Detroit Neighborhood Initiative.
The Neighborhood Initiative’s core is a commitment to community partnership-building and listening. This work began in 2020 with community listening sessions in the neighborhoods of Chandler Park and Southwest and has since grown to involve more than 100 organizations. The goal of meeting residents, listening, and learning about each neighborhood’s vibrant culture is to build sustainable relationships and co-create celebratory musical experiences with the people who live, work, and grow in each neighborhood.
Each element of the St. Hedwig Musical Experience was responsive to the DSO’s growing understanding of and respect for the incredible community of Southwest Detroit, an area where more than half of residents identify as Hispanic or Latinx. The evening’s conductor, Nashville Symphony Principal Pops Conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez, addressed the audience in both Spanish and English, offering insight into each piece with humor, grace, and wit. The program included sacred and popular favorites by Latin American composers Ernesto Lecuona, Zequinha Abreu, Vinicio Meza, and Ary Barroso, plus works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georges Bizet. Pelea de gallos, a classic piece by Juan S. Garrido, came alive with audience participation and a traditional performance by dancers from Ballet Folklorico Moyocoyani Izel. At the end of the program, the DSO presented local music education partners with some of the first instruments collected from the fall instrument drive that was part of the orchestra’s Detroit Harmony program. The effort brought us one step closer to our goal of putting an instrument in the hand of every K-12 student in the city of Detroit who wants to learn to play.
Nearly 300 people attended the St. Hedwig event—more than one-third who saw a DSO concert for the first time. The DSO will continue to bring these musical experiences to communities across Detroit, with the next Detroit Neighborhood Initiative concert slated to take place at Greater Grace Temple in Northwest Detroit on April 30 at 7 p.m.
The Detroit Neighborhood Initiative is supported by General Motors and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The city of Detroit’s Office of Arts, Culture, and Entrepreneurship partnered with the DSO for the February 9 event and the performance was sponsored by General Motors.
A COMMUNITY-SU JADERPPORTED ORCHESTRA JADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
PVS CLASSICAL SERIES
Title Sponsor:
BEETHOVEN PIANO CONCERTO NO. 4
Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 8, 2022 at 10:45 a.m.
Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 8 p.m. at Orchestra Hall
KAZUSHI ONO, conductor PAUL LEWIS, piano
Franz Schubert Overture to Die Zauberharfe, D. 644, (1797 - 1828) “Rosamunde”
Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 (1770 - 1827) I. Allegro moderato II. Andante con moto III. Rondo: Vivace Paul Lewis, piano
Intermission
Antonín Dvorˇák Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 (1841 - 1904) I. Allegro maestoso II. Poco adagio III. Scherzo: Vivace IV. Finale: Allegro
Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Overture to Die Zauberharfe, D. 644, “Rosamunde”
Composed 1820 | Premiered August 1820
FRANZ SCHUBERT
B. January 31, 1797, Vienna, Austria D. November 19, 1828, Vienna, Austria Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 10 minutes)
During his lifetime, Schubert enjoyed some modest success as a composer of songs, piano pieces, and chamber music. This was offset, however, by his repeated failures in the field of theater music, where he most hoped to establish his reputation. Schubert’s numerous attempts to write a successful opera ran aground on the shoals of dramatic weakness (the composer had a knack for choosing hackneyed librettos), and the same can be said of his other foray into the theater, his incidental music to Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress.
This last was a play by the woefully inept Helmina von Chézy. The work concerns a Cypriot princess; a governor who tries first to force her into marriage and then to usurp her power by more nefarious means; a mysterious stranger who is actually a prince in disguise; and a preposterous resolution of all the drama’s tensions in the final scene. The initial production of Rosamunde took place in Vienna in December 1823, at which time the play received scathing reviews and folded after just two performances. But the musical numbers—songs, choruses, entr’actes, and two ballet scenes—which Schubert composed to supplement the stage action, have proved more durable. In particular, its overture has earned a secure place in the orchestral literature. This work did not originate with Rosamunde, however. Lacking sufficient time to write an original prelude to Chézy’s play prior to its 1823 premiere, Schubert borrowed one he had previously composed for his opera Die Zauberharfe (The Magic Harp), which closed after just eight performances in Vienna in 1820.
Though more properly called the Overture to Die Zauberharfe, this composition has become irretrievably associated with Rosamunde. By any name, it constitutes one of Schubert’s most satisfying orchestral works. Like most Classical-period overtures, it takes the form of an introduction in moderate tempo leading to a livelier main body of music. The prelude juxtaposes portentous chords at the start and close (their weight and grave character are reminiscent of Beethoven) with a lilting melody given mainly to the woodwinds. The Allegro that follows yields a sonata-form design, with statement, “development” and reprise of several attractive melodies.
The DSO most recently performed Schubert’s Overture to Die Zauberharfe in November 1999, conducted by Itzhak Perlman. The DSO first performed the piece in December 1916, conducted by Weston Gales.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Composed 1805-1806 | Premiered December 1808
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
B. December 1770, Bonn, Germany D. March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria Scored for solo piano, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 34 minutes)
The 1808 mega-concert that served as the premiere of Beethoven’s fifth and sixth symphonies, Choral Fantasy, present Piano Concerto No. 4, and other works is certainly a “time machine” moment for many classical music fans—oh to have
been a fly on the wall! The concerto and two symphonies performed that night are landmarks in Beethoven’s artistic development, marking (to some) the firmest transition from the Classical period to the burgeoning Romantic.
The gentle, song-like character of the piano concerto, especially its opening movement, attests to the spirit of what later became known as Romanticism. Beethoven also nearly established a precedent by opening the concerto with a quiet solo phrase, rather than reserving the entire first exposition of the themes for the orchestra alone. Though many composers soon followed Beethoven’s lead, only Mozart anticipated him in this practice, with a keyboard solo at the opening of his youthful Piano Concerto No. 9.
The orchestra resumes its traditional exposition, but in one of Beethoven’s interesting rhythmic games, the main theme is set off-center by one note, adding tension until it is resolved at the end of each phrase. Tonal relationships are also colorful and broadly romantic, not only in the main theme but in the minor-key intermediate theme leading the orchestra to its closing group. When the piano returns, it embellishes and varies the themes with delicate filigree, adding a new subsidiary theme of its own.
The slow movement is one of the most personal, intense, innovative moments in all the Beethoven literature. It pits the agitated, dramatic strings against an intervening series of plaintive phrases in the piano. Ultimately, the calm prevails as the piano proceeds into a figurative passage and the close of the movement.
A free adaptation of established forms also occurs in the finale. Instead of being a normal five-part rondo, the movement is expanded with developmental episodes interspersed with various themes. But the light fanciful character of the music is maintained throughout much of its lacy keyboard figuration and playful melodies.
The DSO most recently performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major in April 2019, conducted by Ludovic Morlot and featuring pianist Hélène Grimaud. The DSO first performed the piece in February 1920, conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch and featuring pianist Winifred Christie.
Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70
Composed 1884-85 | Premiered April 1885
ANTONÍN DVOR ˇÁK
B. September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves, Czechia D. May 1, 1904, Prague, Czechia Scored for 2 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets,3 trombones, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 38 minutes)
If ever the image of Brahms was implanted on the music of Dvorˇák, it was in his Seventh Symphony in D minor. In no other Dvorˇák symphony is there such a sense of a lonely hero struggling against the dark forces of fate.
Dvorˇák’s reverence for Brahms dates back 11 years before this work, when Brahms (along with conductor Johann Herbeck and critic Eduard Hanslick) nominated the obscure young Bohemian composer for the Austrian State Stipend in 1874. The cash award, the honor and the support of the famed composer eventually won Dvorˇák a Viennese publisher and a window on the world that led to international performances and great fame during the last 30 years of his life. A decade after the award, he was invited to London to conduct three performances of his music at Royal Albert Hall, St. James Hall and the Crystal Palace. An invitation to conduct at Birmingham’s Three Choirs Festival in Worcester soon followed, along with an important commission for a new symphony from the London Philharmonic Society.
Dvorˇák’s letters during the winter of 1884–85 reveal that the spirit of Brahms was indeed looking over his shoulder as he composed this symphony. They also indicate that he planned it as a far more
heroic work than any of his six earlier symphonies. Dvorˇák biographer Eric Clapham quotes him as writing: “I am occupied at present with my new symphony, and wherever I go I think of nothing but my work, which must be capable of stirring the world, and may God grant that it will!”
The very serious, tightly knit sonata forms Dvorˇák composed in the two outer movements most strongly reflect the muscularity of Brahms’ musical style, especially Brahms’ Third Symphony, which was composed just two years earlier than Dvorˇák’s D minor Symphony. By nature, Dvorˇák was a supreme melodist with a penchant for dance melodies—two aspects of music which are antagonistic to the organic developmental processes of large symphonic forms. But the opening movement of this symphony begins quietly with a somber theme in the lower strings that builds upon its basic idea in several large musical sentences. Eventually, the woodwinds—mainly clarinets—introduce a lilting second theme and, finally, the full orchestra returns to conclude the exposition with the principal theme, this time in the major key.
The two themes are pitted against each other in a fairly brief though substantial development. Then, Dvorˇák reverses the dynamic sequence in the recapitulation, returning the main theme full force, followed by the lyrical second theme and a coda based on the first theme. This coda ends the movement quietly, notwithstanding an intervening climax.
The two middle movements more readily identify Dvorˇák’s Bohemian heritage. The slow movement is a string of song-like melodies, interrupted by turbulent episodes, that follow each other in no specified order. The movement is rounded off by a return of the first two melodies at the end. The third movement is a typical Dvorˇákian scherzo, whose stamping cross-rhythms suggest the Bohemian dance called a Furiant.
Like the first movement, the finale is again a sonata form cast in a heroic mould. But where the first movement ends quietly in a tone of resignation, this movement turns from the minor to the major key, culminating in a victorious climax.
The DSO most recently performed Dvorˇák’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor in May 2016, conducted by Rune Bergmann. The DSO first performed the piece in February 1932, conducted by Victor Kolar.
PROFILES
KAZUSHI ONO
Kazushi Ono’s musical influence and vision span and connect continents and cultures, with roles as Music Director of Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (TMSO) and Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC), and as Artistic Director of the New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT). He has toured Europe extensively with TMSO, visiting six cities in eleven days in 2015, and brought OBC to Japan in 2019 with a new production of Turandot for NNTT, as well as orchestral concerts. From the 2022-23 season, Kazushi will take up the position of Music Director of the Brussels Philharmonic.
He is passionate about new music and has commissioned many works and projects, such as Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Hibiki, which premiered at Suntory Hall before featuring at the 2017 BBC Proms. He instigated NNTT’s first commissioning scheme, dedicated to Japanese composers, which has so far included operas Asters by Akira Nishimura (2019) and Dai Fujikura’s A Dream of Armageddon (2020).
Ono established himself internationally with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic
Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Seoul Philharmonic, and Houston Symphony, where his performance of Russian repertoire was described by the Houston Chronicle as “a first-rate concert steeped in stormy emotions, fragile beauty, and wide-screen grandeur.”
From 2008 to 2017, Ono served as Principal Conductor of Opéra National de Lyon, attracting international acclaim with landmark performances of works such as Prokofiev’s The Gamblers, Berg’s Lulu, and Wagner’s Parsifal. Further operatic highlights include Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher, directed by Romeo Castellucci (Ono’s last production in Lyon, which was subsequently revived at La Monnaie), the 2017 premiere of Arnulf Hermann’s Der Mieter at Frankfurt Opera, and Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel in Warsaw and at the Aix Festival (directed by Mariusz Trelin´ski).
Before being appointed in Lyon, Kazushi was Music Director of Theatre Royal de la Monnaie (2002–2008), taking up the baton from Antonio Pappano. In 2017 he was awarded ‘Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ by French cultural minister Françoise Nyssen, adding to the prestigious Asahi Prize in January 2015, for his contribution to the development and progress of Japanese society.
PAUL LEWIS
Paul Lewis is one of the foremost interpreters of the Central European piano repertoire, with his performances and recordings of Beethoven and Schubert receiving universal critical acclaim. He was awarded CBE for his services to music, and the sincerity and depth of his musical approach have won him fans around the world.
This global popularity is reflected in the world-class orchestras with whom he works, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, Philharmonia, Bavarian Radio Symphony, NHK Symphony, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, and Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestras. His close relationship with Boston Symphony Orchestra led to his selection as the 2020 Koussevitzky Artist at Tanglewood.
With a natural affinity for Beethoven and relentless pursuit of understanding his works, Lewis has been central to celebrations of the composer’s 250th anniversary year around the world. He took part in the BBC’s three-part documentary Being Beethoven and will perform a concerto cycle at Tanglewood during summer 2022. He has performed the cycle all over the world, including with Orquestra Simfonica Camera Musicae, the Melbourne Symphony, São Paulo State Symphony, and Royal Flemish Philharmonic orchestras, and was the first pianist to play the complete cycle in a single season at the BBC Proms in 2010.
Beyond many award-winning Beethoven recordings, his discography with Harmonia Mundi also demonstrates his characteristic depth of approach in Romantic repertoire such as Schumann, Mussorgsky, Brahms, and Liszt.
In chamber music, he is a regular at Wigmore Hall, having played there more than 100 times, and was one of the artists selected to play at the hall’s Lunchtime Series at the start of the pandemic. He works closely with tenor Mark Padmore in lied recitals around the world—they have recorded three Schubert song cycles together.
Lewis is co-Artistic Director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire, UK. He is a passionate advocate for music education and the festival offers free tickets to local schoolchildren. He also gives masterclasses around the world alongside his concert performances. He studied with Joan Havill at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel. In 2021, Paul Lewis became an Irish citizen.
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
PVS CLASSICAL SERIES
Title Sponsor:
SALOME’S SEDUCTION
Friday, April 22, 2022 at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 8 p.m. at Orchestra Hall
FABIEN GABEL, conductor NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT, cello
Mel Bonis Salomé, Op.100 (1858 - 1937)
Anders Hillborg Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (b. 1954) Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
Intermission
Richard Strauss “Salome’s Dance” from Salome, Op. 54 (1864 - 1949)
Florent Schmitt La Tragedie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1870 - 1958)
Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Salomé, Op. 100
Published 1909 MEL BONIS
B. January 21, 1858, Paris, France D. March 18, 1937, Sarcelles, France Scored for 2 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 1 oboe, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, harp, and strings. (Approx. 5 minutes)
The career as a composer of Mélanie (Mel) Domange, née Bonis, was in full swing in the twenty years leading up to World War I. Her talents spanned nearly all the musical genres, except for opera, and she used her own favorite instrument, the piano, in her most acclaimed works. Often championing her own compositions, she wrote works for solo piano—including the first of her “Women of Legend” series: Phœbé, Viviane, and Salomé in 1909—as well as chamber music pieces in which the flute played an important role. Her Piano Quartet No. 1 (1905), written in a Faurean vein, appears to be her biggest success, however. After completing her studies at the Paris Conservatoire (1876-1881, with Ernest Guiraud, Auguste Bazille, and César Franck), she managed to have songs and piano pieces printed by various publishers and in 1910 became the first woman on the board of the Society of Music Composers. However, the Great War put an end to her public exposure as a composer, and she then devoted herself essentially to religiously inspired works (for organ or voice) and educational pieces. She left a large number of unpublished works that reveal a skilled composer and orchestrator, who was unjustly neglected during her lifetime.
The introduction and finale of Bonis’s Salomé are evocative of a caravan in the distance with a slow five-beat rhythm accentuated by the basses. The entire piece thrives on the alternation of atmosphere: slow syncopations are followed by light-footed glissandi; haunting and mysterious psalmodies accompany sensual passages; and surprising changes in tempo make passion and destruction determine the musical form.
This performance marks the DSO premiere of Mel Bonis’s Salomé, Op. 100.
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
Composed 2020 | Premiered October 2020
ANDERS HILLBORG
B. 1954 Scored for solo cello, flute, piccolo, 2 oboes, clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 27 minutes)
Anders Hillborg gained his first musical experience singing in choirs and through involvement with various forms of improvised music. From 1976 to 1982, he studied counterpoint, composition, and electronic music at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. His teachers included Gunnar Bucht, Lars-Erik Rosell, Arne Mellnäs, and Pär Lindgren, with guest lecturer Brian Ferneyhough also serving as an important source of inspiration for the composer.
Apart from occasional teaching positions, Hillborg has been a full-time freelance composer since 1982 with an extensive sphere of activity covering orchestral, choral, and chamber music, as well as music for films and pop music.
Hillborg’s first Cello Concerto was written for cellist Nicolas Altstaedt and commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, Cello Biennale Amsterdam, Antwerp Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel, and the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, with the kind support of Margarit Jacobs. The piece is characterized by the intimacy of its scoring, and a direct and paired-back simplicity of expression. Much of the work’s 27-minute span is scored for strings alone, with dazzling virtuosity eschewed in favor of long, soaring
cantabile lines—the soloist’s rich and resonant low C string is only utilized at a few key moments. This ravishingly beautiful, glacial soundscape occasionally ruptures—we hear a fragment of renaissance polyphony as if through gauze, and later a frenzied, surreal outburst for full orchestra leads to a moment of crisis—but the prevailing mood is one of vast space, loneliness, and longing.
This performance marks the United States premiere of Anders Hillborg’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.
Composed 1903-1904 | Premiered December 1905
RICHARD STRAUSS
B. June 11, 1864, Munich, Germany D. September 8, 1949, GarmischPartenkirchen, Germany Scored for 3 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 timpani, percussion, harp, celeste, and strings. (Approx. 9 minutes)
Strauss’s sensational and groundbreaking opera, Salome, was based on a play of the same name by the Irish-born author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). One of the main things which Wilde presented in his play—and which later attracted Strauss so much—was the great significance of the famous dance, placing it at the very center of the action.
In Strauss’s Salome, the harmony makes use of extended tonality, tonal ambiguity, chromaticism, unusual modulations, and polytonality. Everything is tied together by a series of Wagner-like leitmotifs, and some of the major characters and psychological themes even have keys associated with them. No matter the mood at any point in the opera, Strauss, with his phenomenal genius for descriptive music, not only found the right orchestral colors to convey it to the listener with overwhelming intensity, but also did so with an imaginative power, which was completely new to opera in 1905.
Salome was first performed at the famous Semper Opera House in Dresden in December of 1905, with its combination of Christian biblical, erotic, and murderous themes shocking and disturbing the first audiences. Despite strong moralistic objections, the premiere was a sensational success, and the work was performed at 50 other opera houses within two years. Gustav Mahler, at that time director of the Vienna Court Opera, regarded Salome as “…one of the greatest masterpieces of our time,” and was so outraged by the Viennese censor refusing to allow performances that he threatened to resign his position there, but was ultimately dissuaded from doing so by Strauss himself. (The Viennese premiere finally took place in October of 1918.) Needless to add, this controversy simply drew more attention and more audiences to the opera. Kaiser Wilhelm II once reportedly stated, “I like this fellow Strauss, but Salome will do him a lot of damage,” to which Strauss replied, “The damage enabled me to build my villa in Garmisch.”
The DSO most recently performed “Salome’s Dance” from Strauss’s Salome in May 2001, conducted by Stefan Sanderling. The DSO first performed the piece in February 1936, conducted by Victor Kolar.
La Tragedie de Salomé, Op. 50
Composed 1907 | Revised 1910 FLORENT SCHMITT
B. September 28, 1870, Meurthe-etMoselle, France D. August 17, 1958, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani,
percussion, 2 harps, celeste, and strings. (Approx. 21 minutes)
Without question, La Tragédie de Salomé is Florent Schmitt’s most famous work. Originally composed in 1907 for the American dancer Loie Fuller and the Théâtre des Arts, Salomé was based on a poem by Robert d’Humières. Schmitt expanded the orchestration in 1910, dedicating the work then to Stravinsky, who said the piece “has given me greater joy than any work I have heard in a long time.” The composition became popular with companies including the Ballets Russes and the Paris Opéra, but is most often performed today as a symphonic suite.
Schmitt’s Salomé became famous from the very start—recognized by music critics and audiences alike as one of the best examples of French tone painting. It is also the composer’s best-known “orientalist” work—a bright star in a constellation that also includes other femme fatale heroines such as Cléopâtre, Abisag, Salammbô, and Oriane.
It is also the composition of Schmitt’s that has enjoyed the most commercial recordings over the years. Beginning in 1929-30—when the first two recordings were waxed within a few months of one another—and continuing up to the present day, there have been no fewer than 19 commercial recordings made of this music.
True to Schmitt’s independent style, the piece bursts with color and dynamism, evoking the swirling waters of the Dead Sea below Herod’s palace and culminating in a dramatic climax. —Excerpts from Phillip Nones
The DSO most recently performed Schmitt’s La Tragedie de Salomé in April 1972, conducted by Sixten Ehrling. The DSO first performed the piece in December 1952, conducted by Paul Paray.
FABIEN GABEL
Fabien Gabel has established an international career of the highest caliber, appearing with orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Minnesota Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Tonkünstler-Orchester, Oslo Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Praised for his dynamic style and sensitive approach to the score, he is best known for his eclectic repertoire choices ranging from core symphonic works and new music, to championing lesser-known composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Gabel began 2021-22 giving the season opening concerts of the Tonkünstler-Orchester in Vienna. Other highlights of the season include his debuts with NDR Radiophilharmonie, Stavanger Symphony, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Malmö Symphony, and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and his return to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra where he appears regularly. With the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, he gives the Spanish premiere of the complete version of Tomasi’s trumpet concerto with Håkan Hardenberger. In North America, he continues his established relationships with Minnesota Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Houston and Detroit. He is highly in demand in his native France with Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique du Capitole de Toulouse, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo.
Having attracted international attention in 2004 as the winner of the Donatella Flick conducting competition, Gabel was assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra 2004-2006. He was music director of Orchestre Symphonique de Québec from 2012-2021 and Orchestre Francais de Jeunes from 2017-2021.
Born in Paris to a family of accomplished musicians, Gabel began playing the trumpet at the age of six and honed his skills at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. He played with various Parisian orchestras under prominent conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, and Bernard Haitink before embarking on his conducting career.
NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT
German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is one of the most sought after and versatile artists today. As a soloist, conductor, and artistic director, he performs repertoire spanning from early music to the contemporary, playing on period and modern instruments.
Altstaedt was Artist in Focus at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt and Artist in Residence at the SWR Symphonieorchester with Teodor Currentzis in 2019-20. Other recent highlights include concerto debuts with Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra and Japan’s NHK and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestras, and a tour with B’Rock and René Jacobs.
He has received numerous prizes including the Beethovenring Bonn 2015 and Musikpreis der Stadt Duisburg 2018. His most recent recording for his Lockenhaus Festival garnered the BBC Music Magazine 2020 Chamber Award and Gramophone Award 2020. He received the BBC Music Magazine Concerto Award 2017 for his recording of CPE Bach Concertos on Hyperion with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen and the Edison Klassiek 2017 for his Recital Recording with Fazil Say on Warner Classics. Altstaedt is a recipient of the Credit Suisse Award in 2010 and was a BBC New Generation Artist 2010-2012.
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
TITLE SPONSOR:
IN THE AIR TONIGHT: A SYMPHONIC CELEBRATION OF GENESIS & PHIL COLLINS
STUART CHAFETZ, conductor AARON FINLEY, vocalist* BROOK WOOD, vocalist^
All works arr. & orch. Sam Shoup
Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Turn It on Again*
Mike Rutherford
Follow You, Follow Me*^
That’s All^
No Reply at All* Collins I Missed Again^ One More Night Another Day in Paradise*^
I Don’t Care Anymore*
Sussudio*^
Intermission
Banks, Collins, Rutherford Abacab^
Invisible Touch*
Collins In the Air Tonight*^ Hold on My Heart*^
Banks, Collins, Rutherford Throwing It All Away Collins Don’t Lose My Number^
Take Me Home*^
STUART CHAFETZ
Stuart Chafetz is the Principal Pops Conductor of the Columbus Symphony and the newly appointed Principal Pops Conductor of the Chautauqua and Marin symphonies. Chafetz, a conductor celebrated for his dynamic and engaging podium presence, is increasingly in demand with orchestras across the continent and this season Chafetz will be on the podium in Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, Naples, Philly Pops, Cincinnati Pops, and Pittsburgh. He enjoys a special relationship with The Phoenix Symphony, where he leads multiple programs annually.
He previously held posts as resident conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and associate conductor of the Louisville Orchestra. As principal timpanist of the Honolulu Symphony for twenty years, Chafetz would also conduct annual performances of The Nutcracker with Ballet Hawaii and principals from the American Ballet Theatre. It was during that time that Chafetz led numerous concerts with the Maui Symphony and Pops. He’s led numerous Spring Ballet performances at the world-renowned Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.
In the summers, Chafetz spends his time at the Chautauqua Institution, where he conducts the annual Fourth of July and Opera Pops.
Chafetz makes his home near San Francisco, CA, with his wife Ann Krinitsky. Chafetz holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance from the CollegeConservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati and a master’s from the Eastman School of Music.
AARON FINLEY
Born and raised in Montana, Aaron Finley’s career has spanned from coast to coast as a professional actor and singer. Educated at Pacific Lutheran University in Seattle, he quickly became at top-tier talent in the Pacific Northwest, appearing in productions of Jesus Christ Superstar (Jesus/Judas), Rent (Roger), Fiddler on the Roof (Perchik), Hairspray (Link Larkin), It Shoulda Been You (Greg Madison), and The Gypsy King (Drago). Among his other regional roles, Finley originated the role of Billy in the new musical Diner, based on the Barry Levinson film, with music and lyrics by Sheryl Crow and direction by Kathleen Marshall.
Finley made his Broadway debut in 2013, starring as Drew Boley in Rock of Ages. In 2015, he took over the role of leading man Brian Howard in It Shoulda Been You, directed by David Hyde Pierce. Among his other work in New York, he participated in a lab production of George Takei’s new musical, Allegiance. In the fall of 2016, Finley took over the role of Charlie Price in Kinky Boots. He has been performing a pops symphony concert celebrating the music of the 1980s and Phil Collins across North America. Currently, Finley can be seen in the smash hit Moulin Rouge on Broadway.
BROOK WOOD
New York City-based singer-songwriter Brook Wood is known for the songs “Drive,” “Drift,” and “Setting of The Sun” with Jeremy Schonfeld; “Damn Your Happiness” and “Home is Where The Heartbreak Is” with Luke Denison; and for her cover of Idina Menzel’s “Gorgeous.” She regularly performs at venues across the United States and recently toured in Florida with Neil Berg’s Fifty More Years of Rock and Roll and 113 Years of Broadway. In February 2022, Wood debuted at the Urban Country Jam festival in New York City.
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
TITLE SPONSOR:
Friday, May 6, 2022 at 10:45 a.m. Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 8 p.m. Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 3 p.m. at Orchestra Hall
JEFF TYZIK, conductor CHESTER GREGORY, DARREN LORENZO, and MICHAEL LYNCHE, vocalists
KINGS OF SOUL
a Schirmer Theatrical/Greenberg Artists co-production Arrangements by Jeff Tyzik
LOVE’S THEME, by Barry White As Recorded by Barry White
BACK STABBERS, by Leon Huff, Gene McFadden, and John Whitehead As Recorded by the O’Jays
MOVE ON UP, by Curtis Mayfield As Recorded by Curtis Mayfield
ME AND MRS. JONES, by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Cary Gilbert As Recorded by Billy Paul
YOU’LL NEVER FIND, by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff As Recorded by Lou Rawls
JUST MY IMAGINATION, by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong As Recorded by The Temptations
CLOSE THE DOOR, by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, As Recorded by Terry Pendergrass
LET’S GET IT ON, by Marvin Gaye and Edward Townsend As Recorded by Marvin Gaye
LOVE AND HAPPINESS, by Al Green and Mabon Lewis Hodges As Recorded by Al Green
ROCK WITH YOU, by Rodney Lynn Temperton As Recorded by Michael Jackson
YOUR LOVE KEEPS LIFTING ME HIGHER, by Gary Jackson, Carl Smith and Raynard Miner As Recorded by Jackie Wilson
ALL ARRANGEMENTS LICENSED BY SCHIRMER THEATRICAL, LLC
Creative Team Robert Thompson, Producer Jeff Tyzik, Producer & Arranger Jami Greenberg, Producer & Booking Agent Alyssa Foster, Producer Sophie Frankle, Associate Producer
SOUL MAN, by Isaac Hayes and David Porter As Recorded by Sam & Dave
CAN’T GET NEXT TO YOU, by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong As Recorded by The Temptations
LONELY TEARDROPS, by Roquel Davis, Berry Gordy, and Gwen Fuqua As Recorded by Jackie Wilson
SHOP AROUND, by Berry Gordy and William Robinson As Recorded by Smokey Robinson
MY GIRL, by William Robinson and Ronald White As Recorded by The Temptations
NIGHT TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME, by James Oden and Roosevelt Sykes As Recorded by Ray Charles
GET READY, by William Robinson As Recorded by The Temptations
TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS, by James Campbell, Reginald Connelly, and Harry Woods As Recorded by Otis Redding
HARD TO HANDLE, by Otis Redding, Allen Alvoid Jones Jr, and Alvertis Isbell As Recorded by Otis Redding
MAN’S WORLD, by James Brown and Betty Jean Newsome As Recorded by James Brown
STAND BY ME, by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller As Recorded by Ben E. King
DANCE TO THE MUSIC, by Sylvester Stewart As Recorded by Sly and the Family Stone
Intermission
Jeff Tyzik bio, see page 6
MICHAEL LYNCHE
American Idol Michael Lynche is a new breed of soul singer with completely classic influences. Traces of Donny Hathaway, Al Green, Luther Vandross, Sam Cooke, and James Brown all seem to flash in this uniquely talented performer. Undeniable charisma, well-crafted song arrangements and a voice soaked in soul give “Big Mike”—as he’s affectionately known—class all his own.
A New York City resident for the last 15+ years, this Florida native rose from obscurity as a finalist on season 9 of the hit phenomenon, American Idol. After wowing millions of fans with his comforting and powerful voice and performing throughout the United States as part of the American Idol LIVE! Tour, Big Mike has released two studio albums, toured as an opening act for Boyz II Men, Lalah Hathaway, Faith Evans, and Lyfe Jennings, and toured the world with his honest storytelling brand of soul music.
Since 2012, Big Mike has been a frequent featured guest vocalist with Jeff Tyzik and his hit “Let’s Dance!” show. With the perfect repertoire to showcase his dynamic song range, “Let’s Dance!” has been performed with orchestras all over the US and Canada, including the Dallas Symphony, Utah Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and more.
Tyzik has been an incredible mentor for Michael over the years, recognizing a passion and drive in the big man that has made his own career successful. The two have spent the last years collaborating on new, sensational soul inspired pops concerts including “R&B Legends,” “Kings of Soul,” and “Dancing in the Street — The Music of Motown.”
DARREN LORENZO
Darren Lorenzo is a veteran performer hailing from Atlanta, Georgia. Lorenzo has appeared in numerous productions both nationally and internationally. He received his B.A. in Mass Communications at Clark Atlanta University and further trained with Broadway Theatre Project at the University of South Florida, and with Theatre Emory of Emory University. He has wowed audiences with roles on cruise ships and in Las Vegas, and multiple regional, off Broadway, Broadway, national, and international touring productions of After Midnight, Vegas the Show, Legally Blonde, Saturday Night Fever, Madagascar, Smokey Joes Cafe, No Strings, Fosse, Hair, Tony and Tina’s Wedding, Once on This Island, What The World Needs Now, and several gospel tours throughout Europe. In addition to acting and singing, he also works as a writer, producer, teacher, and director, and performs with various club date and corporate Top 40, R&B/soul, and jazz bands.
CHESTER GREGORY
Chester “C.H.E.S.S.” Gregory is emerging on the scene with his critically acclaimed hit “The Doppler Effect (It’s Me),” which already earned Grammy consideration. This power ballad equates the result of the doppler effect to the plight of relationships. “Colors are changing but I’m still remaining, the person I have to be.” Sonically, his style is a fusion of New Vintage Pop and soul: a blend of modern sounds, with a classic approach, resulting in songs that have been described as timeless.
This charismatic artist has already collaborated with many greats in the industry and is well-known for his stellar vocals and rousing stage presence. He has collaborated with Ledisi, PJ Morton, Phil Collins, Da Genius, MaliMusic, 88-Keys, 9th Wonder, The Pocket Queen, Cory Henry, and Chance The Rapper. Television appearances include The View, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, and Hairspray.
A COMMUNITY-SUPPORTED ORCHESTRA
JADER BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR JADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
PVS CLASSICAL SERIES
Title Sponsor:
BIGNAMINI CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN 9
Thursday, May 12, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 3 p.m. at Orchestra Hall
JADER BIGNAMINI, conductor AILYN PÉREZ, soprano SASHA COOKE, mezzo-soprano SAIMIR PIRGU, tenor LUIZ-OTTAVIO FARIA, bass OPERA MODO & AUDIVI, choirs
Hannah Lash In Hopes of Finding the Sun (b. 1981)
Intermission
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, “Choral” (1770 - 1827) I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso II. Molto vivace III. Adagio molto e cantabile IV. Presto - Allegro assai - Allegro assai vivace
Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
In Hopes of Finding the Sun
Premiered May 2019 HANNAH LASH
B. November 22, 1981 Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 1 trombone, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 15 minutes)
Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful…handsomely brooding,” Hannah Lash’s music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, the Times Center in Manhattan, the Chicago Art Institute, Tanglewood Music Center, Harvard University, The Aspen Music Festival & School, The Chelsea Art Museum, and on the American Opera Project’s stage in New York City. Commissions include The Fromm Foundation, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Northwest, the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, American Composers Orchestra, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, The Naumburg Foundation, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Arditti Quartet, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Colorado Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and others.
Lash has received numerous honors and prizes, including the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship (2011) and Fellowship (2016) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fromm Foundation Commission, a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, a fellowship from Yaddo Artist Colony, the Naumburg Prize in Composition, the Barnard Rogers Prize in Composition, and the Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Prize in Composition.
Lash’s In Hopes of Finding the Sun was commissioned by and dedicated to Symphony Tacoma, generously underwritten by Laurie Sorensen and Carroll L. Bryan II. Of the piece, the composer writes the following:
“Writing a piece that is connected in some way to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is not something a composer can take lightly. I wanted to make a piece that would be highly personal, not something that leaned too heavily on Beethoven’s masterpiece. But at the same time, I felt compelled to use a few points of departure from Beethoven: ways in which my work would touch on Beethoven’s before moving in its own direction. So, I decided on two very particular elements: the descending motive from the first movement, and the Schiller poem. I wrote my own text, using the fire image from the Schiller as my inspiration: Sky-bound. We ate fire, closing our eyes against the searing; We come, ashes light as air, buffeting upward in hopes of finding the sun; Purify! Efface!; Dancing: enraptured,; We dissolve.”
This performance marks the DSO premiere of Hannah Lash’s In Hopes of Finding the Sun.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
Composed 1824 | Premiered May 1824 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
B. December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany D. March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria Scored for choir, soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, bass, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 67 minutes)
The story of Beethoven at the premiere of the Ninth Symphony is one of the most beloved tales from the history of Western music. While examining the score of his symphony intently following the concert, the deaf Beethoven was taken by the arm and
gently turned so that he could see that which he could not hear or did not notice: the cheers and applause of an elated audience. The poignant anecdote not only bespeaks triumph in the face of adversity, but also embodies the central message of Schiller’s text as sung in the symphony’s finale: “Joy, bright spark of divinity… thy magic power reunites all that custom has divided.” The response of the audience proved that deafness had neither divided Beethoven from the world nor diminished his powers of musical expression. On the contrary, his composition, his “bright spark of divinity,” provided the conduit through which artist and audience were emotionally reunited.
Much of the symphony’s excitement derives from Beethoven’s ability to begin each movement with a stirring musical gesture that immediately focuses our attention upon the present. In the first movement, this is accomplished through a striking perfect fifth sonority, sustained by tremolo strings beneath jagged melodic figures that anticipate the style of Bruckner. The second movement begins with a repeated and accented rhythmic motive whose intensity is enhanced by the powerful silence that surrounds the initial statements of the motive. (Dvorˇák uses a similar musical device in the third movement of his Ninth Symphony.) In contrast to the nervous rhythmic energy of the preceding two movements, the third movement enchants the ear through warm, beautiful orchestral sonorities. From out of an introductory passage for woodwind choir, Beethoven seamlessly extends its opalescent aura through an expansive and exquisite melody sung by strings and winds. Shattering this tranquility with an orchestral “thunderclap,” the fourth movement features a gruff recitative-like passage in the lower strings. During this section, excerpts from the preceding movements are briefly recalled and rejected before a new melodic idea, the immortal “Ode to Joy” theme, is born and developed by the orchestra and chorus.
In addition to the Ninth’s colossal musical statement, Beethoven’s final symphony carries immense social and political baggage. Since that first performance, the work has been used to celebrate and commemorate significant events around the globe, in both good times and bad. In Japan, the Ninth helps ring in each New Year; and its fourth movement is used in most Olympic opening ceremonies. Many listeners today remember Leonard Bernstein’s stirring rendition of the symphony that heralded the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Here Bernstein instructed chorus and soloists that Schiller’s word “Freude” [joy] was to be replaced by “Freiheit” [freedom]. More recently, the “Ode to Joy” has become the anthem of the European Union and memorial concerts featuring the Ninth reaffirmed the resilience of human unity and goodwill in the wake of the September 11th tragedies.
Regardless of the symphony’s complex status as a cultural icon, it is the Ninth’s profound emotional power that continues to attract and enthrall listeners the world over. Responding to the thrilling entrance of the chorus in the final movement, a critic at the 1824 premiere described the symphony in terms that still echo resonantly today: “Finally…the full chorus also intones the song in praise of joy with majestic splendor. Then the glad heart opens itself widely to the feeling of delight in this spiritual enjoyment, and a thousand voices rejoice: ‘Hail! Hail! to the divine music! Honor! Praise! and thanks to its worthiest high priest!’” —Nathan Platte
The DSO most recently performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor in May 2017, conducted by Leonard Slatkin and featuring UMS Choral Union (chorus), Abigail Nims (mezzo-soprano), Hila Plitmann (soprano), Peixin Chen (bass), Rachelle Durkin (soprano), and Sean Panikkar (tenor). The DSO first performed the piece in March 1927, conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch, and featuring Detroit Symphony Chorale (ensemble), Lois Johnston (soprano), Robert Quait (tenor), and Royal Dadmun (baritone).
Jader Bignamini bio, see page 6
AILYN PÉREZ
Internationally celebrated for her signature artistry, soprano Ailyn Pérez is the winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award, the first Hispanic recipient in the award’s history.
Career highlights include Violetta (La traviata) at Opernhaus Zürich, the Hamburgische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, and the Royal Opera House – Covent Garden. Pérez then went on to appear at Covent Garden in the same season, as the title role in Massenet’s Manon, and for her role debut as Liù (Turandot). Other highlights include Thaïs, Mimì and Musetta (La bohème), and Juliette (Roméo et Juliette) at The Metropolitan Opera; Adina (L’elisir d’amore) for the Bayerische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper, and Washington National Opera; Contessa Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro) for Houston Grand Opera (having made her house debut there as Desdemona in Otello); Tatyana Bakst in the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s Great Scott (featured on an acclaimed Erato recording release) and Manon for The Dallas Opera; house debuts at the Bolshoi Theatre as Mimì (La bohème) and at Glyndebourne as Alice Ford; Contessa Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro) and Marguerite (Faust) for Hamburgische Staatsoper; Marguerite (Faust) in Santa Fe and Amelia Grimaldi Simon Boccanegra at Teatro alla Scala and Staatsoper Berlin, and also opposite Leo Nucci at Opernhaus Zürich.
SASHA COOKE
Two-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke is sought after by the world’s leading orchestras, opera companies, and chamber music ensembles for her versatile repertoire and commitment to new music.
In the 2021-2022 season, Cooke returns to the Metropolitan Opera both for her role debut as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, under the baton of James Gaffigan, and as Eduige in Rodelinda, under the baton of Harry Bicket. On the concert stage, she joins the Minnesota Orchestra for Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and subsequently for Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, the latter conducted by Osmo Vänskä. Additionally, she performs Michael Tilson Thomas’s Meditations on Rilke with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by the composer; Nadia Boulanger’s Faust et Hélène with the Houston Symphony, led by Fabien Gabel; Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict with the Festival de la Côte Saint-André, led by John Nelson; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 Resurrection with the Oregon Symphony; Jake Heggie’s The Work at Hand and Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, led by Gemma New; Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the New World Symphony; and a holiday concert with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. Finally, she gives a solo recital at the Tucson Desert Song Festival, joined by pianist Myra Huang, where she premieres a new work by Jennifer Higdon.
This season also marks the release of Cooke’s new CD, entitled how do I find you, on the Pentatone label.
SAIMIR PIRGU
Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu has performed at and continues a close association with the world’s finest opera houses and festivals including Teatro alla Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper, Gran teatre del Liceu, Arena di Verona, and Salzburger Festspiele.
This 2021-22 season highlights include
Steva (Jenufa) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Chevalier des Grieux (Manon) with Opera de Lyon at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Il Duca di Mantova (Rigoletto) at the Gran teatre del Liceu and Staatsoper Berlin, Rodolfo (La bohème) at Teatro Colón, and Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) at Wiener Staatsoper.
During previous seasons, Pirgu has sung Macduff at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at Opernhaus Zürich, as well as role debuts including the title role of a new production of Les contes d’Hoffmann at Opernhaus Zürich and Kát’a Kabanová at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.
In 2009 Pirgu was awarded the Franco Corelli Prize of the Teatro delle Muse of Ancona for his performance in La traviata, and in 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Pavarotti d’Oro. The DVD/Blu-Ray recording of Król Roger from the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Pirgu as Shepherd received a nomination in the Best Opera Recording category at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in 2016.
LUIZ-OTTAVIO FARIA
Luiz-Ottavio Faria made his operatic debut in the title role of Tom, in Un ballo in maschera with the legendary tenor Carlo Bergonzi, Fernando Teixeira, and Stefka Evstatieva at Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro and the Theatro Municipal de Sao Paulo, directed by Maestro Isaac Karabtchevsky. Since his auspicious debut, the distinguished basso’s career in concert and opera performances has taken him around the globe, especially to Europe, the US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.
Faria recently made a triumphant debut with a critically acclaimed performance in the title role of Banco in Macbeth at the Teatro Alla Scala di Milano and Marcel in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots at Carnegie Hall with the Opera Orchestra of New York.
Faria’s repertoire extends from Seneca in L’ Incoronazione di Poppea, to the high priest of the hebrews, Zaccaria, in Verdi’s Nabucco. His vast operatic portrayals of more than 30 roles include Ramfis and King (Aida), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Alvise (La Gioconda), Banco (Macbeth), Ferrando (Il Trovatore), Sarastro (The Magic Flute), and Colline (La Boheme).
One of America’s leading basses, Faria has appeared with the world’s major operatic and symphonic organizations. He has worked with notable and distinguished conductors and stage directors including Franco Zeffirelli, Riccardo Frizza, Jose Maria Florencio, Giancarlo del Monaco, Giuliano Carella, Robert Lyall, Roberto Abbado, Isaac Karabtchevsky, Saverio Marconi, Will Cruchtfield, Enrique Batiz, Franco Ripa di Meana, Silvio Barbato, Bia Lessa, Yoav Talmi, and Henning Brockhaus.
OPERA MODO
Opera MODO is a new and exciting opera company in Detroit, dedicated to creating opportunities for young and emerging artists. Founded in 2011 in Princeton, New Jersey, Opera MODO brings opera to the people through intriguing and modern productions of classical to contemporary operas.
AUDIVI
Audivi is a professional vocal ensemble based in Detroit. Founded in 2013, Audivi sings music of all eras, with a special emphasis on new and early music, and has premiered works by many composers. Its members have sung and recorded with a panoply of Grammy-winning vocal ensembles, and Audivi has performed around the country.
Audivi has given the Detroit metro area premieres of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers of the Blessed Virgin and a historicallyinformed version of Bach’s Mass in B minor. Audivi has performed at regional ACDA and AGO conventions and serves as a professional chorus for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, including recent performances of Puccini’s Turandot, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Handel’s Messiah.
