Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano
Jake Heggie, composer and piano
Sunday, April 3, 2022, 3pm
Hertz Hall
This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsor Diane B. Wilsey.
From the Executive and Artistic Director
What a joy it is this week to welcome the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater back to Zellerbach Hall for the company’s first UC Berkeley performances since the pandemic began in March 2020. For more than 50 years, what we fondly call “Ailey Week” has been a major highlight of our season, as thousands of dance fans flock to campus to check in on the latest work from one of Americas’ most beloved—and respected—dance companies. Year in and year out, no one wants to miss “Ailey Week”!
This season is certainly no exception, as the company performs more than a dozen works from the storied Ailey repertory. We’ll see the West Coast premiere of the newly staged version of Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts’ Holding Space (a Cal Performances co-commission, seen for the first time last season on our Cal Performances at Home streaming series), as well as the Bay Area premiere of Artistic Director Robert Battle’s new For Four, set to music by Wynton Marsalis. All this and more, including a selection of works by Alvin Ailey himself—classics like Blues Suite (1958), Cry (1971), Pas de Duke (1976), and, of course, Ailey’s timeless masterwork, Revelations (1960).
I also want to say how much we’re looking forward to this summer’s 20th-anniversary edition of the Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp, a centerpiece of Cal Performances’ education and community programs that works to instill self-confidence, discipline, and self-esteem in underserved youngsters through the art of dance. Since 2002, AileyCamp has positively affected the lives of more than 1,000 young people (plus hundreds more in their families and communities). We believe that this extraordinary program—along with our annual residency with the Ailey company—makes a significant contribution to the cultural life of the Bay Area.
Even as Ailey returns to campus, we also want to extend a special welcome to the exceptional young mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton on the occasion of her Cal Performances debut, Sunday afternoon (Apr 3) in Hertz Hall. Barton has captured the music world’s attention with her brilliant singing, but she is also often praised for how uses her powerful voice offstage—advocating for women and LGBTQ+ people and speaking out on topics such as body positivity, diet culture, and social justice issues. Her program features music by Purcell, Schubert, and Brahms, as well as several works (including a West Coast premiere) by Jake Heggie. Once a staff member here at Cal Performances(!), today Jake is perhaps best known for his acclaimed operas including Dead Man Walking and Moby-Dick, praised as “arguably the world’s most popular 21st century opera and art song composer” (The Wall Street Journal). We’re particularly excited that, on this occasion, he’ll be on hand to accompany Barton from the piano!
March and April finds Cal Performances operating at full speed as we approach the April 20 announcement date for our brilliant 2022–23 season. (We just released our beautiful new 42-page season brochure to the printer; I can’t wait to share it with you!) From now through the first week of May, the remainder of our current season is filled with adventurous programming. You won’t want to miss…
- the renowned English Baroque Soloists with conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner in a transfixing program of works by Mozart and Haydn (Apr 10)
- Angélique Kidjo, our 2021–22 artist-in-residence, in her new music-theater piece Yemandja (a much-anticipated Cal Performances co-commission and Illuminations event, Apr 23)
- highly anticipated concerts with superb classical artists including Germany’s Tetzlaff Quartet (Apr 23); pianist Daniil Trifonov (Apr 28), making his Cal Performances solo debut; and the Danish String Quartet (Apr 29)—a particular favorite of our chamber music audience—delivering the next installment in its ongoing Doppelgänger Project, a series of concerts that pairs late Schubert string quartets with newly commissioned works (on this occasion, a new quartet by the fascinating Finnish composer Lotta Wennäkoski).
Fasten your seatbelts; we have all of this—and more—in store before the season ends!
I know you join us in looking forward to what lies ahead, and to coming together—as we do today and have done so often in the past—to encounter the life-changing experiences that only the live performing arts deliver. We can’t wait to share it all with you!
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
What a joy it is this week to welcome the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater back to Zellerbach Hall for the company’s first UC Berkeley performances since the pandemic began in March 2020. For more than 50 years, what we fondly call “Ailey Week” has been a major highlight of our season, as thousands of dance fans flock to campus to check in on the latest work from one of Americas’ most beloved—and respected—dance companies. Year in and year out, no one wants to miss “Ailey Week”!
This season is certainly no exception, as the company performs more than a dozen works from the storied Ailey repertory. We’ll see the West Coast premiere of the newly staged version of Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts’ Holding Space (a Cal Performances co-commission, seen for the first time last season on our Cal Performances at Home streaming series), as well as the Bay Area premiere of Artistic Director Robert Battle’s new For Four, set to music by Wynton Marsalis. All this and more, including a selection of works by Alvin Ailey himself—classics like Blues Suite (1958), Cry (1971), Pas de Duke (1976), and, of course, Ailey’s timeless masterwork, Revelations (1960).
I also want to say how much we’re looking forward to this summer’s 20th-anniversary edition of the Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp, a centerpiece of Cal Performances’ education and community programs that works to instill self-confidence, discipline, and self-esteem in underserved youngsters through the art of dance. Since 2002, AileyCamp has positively affected the lives of more than 1,000 young people (plus hundreds more in their families and communities). We believe that this extraordinary program—along with our annual residency with the Ailey company—makes a significant contribution to the cultural life of the Bay Area.
Even as Ailey returns to campus, we also want to extend a special welcome to the exceptional young mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton on the occasion of her Cal Performances debut, Sunday afternoon (Apr 3) in Hertz Hall. Barton has captured the music world’s attention with her brilliant singing, but she is also often praised for how uses her powerful voice offstage—advocating for women and LGBTQ+ people and speaking out on topics such as body positivity, diet culture, and social justice issues. Her program features music by Purcell, Schubert, and Brahms, as well as several works (including a West Coast premiere) by Jake Heggie. Once a staff member here at Cal Performances(!), today Jake is perhaps best known for his acclaimed operas including Dead Man Walking and Moby-Dick, praised as “arguably the world’s most popular 21st century opera and art song composer” (The Wall Street Journal). We’re particularly excited that, on this occasion, he’ll be on hand to accompany Barton from the piano!
March and April finds Cal Performances operating at full speed as we approach the April 20 announcement date for our brilliant 2022–23 season. (We just released our beautiful new 42-page season brochure to the printer; I can’t wait to share it with you!) From now through the first week of May, the remainder of our current season is filled with adventurous programming. You won’t want to miss…
- the renowned English Baroque Soloists with conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner in a transfixing program of works by Mozart and Haydn (Apr 10)
- Angélique Kidjo, our 2021–22 artist-in-residence, in her new music-theater piece Yemandja (a much-anticipated Cal Performances co-commission and Illuminations event, Apr 23)
- highly anticipated concerts with superb classical artists including Germany’s Tetzlaff Quartet (Apr 23); pianist Daniil Trifonov (Apr 28), making his Cal Performances solo debut; and the Danish String Quartet (Apr 29)—a particular favorite of our chamber music audience—delivering the next installment in its ongoing Doppelgänger Project, a series of concerts that pairs late Schubert string quartets with newly commissioned works (on this occasion, a new quartet by the fascinating Finnish composer Lotta Wennäkoski).
Fasten your seatbelts; we have all of this—and more—in store before the season ends!
I know you join us in looking forward to what lies ahead, and to coming together—as we do today and have done so often in the past—to encounter the life-changing experiences that only the live performing arts deliver. We can’t wait to share it all with you!
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
