Opening Night: Azul |
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Friday, August 7, 8:00 pm
Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
Tickets: $30-$45
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Sponsored by
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Brett Dean: Amphitheatre [U.S. Premiere]
David Heath: Rise from the Dark [World Premiere]
Osvaldo Golijov: Azul
[Alisa Weilerstein, cello; with Michael Ward-Bergeman, hyper-accordion;
Jamey Haddad, percussion; Cyro Baptista, percussion] |
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| One World Premiere. One U.S. Premiere. Three composers in the house. Having just won the 2009 Grawemeyer Award—the world’s most prestigious composition prize—Australian composer Brett Dean joins you tonight for his Festival debut. We open the season with the U.S. Premiere of his Amphitheatre, which takes its title and inspiration from the opening of German author Michael Ende’s mesmerizing children’s book Momo, in which he describes the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheatre. British composer David Heath returns this season after capturing the hearts of Festival audiences in 2007. Heath has reorchestrated his very first orchestral piece, Rise from the Dark, which is based rhythmically and harmonically on the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, for tonight’s World Premiere performance. |
Then we welcome Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov who grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in La Plata, moved to the United States in 1986, won a 2003 MacArthur genius award, and has since become an international sensation. Tonight he joins you for Azul, originally written for Yo-Yo Ma for a Tanglewood premiere, it was then rewritten with and for a dynamic young cellist he describes as “a volcanic person, a beautiful restless soul”—27-year-old Alisa Weilerstein. The Toronto Star wrote “Weilerstein plays classical music, but with the depth of soul and raw emotional energy of a diehard rocker.” She makes her Festival debut in this celebrated four movement work, inspired by the night sky and influenced by poet Pablo Neruda’s The Heights of Macchu Picchu. Weilerstein is joined by three other world class artists: hyper-accordion player, Michael Ward-Bergeman; and percussionists Jamey Haddad and Cyro Baptista.
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New York magazine on Alisa Weilerstein: “At 26, she’s arguably Yo-Yo Ma’s heiress apparent as sovereign of the American cello.” |
| The 2009 opening night begins with an outdoor Pre-Concert Talk by Marin Alsop and a special ticketed dinner prepared by Feast for a King and served alfresco at the Civic Auditorium. Reservations required. |
Photos (clockwise from L): Alisa Weilerstein (Lucio Lecce), Osvaldo Golijov (Tanit Sakakini), Brett Dean (Mark Coulson), David Heath (Potia Shao)
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