Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Countdown to PIFA Begins with Opening Night April 7 at the Kimmel Center!

APRIL 5, 2011


Sussan Deyhim, alto vocalist of Hope: an Oratorio, PIFA world premiere

Over 30 Newly Commissioned Works to Debut at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts

 

The Kimmel Center Presents The World Premiere of Hope: An Oratorio, among other New Works

 

With two days until the April 7 opening night of the long-awaited Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA), the Kimmel Center anticipates the debut of over 30 newly commissioned works, including the world premiere of Hope: an Oratorio, composed by Jonathan Leshnoff and performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with conductor Roberto Minczuk, April 24.  

 

Inspired by the Kimmel Center, PIFA (April 7 to May 1) includes artists from the worlds of music, dance, film, circus arts, visual arts and theater, collaboratively working together to celebrate the spirit of innovation, collaboration and creativity present in Paris, circa 1910-1920. 

 

PIFA’s opening night on April 7 kicks off with a series of world premieres commissioned by the Kimmel Center for PIFA:  Pulcinella Alive, with newly-commissioned choreography by Jorma Elo  (7pm, Verizon Hall); A Passing Wind, a new music-theater work by Seth Rozin (7:30pm, Innovation Studio); Chance Encounters, a stunning display of aerial dance (10pm; Commonwealth Plaza); and the newly created digital installation of How Philly Moves by Philly native mural artist JJ Tiziou (dawn to dusk, Kimmel Center façade). Opening weekend continues with Robert Smythe’s new production of Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale, April 10.

 

 “We are excited to engage the Philadelphia community with the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts,” said Kimmel Center President and CEO Anne Ewers.  “Thanks to the generous support of the late Leonore Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, PIFA is a creative force, bringing forth new works of every variety  -- dance, music, theater, animation, puppetry, and more.    The  Kimmel Center  is the home for many of these premieres and is the catalyst for the collaborations among its renowned Resident Companies and both Philadelphia and international artists.”  

 

Throughout the remainder of PIFA, the Kimmel Center continues to premiere newly-commissioned works.  Hope: an Oratorio blends its classical and popular music styles in a work that embraces a universal spirituality.  World pop singer Sussan Deyhim and Belgian jazz singer David Linx join classical vocalists Jessica Rivera and Jason Collins in this lyrical and moving work by rising star composer Jonathan Leshnoff (April 24, Verizon Hall); Heaven has Philly native hip hop choreographer Rennie Harris incorporating multimedia anime into a new dance work inspired by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (April 15-17, Perelman Theater); Remember Paris, a new musical and theatrical multimedia experience, includes French improvisational organist Thierry Escaich collaborating with Philly director Emmanuelle Delpech (April 16, Verizon Hall); and Paris Wheels and the Ready Maids, produced by White Box Theatre, shares an interdisciplinary storytelling performance using dance, puppetry, music and voice (April 21-23, Hamilton Garden).

 

Additional works commissioned wholly or in part by the Kimmel Center for PIFA include: Wanamaker’s Pursuit, a new play by Rogelio Martinez, tying fictional Philly department store heir Nathan Wanamaker to the world’s fashion capital, Paris, produced by the Arden Theatre (April 7 to May 1); And,Who Stole the Mona Lisa, an enchanting new animation that tells the story of the theft of the Mona Lisa, set to Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, presented by Astral Artists (April 9, Perelman Theater).

 

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Below is more information about new works to premiere during PIFA, commissioned wholly or in part by the Kimmel Center:

 

Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 7pm

Verizon Hall

Pulcinella Alive  (Kimmel Center Premiere)

The Philadelphia Orchestra, Rossen Milanov, Conductor

The Pennsylvania Ballet, Jorma Elo, Choreographer

Ticket Price: $43- $120

 

STRAVINSKY: Pulcinella (complete ballet)

FALLA: The Three-Cornered Hat

The Philadelphia Orchestra opens the festival with a program of two masterpieces from Paris during 1910-1920, including a rare collaboration with Pennsylvania Ballet. In 1919 in London, Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes presented the world premiere of the full-length version of Manuel de Falla's ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, and the following year in Paris the same company gave the premiere of Stravinsky's commedia dell'arte-inspired Pulcinella. Both works originally featured choreography by Léonide Massine and sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso. In his first collaboration with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Finnish native and Boston Ballet resident choreographer Jorma Elo creates a new ballet to Stravinsky's Pulcinella, to be performed live onstage by the Orchestra and Pennsylvania Ballet. Rossen Milanov, the Orchestra's Bulgarian-born associate conductor, conducts.

Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 10pm

Chance Encounters (World Premiere)

Commonwealth Plaza

Free with purchase of gala tickets

 

The artists of Grounded Aerial defy earth, air and gravity in performances that combine modern and aerial dance.  Using bungee cords, aerial harnesses, rope pendulums and one-of-a-kind devices, this site-specific work will be performed inside the Commonwealth Plaza of the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts.

 

Thursday, April 7  –  Sunday, May 1, 2011, dusk to dawn

How Philly Moves

Kimmel Center, Broad Street

Free

 

A digitally projected mural collaboratively commissioned by PIFA and the internationally-renowned Mural Arts Program will grace the façade of the Kimmel Center. This constantly-changing mural created by JJ Tiziou will feature photos and videos of dancing Philadelphians from his How Philly Moves project.  The Kimmel Center’s mural is a sister to the Mural Arts Program’s 50,000 square foot painted mural composed of JJ’s iconic photos, coming to Philadelphia International Airport in June 2011.  

 

Thursday, April 7  –  Sunday, April 17, 2011, times vary

A Passing Wind (World Premiere)

Innovation Studio

Ticket Price: $15 to $29

(*student or senior discounts available)

 

A Passing Wind is an enchanting chamber musical chronicling the (mostly) true story of Joseph Pujol – a.k.a. Le Petomane (“The Fartiste”). From provincial baker to populist entertainer at Paris’ renowned Moulin Rouge, Pujol grosses-out thousands, while out-grossing his contemporaries, until World War I leaves unprecedented devastation in its wake, and Pujol’s act of crepitation no longer tickles France’s funny bone.

 

Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 7:30pm

Perelman Theater

A Soldier’s Tale

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

Dirk Brossé, conductor

Robert Smythe, stage director

Ticket Price: $23- $61

 

STRAVINSKY: L’histoire du soldat (A Soldier’s Tale)

 

For the first time in its 46-year history, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia brings an exciting new theatrical experience to its stage. In collaboration with award-winning stage director Robert Smythe, the Chamber Orchestra mounts a provocative new production of Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale (L’histoire du soldat).  A recipient of fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Smythe has delighted Philadelphia audiences with his puppetry work for decades. 

A founding resident company of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia is a 33-member professional ensemble led by new Music Director Dirk Brossé.  Maestro Brossé, a native of Belgium and a respected composer and conductor on the international music scene, brings an extraordinary creative vision and passion to the Chamber Orchestra. 

 

Thursday, April 7 –  Sunday, May 1, 2011, times vary

Wanamaker's Pursuit

Arcadia Stage at the Arden Theater

Ticket Price: $20 to $39

(*student or senior discounts available)

 

The Arden Theater Company presents Wanamaker’s Pursuit, a new work commissioned by PIFA.  In 1911 the world was on the brink of change and nowhere was this change more evident than in the fashions of French designer Paul Poiret. The most famous designer of his generation was also the host of the first great party of the 20th Century: “The Thousand and Second Night,” an Arabian Nights inspired event. When fictional Philadelphia department store heir Nathan Wanamaker travels to Paris to learn to be a buyer for his family’s store, he receives an invitation to the party. It is here that he begins to develop an unusual friendship with the self-proclaimed “King of Fashion.”  Surrounded by Poiret’s extravagances, Stravinsky’s music, and Picasso’s art, Nathan soon finds himself having to make the difficult choice between what he must bring back with him to Philadelphia and what he must leave behind in Paris.

 

 

Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 11am

Who Stole the Mona Lisa?

Perelman Theater

Ticket Price: $5 to $20

(*student or senior discounts available)

 

Astral Artists, one of the nation’s premier organizations for the career development of exceptional emerging classical musicians, presents “Who Stole The Mona Lisa?,” a multimedia experience for all ages. Specially commissioned animation and audience participation make this concert a truly fun family event! First, kitchen utensils go wild in Martinu’s La Revue de Cuisine, and then The Story of Babar is narrated to Poulenc’s charming music. Lastly, Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite serves as the music for a whimsical animated film.... One hundred years ago, in 1911, the Mona Lisa was actually stolen from the Louvre in Paris, and the painter Picasso was accused of the crime. In Astral’s animation, by University of the Arts graduate animator/illustrator/painter Micah Chambers-Goldberg, the Firebird comes to life and participates in solving the mystery. With 1911 Paris as the backdrop and a cast of zany characters, the animation evokes The Pink Panther and Moulin Rouge. The concert also features Astral’s brilliant artists past and present – violinist Kristin Lee, cellist Clancy Newman, clarinetist Benito Meza, and pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine are joined by special guests Natalya Rose Vrbsky, bassoon; Stanford Thompson, trumpet; and famed storyteller and Philadelphian Charlotte Blake Alston, who narrates Babar.

 

Friday, April 15 – Sunday, April 17, 2011, times vary 

Heaven (World Premiere)

Rennie Harris Puremovement

Perelman Theater

Ticket Price: $34 to $46

 

Rennie Harris Puremovement, the world-renowned dance company founded by hip-hop ambassador Rennie Harris, presents the most intricate work of his choreographic career. Harris has created a new work inspired by Stravinsky's masterpiece Rite of Spring, rethinking how shared cultural vocabularies in dance and music cross generations and cultural divides. Complete with 15 dancers, Japanese motifs, and multimedia anime that includes an innovatively designed lighting installation and live music, Heaven reflects on the emergence and popularization of hip-hop dance.

 

“Mr. Harris’ deconstructed hip-hop addresses both the beauty and the stereotypes of the form. While deftly capable of entertaining the masses, Mr. Harris is also sly. In his skillful hands you see the roots of hip-hop and not just its commercial veneer.”  --The   New York Times

 

Thursday, April 21 – Saturday, April 23, 2011 times vary

Hamilton Garden, Kimmel Center

Paris Wheels and the Ready Maids

FREE

 

White Box Theatre presents an interdisciplinary storytelling performance using dance puppetry, music, and voice.  Glimpse Paris inside out through the eyes of Henri Rousseau as Ready maids parade the Champs Elysées, zoo animals float out of their cages and into a garden of pink leaves, a bicyclist climbs the Eiffel Tower, and cockatoos share philosophy.    Sebastienne Mundheim, in collaboration with visual and performing artists, explores turn of the century Paris and the avante-garde.  Thirty minutes of performance followed by a sixty-minute workshop. Appropriate for all ages.

 

Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 3pm

Verizon Hall

Thierry Escaich, organ

Remember Paris

Ticket price: $19- $28

 

Emmanuelle Delpech, director

Gilles Boustani, video designer

Nichole Canuso and Geoff Sobelle, actors

 

Admired by The Diapason as “an improviser of genius,” international organist Thierry Escaich is renowned for his concert work as well as his brilliant compositions. Escaich will perform Remember Paris, a collaboration with acclaimed director Emmanuelle Delpech.  Musically and theatrically re-creating Paris from 1910 to 1920, Remember Paris also includes video designer Gilles Boustani’s inventive projections of historic images and dreamlike re-imaginings of the City of Lights. A man and a woman, played by two silent actors, poignantly transport audiences back to a Paris embodied by decadence and eroticism, by artistic daring and the devastations of war. 

 

Organist at St-Etienne-du-Mont in Paris since 1997, Thierry Escaich is an international organist and ambassador of the great French organ school of improvisation. His diverse recordings have been awarded numerous musical distinctions such as the Grand Prix de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque (1996) and the “Choc du Monde de la musique” (1998) for his interpretations of works by Brahms. The “incandescent breath and inexhaustible energy” (Diapason) of his improvisations make him a worthy successor to the grand masters such as C. Franck and P. Cochereau.  Lastly, his passion for the cinema has motivated him to improvise on the piano and the organ and to compose for silent film, as demonstrated in his musical accompaniment of Frank Borzage’s L’Heure suprême, commissioned by the Louvre in 1999.

 

A former member of Pig Iron Theatre Company  for eight years, Emmanuelle Delpech has been a performer and co-creator of critically acclaimed productions such as Gentlemen Volunteers, Flop!, Hell Meets Henry Halfway, and James Joyce is Dead and So Is Paris, for which she won a Barrymore Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.  Classically trained at the Ecole Superieur d’Art Dramatique de la ville de Paris, Emmanuelle also studied physical theatre at Ecole Jacques Lecoq.  Emmanuelle has performed in Paris and throughout Europe in productions such as Lettres a Stalingrad, directed by Laurent Terzieff. She has taught Clown at the University of the Arts and currently instructs a two semester Lecoq technique Class at Temple University.

 

 

Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 3pm

Verizon Hall

HOPE: An Oratorio (World Premiere)

Jonathan Leshnoff, composer

Roberto Minczuk, conductor

Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

Ticket Price: $28- $68

 

Jessica Rivera, soprano;  Sussan Deyhim, alto

Jason Collins, tenor; David Linx, tenor

The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, Alan Harler, Artistic Director

Pennsylvania Girlchoir, Mark A. Anderson, Music Director

 

Commissioned by the Kimmel Center for PIFA, Jonathan Leshnoff’s HOPE: An Oratorio, receives its world premiere on April 24.  Praised by the New York Times for his “glowing melodic lines over autumnal string harmonies,” Leshnoff is quickly earning an international reputation as one of America’s most gifted young composers. Leshnoff’s piece explores the cycles of faith, from the throes of abandonment to the revival of hope. Embracing universal spirituality, he includes multi-lingual texts from the Old Testament, African-American spirituals, and poems by Walt Whitman and 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz, setting them for diverse voices, including World pop Iranian singer Sussan Deyhim and innovative Belgian jazz singer David Linx.   

 

The New Jersey-born composer Jonathan Leshnoff is riding the crest of a wave of popularity that has resulted in international performances of his works by the Philadelphia, Baltimore, IRIS, Buffalo, Kyoto, Curtis Institute, Kansas City, National Gallery of Art, Boca Raton, Columbus, and Extremadura (Madrid) Orchestras, among others.  In April of 2010, Marin Alsop and The Baltimore Symphony premiered his Starburst, and last month, The Philadelphia Orchestra, under the direction of Robert Spano, premiered his flute concerto, written for Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Flutist, Jeffrey Khaner.  He is currently the composer-in-residence with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.

 

 

Tickets to individual performances and events can be purchased on the PIFA website, in person at the Kimmel Center Box Office, or by phone at 215-546-PIFA. Tickets are priced by individual presenting organizations, ranging from FREE to the public to $125. For the most up to date information, visit www.pifa.org.  

 

 

Kimmel Center, Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit organization, owns, manages, supports and maintains The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, Innovation Studio and the Merck Arts Education Center.  Kimmel Center, Inc. also manages the Academy of Music, owned by The Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and the University of the Arts’ Merriam Theater. Our mission is to operate a world-class performing arts center that engages and serves a broad audience from throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. The 2010/2011 season is sponsored by Citi, and the Broadway 2010/2011 season is sponsored by Verizon, and American Airlines.  For additional information, visit kimmelcenter.org.  

 

The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA), inspired by the Kimmel Center, launches the city’s art and cultural scene onto the world stage with a three-week festival offering performances, exhibits and events.  Based on the philosophy of collaboration, innovation and creativity, PIFA’s programs represent every arts discipline and include more than 100 partners.  Offerings include newly commissioned works, classical performances and exhibits, surprising partnerships featuring local and international artists and exciting explorations of traditional, non-traditional, new and emerging art forms.  In homage to the artistic energy of Paris 1910-1920, PIFA celebrates works from that era and new creations inspired by the brashly innovative spirit of the period. The festival was made possible by an extraordinary grant from Philadelphia philanthropist Leonore Annenberg, whose vision for a city-wide celebration of the arts shaped its philosophy and programming.   For more information, visit www.PIFA.org.

 

 

 

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