chapelhillnews.com | Carolina Performing Arts 2008-09 season

Dance series

"Shaker," Inbal Pinto Dance Company, Nov. 5. Hailed as Israel's new voice, Bessie Award-winning choreographer Inbal Pinto started out with the acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company before forming her own company and playing to rave reviews around the world. "Shaker," the newest work from creators Pinto and Avshalom Pollak, is an eerily beautiful, grey winter day, observed through whirling snow from the window of a fast-moving train.
Pilobolus, Nov. 21. A major American dance company with significant international influence, Pilobolus revels in a startling mix of physical prowess, humor, beauty and invention.
"Orpheus and Eurydice," Compagnie Marie Chouinard, March 25, 2009. Avant-garde French-Canadian choreographer/performance artist Marie Chouinard unites the sensual and cerebral in her stark, iconoclastic, visually stunning and sometimes troubling works.
"Don Quixote," Bolshoi Ballet, June 10, 2009. Long considered one of the world's great cultural treasures, Russia's grand Bolshoi Ballet has captivated dance lovers for more than 200 years.

World stage series

"The Rite of Spring," Compagnie Heddy Maalem, Oct. 25. Fourteen dancers from Mali, Benin, Nigeria and Senegal come together for choreographer Heddy Maalem's explosive interpretation of the infamous 1913 Stravinsky/Nijinsky ballet.
"The Shadow of the Glen" and "Playboy of the Western World," Druid Theatre Company, Oct. 29-30. Universally recognized as pioneers in the cultural development of Ireland during the last three decades, Druid Theatre Company is at the fore of Irish theater
"Monsters and Prodigies: The History of the Castrati," Teatro De Ciertos Habitantes, Jan. 24, 2009. A wildly inventive comic romp from Mexico City, "Monsters and Prodigies" revels in the outrageous lifestyles, musical brilliance, decadence and violence surrounding the rock-star sex symbols of the Baroque: male sopranos.

Experimental series

"To Be Straight With You," DV8 Physical Theatre, Oct. 9-10. A visceral and highly political dance-theater piece featuring live performers, documentary footage, animation and film, "To Be Straight With You" is an explosive, angry, powerful and sometimes shocking work.
"Vivien and The Shadows," Ong Keng Sen and Theatreworks (World Premiere), Oct. 21. A soul-stimulating, postmodern spectacle, "Vivien and The Shadows" melds film, theater, race, gender and sexuality in transporting us into the fantasy world of Vivien Leigh's embodiment of Blanche DuBois.
"Continuous City," The Builders Association with Marianne Weems, director, Feb. 20-21, 2009. What is the impact of technology on human presence? "Continuous City" tells the story of a traveling father and his young daughter, whose relationship is transformed by hypermodernity and failing cell phones.

American Roots series

Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet, featuring Bela Fleck with Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee, Sept. 11. With Grammy-winning banjo star and Sparrow Quartet producer Fleck, Grammy-nominated fiddler Driessen and roots/classical cellist Sollee, singer-songwriter/banjo player Washburn creates raw, inventive, cross-cultural takes on traditional folk and old-time music.
Buckwheat Zydeco with Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas, Oct. 3. The fast and furious dance music of southern Louisiana's Creole community is in the hands of the masters with these two exuberant party bands.
Aaron Neville and The Neville Brothers with Dr. John, Feb. 24, 2009. The heart and soul of New Orleans, The Neville Brothers define the deep musical spirit of the city with a heart-stopping blend of blues-soaked grooves and social commentary. New Orleans' super-charismatic Grammy-winning keyboard/vocal legend Dr. John the Night Tripper creates his own unique blend of voodoo mysticism, funk, R&B, psychedelic rock and Creole roots.

Jazz series

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Legacy, Sept. 19. Hard-swinging, powerful, fast, insanely skillful and downright fun, the 16-piece Vanguard Jazz Orchestra big band hails from New York City's legendary jazz mecca, The Village Vanguard.
Branford Marsalis Quartet, Feb. 27, 2009. One of the most celebrated jazz musicians of the past 25 years, three-time Grammy winner Branford Marsalis' extensive experience as a saxophonist, composer and bandleader has placed him in the world's great jazz clubs and classical halls.
Vijay Iyer Trio, April 3, 2009. The internationally acclaimed Vijay Iyer possesses an exotic, sophisticated, multi-cultural and emotionally engaging style that moved The Village Voice to describe him as "the most commanding pianist and composer to emerge in recent years."

Matthias Goerne, baritone, Nov. 14. Lauded around the world for his vocal beauty and the consummate intelligence of his musical interpretations, Goerne is a frequent guest at the world's most prestigious performance venues, including New York's Carnegie Hall and London's Wigmore Hall.
Andras Schiff, piano, April 7, 2009. One of today's master pianists, Grammy Award winner Schiff shines brightly in all the international music capitals.
C

Classical ensemble

Hesperion XXI with Jordi Savall, conductor and viola da gamba, and Montserrat Figueras, soprano, Oct. 23. The world's preeminent viola da gamba performer Jordi Savall leads his Barcelona-based early music ensemble in a rich and colorful program exploring the many musical references in Cervantes' classic and enduring tale, "Don Quixote."
Kirov Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, conductor, Nov. 11. In less than a decade, the Kirov Orchestra has become internationally acknowledged as one of the world's super orchestras.
Orchestra of St. Luke's with Xian Zhang, conductor, Jan. 28, 2009. The performance from Orchestra of St. Luke's features an evocative contemporary program centered on Latvian composer Peteris Vasks, whose association with earth and nature is pivotal to his work: nature as solace in its stillness and serenity, nature menacing in its unleashed, uncontrollable strength, and the mystery of both.

Special events

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin, and Camerata Salzburg, Oct. 5. At the age of 13, Anne-Sophie Mutter was hailed by Herbert von Karajan as "the greatest prodigy since the young Yehudi Menuhin." The exceptional Camerata Salzburg chamber orchestra, founded in 1952, has appeared with a host of renowned international artists, including Veronika Hagen and Emmanuel Pahud.
Ornette Coleman, Nov. 13. One of the great innovators in jazz after Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Pulitzer Prize-winning saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman has played a seminal role in American music.
Carolina Ballet's "Nutcracker," Dec. 6-7. A holiday season staple, Robert Weiss' "Nutcracker" is a fantasy classic, capturing the irrepressible imagination of a child's world in which all things are possible.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Jan. 18, 2009. The first jazz composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music, New Orleans native Wynton Marsalis also was the first artist to win jazz and classical Grammy Awards in the same year. His Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra features 15 of jazz's leading soloists
New York Philharmonic with Lorin Maazel, music director and conductor, March 3-4, 2009. The oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, the New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842.
Patti LuPone: "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda," March 18, 2009. Tony Award-winning Broadway star LuPone (the original Evita) takes us on a high-spirited tour of songs and roles that she could have played, should have played, did play and will play, with selections from "Hair," "Bye Bye Birdie," "Funny Girl," "West Side Story," "Peter Pan," "Evita," "Anything Goes" and more.
"I went to the house but did not enter," Heiner Goebbels (U.S. Premiere), a staged concert in three tableaux with The Hilliard Ensemble, March 28-29, 2009. A dizzyingly original feast of contemporary European music and theater, "I went to the house but did not enter" is a new, experimental piece that delves into 20th-century literary texts by T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett and Maurice Blanchot.
Mariza, March 31, 2009. Mariza has taken the world by storm with her spectacular singing voice, extraordinary magnetism and vividly emotional performances.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 50th Anniversary Celebration, with Sweet Honey in the Rock, April 21-22, 2009. The genius of Alvin Ailey forever changed the perception of American dance. Today the legacy continues with Judith Jamison's remarkable vision and the extraordinary artistry of the company's dancers. A highlight of this performance is the company's eagerly anticipated collaboration with the Grammy Award-winning female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Bolshoi Ballet, "Don Quixote," June 11, 2009; and "Swan Lake," June 13-14, 2009. Embodying a schooling and performing tradition of unrivalled richness, the company's superb ensemble skills and the spectacular realism of its scenery and costumes contribute to an illustrious history linked to generations of legendary names.

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