Cal Performances 2014/15 Season Preview

Tuesday morning Cal Performances announced their 2014/15 season. Its scope is broad & international. Executive Director Matías Tarnopolsky pointed out highlights & chatted onstage with some of the participants. Sir Nicholas Kenyon, director of London's Barbican Centre, discussed the production of Benjamin Britten's Curlew River, featuring tenor Ian Bostridge & incorporating projections & an onstage ensemble. Mr. Tarnopolsky was genuinely taken aback when Sir Kenyon averred that any performing arts organization would envy the Cal Performances lineup.

When asked to describe his new work Shiva, classical Indian dance master Pandit Chitresh Das launched into an exuberant talk about the masculine & feminine nature of Hindu gods, complete with demonstrations of their elegant poses. Mina Girgis spoke modestly about gathering musicians from nearly a dozen African countries for the Nile Project.

Yo-Yo Ma will play Bach at the Greek Theatre as well as speak in the Berkeley Talks series. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra will present 3 programs, 2 of them with Benjamin Schwartz, former assistant conductor at the San Francisco Symphony, though the ensemble will also perform a conductorless Eroica Symphony. Jiří Belohlávek will lead the Czech Philharmonic in Dvořák's Stabat Mater. The Australian Ballet will present Swan Lake as a parable about the British royal family. Mikhail Baryshnikov & Willem Dafoe will star in The Old Woman, a Robert Wilson theater piece based on a surrealist Soviet-era story.

The Tallis Scholars will perform the 40-voice Spem in alium, augmented by  UCB students. Apollo's Fire, a Cleveland early music group, will perform Monteverdi's Vespers. San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will present 3 George Crumb premieres among the commissions in their Project TenFourteen series. An Ojai North program includes Ligeti's Piano Études Books I & II played by Jeremy Denk, Ives's Psalm 90 & Beethoven's Choral Fantasy.

The press conference was held in the comfortable Pearson Theatre at Meyer Sound. It was a pleasure to find myself at the same event as Patrick Vaz for the 4th time in almost as many days, though he could not help pointing out that he squeezed in one more performance than I did over the weekend.

The Opera Tattler has condensed the entire season here.

§ Cal Performances 2014/15 Season
Website | Brochure | Announcement  | Calendar

§ Cal Performances 2014/15 Season Press Conference
Meyer Sound’s Pearson Theatre in Berkeley
Tuesday, April 29 at 9:30 a.m.