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Rinde Eckert: And God Created Great Whales

Eckert’s musical adventure follows Nathan, a piano tuner and composer who is losing his mind and his memory.

In Nathan’s mad quest to finish his final opus, an opera based on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, he has left himself tape-recorded instructions and visual aids to help jar his memory. He also relies on his imaginary muse, Olivia, for inspiration and advice.

As Nathan strives to create one last grand work before his mind dies, he and Olivia take on the roles of Ishmael, Queequeg, Starbuck, Captain Ahab and others.

PostClassical Ensemble: Dvořák and America

PostClassical Ensemble, now in its ninth season, is an experimental musical laboratory testing the limits of orchestral programming. Their concerts regularly incorporate popular music, folk music, vernacular music and more, combining the music itself with insights into the people and the times that produced it.

Artistic Director Joseph Horowitz has done extensive research into Dvořák and his body of work, resulting in a book, an educational project about America in Dvořák’s time and this program.

Paul Taylor Dance Company

In the 1950s, Martha Graham dubbed Paul Taylor the “naughty boy” of dance and he has been shaking things up ever since. His company has toured worldwide, selling out large-scale houses like the Eisenhower Theatre at the Kennedy Center, the Koch Theatre at Lincoln Center, the Paris Opera House and many others. As the opening night of our 2012-2013 season, our audience will have the opportunity to see this groundbreaking modern dance company up close when his dancers give a one-night-only performance in the Center’s intimate Kay Theatre.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with Gabriel Kahane

American composer and singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s first composer-in-residence, combines his classical music training with modern folk-pop influences.

Often compared to Sufjan Stevens and Rufus Wainwright, Kahane has collaborated with both of these artists.

He will perform with Orpheus in a program that includes his very recent composition titled Gabriel’s Guide to the 48 States plus Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night.

Delores Ziegler: One Leg at a Time

When they aren’t singing the roles of villains, wise women and seductresses, mezzo-sopranos take on a different character: young men. In this Distinguished Scholar Teacher Recital, faculty artist Delores Ziegler discusses the evolution of this curious operatic convention.

Along with students and faculty, she will demonstrate the various styles of “pants roles.”

Nora Chipaumire: Miriam

With Miriam, the renowned choreographer and dancer Nora Chipaumire creates her first character-driven work — a deeply personal dance-theatre performance that looks closely at the tensions women face between public expectations and private desires, between selflessness and ambition, and between the perfection and sacrifice of the feminine ideal.

Nolan Williams, Jr & Voices of Inspiration: Christmas Gift!

Nolan Williams, Jr. has been immersed in the sounds and rhythms of African American song throughout his life. A composer, director and the CEO of NEWorks Productions, he has collaborated with artists from Aretha Franklin to the National Symphony Orchestra and was a community partner in the Fortune’s Bones project during the 2011-2012 season.

Ninety Miles

The distance between the coastal United States and Cuba is a short 90 miles but politics and history have sometimes made the distance seem insurmountable.

The Ninety Miles Project brought leading Cuban and American jazz musicians together in Cuba over the span of a week to record music that both highlights and synthesizes their different cultures.

NY Festival of Song: Brel and Trenet Revisited

New York Festival of Song is renowned for its intimate, original ensemble song programs consisting almost exclusively of rarely heard songs of all kinds.

This program celebrates two of the 20th century’s greatest balladeers, the Belgian-born Jacques Brel and Frenchman Charles Trénet.

Brel’s literate, thoughtful and theatrical songs generated a large, devoted following, initially in France and later throughout the world.

Latin Rhythms

The stage comes alive with the sparkling, sensual rhythms of music from Brazil, Spain and Argentina.

Carmen Balthrop and Kathleen Trahan are joined by School of Music alumna Camille Delaney in a performance of works by revolutionary Latin composers Astor Piazzolla and Heitor Villa-Lobos, and introduce new music by Christopher Urquiaga and Christopher Caliendo.

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