We are a little spoiled here in Charleston, the biggest little city in America, so if the new music portion of Spoleto Festival USA 2017 is a little less adventuresome than last season’s 40th anniversary program (which featured a production of The Little Match Girl by Helmut Lachenmann as well as a ravishing new production of Porgy & Bess), it may be that our expectations have reached impossible limits.
Which is not to say there aren’t plenty of goodies still to be had. Here are some of the programs, I’m looking forward to May 25 to June 12..
Quartett May 28, 31, June 3
The US premiere of a Royal Opera House production, Quartett blends Italian composer Luca Francesconi’s score for two singers and two orchestras — one live and one pre-recorded — to German dramatist Heiner Müller’s 1982 play. Directed by John Fulljames and conducted by Spoleto USA’s own John Kennedy.
Music in Time / Tempus Fugit May 28
New musical works from a new generation of composers from around the globe come together in a program featuring members of the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra led by conductor Jeffrey Means. Included are Tempus Fugit by Argentina’s Jose Manuel Serrano, Abysses by Estonia’s Helena Tulve, and Encore/Da Capo by Italy’s Luca Francesconi.
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Music in Time / Sounding Peace May 31
A celebration of the centenary of American composer Lou Harrison with some of his wonderful music integrating musical traditions from around the world, as well of the the work of younger composers Ted Hearne and Jonathan Holland.
Music in Time / Lecture on the Weather June 5
John Cage composed his classic performance piece Lecture on the Weather as a celebration of the USA’s Bicentennial in 1976. Using texts by Henry David Thoreau, recordings of nature, and projections, Cage’s work is a prescient and timeless sonic rumination on environmental and social concerns. An excerpt from the work reads: “More than anything else we need communion with everyone. Struggles for power have nothing to do with communion. Communion extends beyond borders: it is with one’s enemies also. Thoreau said: ‘The best communion men have is in silence.’” Also on the program will be Canadian composer Anne Southam’s Natural Resources.
Music in Time / Dialogues with Pedja Muzijevic
Four Haydn sonatas are interspersed with three modern works by Jonathan Berger, John Cage, and Morton Feldman, to offer listeners a fresh landscape for hearing works anew.
Mahler 4 and Dreaming
John Kennedy leads the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony no. 4, as well as the US-premiere performance of Dreaming by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, which won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 2012.
For those or more conventional tastes, there is Tchaikovsky’s grand opera Eugene Onegin, based on Pushkin’s classic verse novel. Soprano Natalia Pavlova sings the part of Tatyana, among the greatest of female lead roles in the repertoire. The opera will be directed by Chen Shi-Zhen; Farnace by Vivaldi, to feature countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo under the direction of festival alumna Garry Hynes, and Mozart’s Great Mass.
And, of course, there will be plenty of New Music in Geoff Nutall’s Chamber Music series, details to come.
As my old poli-sci professor used to say in class 50 years ago; “Charleston? Put that city under glass.”