The inspiring story of Helen Keller’s life will be told in the world premiere of Touch at Opera Birmingham on Jan. 19-21. Carla Lucero is the composer as well as co-librettist along with Marianna Mott Newirth. https://www.operabirmingham.org/touch
As a special production on Jan. 20, Piedmont Opera will offer a program called Girls of Yellow Diamonds. This song recital, hosted and largely composed by Alice Chung and Helen Huang, celebrates Asian-American women. https://www.piedmontopera.org/calendar
Composer Carlos Simon will curate an evening of new and recent works on Feb. 15, 17 with the Atlanta Symphony. Besides Simon’s own Motherboxx Connection and brea(d)th, the program includes Uzee Brown’s We Shall Overcome and other works to be announced. Among the scheduled guests are performance artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, soprano Kearstin Piper Brown, […]
On April 4-6, two artists will make their debuts with the National Symphony: conductor Bernard Labadie and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel. Soprano Joèlle Harvey and the Washington Chorus for Fauré’s Requiem. The program opens with Symphony No. 4 by Henri-Joseph Rigel, written in 1774, and Mozart’s Symphony No. 31, Paris, composed four years later. https://www.kennedy-center.org/nso/home/2023-2024/labadie-faure/
The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music went to rapper Kendrick Lamar’s album Damn. On April 12, as part of their Fusion series, the Baltimore Symphony will perform Igor DAMN Stravinsky, a program integrating Lamar’s songs with movements from another masterwork, Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. Steve Hackman conducts. https://my.bsomusic.org/overview/18524
Although Laura Kaminsky’s opera As One premiered in 2014, its libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed exploring gender identity has never been more relevant. Kentucky Opera will present the work April 12-19. https://kyopera.org/as-one/
On April 18-21, Opera Carolina will perform Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah, a biblical drama of seduction and betrayal. The cast includes Alyson Cambridge, Kyle Van Schoonhoven, and Donovan Singletary. https://operacarolina.org/2023-2024/
A new work by Joel Thompson takes its place amid an interesting collection of American and Mexican pieces on the Atlanta Symphony’s April 25-26 program. Lina Gonzalez-Granados conducts Gabriela Ortiz’s Kauyumari, Gabriela Lena Frank’s Walkabout: Concerto for Orchestra, and Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2. Pianist Cédric Tiberghien will be the soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in […]
On May 16 and 18, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus will give the world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s oratorio Sacrifice of Isaac. The ASO’s music director laureate, Robert Spano, conducts a program that includes another work involving sacrifice, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. https://www.aso.org/events/detail/robert-spano-rite-of-spring
Renowned composer Tan Dun will grace the podium for a May 18-19 program, leading the Baltimore Symphony in his own music plus two works by Stravinsky: Fireworks and Song of the Nightingale. Besides Tan Dun’s Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds, the composer/conductor will present the U.S. premiere of his Five Muses of Dunhuang. https://my.bsomusic.org/overview/18302
Composer Layale Chaker and librettist Lisa Schlesinger will see the world premiere of their opera Ruinous Gods May 24-June 1 at Spoleto USA. With stage direction by Omar Abi Azar and Maya Zbib and conducted by Kamna Gupta, the opera, loosely based on the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, explores the psychological toll experienced […]
In a May 31 program, the Spoleto Festival USA Chorus blends the atmospheric music of Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry and The Woman with the Alabaster Box with two early-music masterpieces: Josquin des Prez’s Missa Pange Lingua and Heinrich Schütz’s St. Matthew Passion. Conducted by Joe Miller. https://spoletousa.org/events/chorus/
Spoleto USA will present the world premiere of Reena Esmail’s String Quartet. The June 5-6 chamber program also includes Darius Milhaud’s Suite for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano, and the Schumann Piano Quartet. https://spoletousa.org/events/bank-of-america-chamber-music/
On June 15-17, Atlanta Opera will give the world premiere of Forsyth County is Flooding (with the Joy of Lake Lanier) as part of its 96-Hour Opera Project. The one-act dark comedy by Marcus Norris explores some of Georgia’s terrifying, uncomfortable, and uncanny happenings at Lake Lanier in Forsyth County, Georgia. Chaowen Ting conducts. https://www.atlantaopera.org/forsyth-county-is-flooding/
The National Symphony Orchestra’s composer-in-residence for the 2024-25 season is Carlos Simon. Appropriately, the orchestra, under Gianandrea Noseda, will present Simon’s Four Black American Dances in their opening program Sept. 28. Cliburn Competition winner Yunchan Lim makes his NSO debut as soloist for Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, and the evening concludes with Ravel’s La Valse. […]
Piedmont Opera will present Norman Dello Joio’s Joan of Arc: The Trial at Rouen Oct. 25-27. Dello Joio wrote both the music and libretto for this 1956 work. This production will be conducted by PO’s artistic director, James Allbritten. https://www.piedmontopera.org/joan-of-arc
On Nov. 7-10 music director Nathalie Stutzmann leads the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mozart’s mysterious and otherworldly Mass in C minor. Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska, Mezzo-soprano Julia Lezhneva, tenor Lunga Eric Hallam, and bass Harold Wilson join as soloists in a program that opens with Mozart’s 40th Symphony. https://www.aso.org/events/detail/all-mozart-with-stutzmann-chorus
The West Virginia Symphony’s Nov. 9 program is All-American, with Bernstein’s Candide Overture, Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia, and Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, featuring Robert Turizziani. Music director Maurice Cohn also leads the orchestra in Ellington’s Harlem and Gershwin’s An American in Paris. https://wvsymphony.org/season-calendar/americanvoices2425
Bring your appetite to Nashville Opera for the world premiere of Shawn E. Okpebholo and Mark Campbell’s The Cook-Off. As an appetizer, the company will open with Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appétit (The Julia Child Opera). Dean Williamson conducts the Nashville Opera Orchestra. (Nov. 15-17) https://www.nashvilleopera.org/performances/the-cook-off
Florida Grand Opera opens its season with Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The production runs Nov. 16-19 in Miami and Dec. 5-7 in Fort Lauderdale. The cast includes Ricardo Garcia as Tamino, Laura León as the Queen of the Night, and Sara Kennedy as Pamina. https://fgo.org/season/the-magic-flute/
