Olivier Messiaen’s Harawi

Harawi will be performed without intermission and last approximately 60 minutes.

Leadership support for the 2024–25 Julia Bullock residency at Cal Performances  is provided by Michael P. N. A. Hormel.

This production received its world premiere in July 2022  at France’s Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, with a European Tour in Spring 2023  at Belgium’s De Singel, and Germany’s Leverkusen and Elbphilharmonie.

Welcome to the start of an exciting new season at Cal Performances! Over the coming year, we’ll spotlight fresh perspectives, captivating stories, and brilliant talent in presentations that will expand the boundaries of the performing arts and inspire us to engage more deeply with the world around us.

It is a singular pleasure to begin our season with a visit from the American Modern Opera Company (also known as AMOC*), which will present its rich and wonderful new production of Olivier Messiaen’s 1945 song cycle Harawi (Sept 27, Zellerbach Hall [ZH]). Among today’s most ambitious and important performance collectives, AMOC* is renowned for presenting some of the most significant interdisciplinary art on the international scene. The company’s landmark production of Harawi features the accomplished classical singer Julia Bullock—who also serves as our artist in residence over the course of the 2024–25 season (see Thomas May’s informative article beginning on the next page)—and pianist Conor Hanick in a production that is expanded and enhanced through the work of choreographers/dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, all under the direction of Zack Winokur. (All five artists are among the 17 sought-after composers, choreographers, directors, vocalists, instrumentalists, dancers, writers, and designers who form AMOC*, and all are united by a commitment to collaborative authorship and maintaining important ongoing relationships with other creators.)

And there’s so much more to see this season! I encourage you to visit our website and check out the special interactive season brochure that has been designed to provide the best possible online reading experience; this dynamic new online tool has also been configured to map perfectly to your device, whether it’s desktop, laptop, or mobile.

As you explore the calendar, I recommend you give particular attention to our 2024–25 Illuminations theme of “Fractured History,” which will introduce nuanced accounts and powerful new voices to enrich our understanding of the past and explore how our notions of history affect our present and future.

As part of our Illuminations thematic programming this season, a major highlight will be the welcome return of the multitalented South African artist William Kentridge, with the Bay Area premiere of his mind-expanding new chamber opera, The Great Yes, The Great No (March 14–16, ZH). (Berkeley audiences will fondly recall Kentridge’s remarkable SIBYL from March 2023, in addition to the many other performances and events that were part of his residency that season.)

I’m also delighted to recognize the Maria Manetti Shrem and Elizabeth Segerstrom California Orchestra Residency, which will host three special performances with one of the towering artistic institutions of our time, the peerless Vienna Philharmonic, under preeminent conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin (March 5–7, ZH) and joined by pianist Yefim Bronfman on March 7.

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our outstanding dance season, which is distinguished by Twyla Tharp Dance’s 60th anniversary Diamond Jubilee (Feb 7–9, ZH), toasting the artistic output that has easily made Tharp one of today’s most celebrated choreographers; as well as the Cal Performances debut of the world-renowned Brazilian troupe Grupo Corpo (Apr 25–26, ZH).

I look forward to engaging with so many fresh artistic perspectives alongside you throughout the season. Together, we will witness how these experiences can move each one of us in the profound and unpredictable ways made possible only by the live performing arts.

Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances

Welcome to the start of an exciting new season at Cal Performances! Over the coming year, we’ll spotlight fresh perspectives, captivating stories, and brilliant talent in presentations that will expand the boundaries of the performing arts and inspire us to engage more deeply with the world around us.

It is a singular pleasure to begin our season with a visit from the American Modern Opera Company (also known as AMOC*), which will present its rich and wonderful new production of Olivier Messiaen’s 1945 song cycle Harawi (Sept 27, Zellerbach Hall [ZH]).

Among today’s most ambitious and important performance collectives, AMOC* is renowned for presenting some of the most significant interdisciplinary art on the international scene. The company’s landmark production of Harawi features the accomplished classical singer Julia Bullock—who also serves as our artist in residence over the course of the 2024–25 season (see Thomas May’s informative article beginning on the next page)—and pianist Conor Hanick in a production that is expanded and enhanced through the work of choreographers/dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, all under the direction of Zack Winokur. (All five artists are among the 17 sought-after composers, choreographers, directors, vocalists, instrumentalists, dancers, writers, and designers who form AMOC*, and all are united by a commitment to collaborative authorship and maintaining important ongoing relationships with other creators.)

And there’s so much more to see this season! I encourage you to visit our website and check out the special interactive season brochure that has been designed to provide the best possible online reading experience; this dynamic new online tool has also been configured to map perfectly to your device, whether it’s desktop, laptop, or mobile.

As you explore the calendar, I recommend you give particular attention to our 2024–25 Illuminations theme of “Fractured History,” which will introduce nuanced accounts and powerful new voices to enrich our understanding of the past and explore how our notions of history affect our present and future.

As part of our Illuminations thematic programming this season, a major highlight will be the welcome return of the multitalented South African artist William Kentridge, with the Bay Area premiere of his mind-expanding new chamber opera, The Great Yes, The Great No (March 14–16, ZH). (Berkeley audiences will fondly recall Kentridge’s remarkable SIBYL from March 2023, in addition to the many other performances and events that were part of his residency that season.)

I’m also delighted to recognize the Maria Manetti Shrem and Elizabeth Segerstrom California Orchestra Residency, which will host three special performances with one of the towering artistic institutions of our time, the peerless Vienna Philharmonic, under preeminent conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin (March 5–7, ZH) and joined by pianist Yefim Bronfman on March 7.

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our outstanding dance season, which is distinguished by Twyla Tharp Dance’s 60th anniversary Diamond Jubilee (Feb 7–9, ZH), toasting the artistic output that has easily made Tharp one of today’s most celebrated choreographers; as well as the Cal Performances debut of the world-renowned Brazilian troupe Grupo Corpo (Apr 25–26, ZH).

I look forward to engaging with so many fresh artistic perspectives alongside you throughout the season. Together, we will witness how these experiences can move each one of us in the profound and unpredictable ways made possible only by the live performing arts.

Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances

HARAWI realizes Olivier Messiaen’s deeply affecting, hour-long 1945 song cycle for voice and piano in new physical and dramatic dimensions, featuring soprano Julia Bullock, pianist Conor Hanick, choreographer/dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, with direction by Zack Winokur. Moving from duet to quartet, this production breaks open Messiaen’s cycle, connects movement to music, and grapples with the intensity of love and loss.

Statement about Harawi
by Julia Bullock and Zack Winokur
Express living archives in the body—Articulate complex rhythms and patterns— Utilize repetition in order to better understand—Encourage improvisation—Invite movement and sound to become extensions of each other—Voice one’s surroundings as a way to be immersed in and expanded by them.—Utter broken words. †

These are some values intrinsic to the traditions of Harawi (Qarawi)—Andean music that is still expressed across the diverse cultures and peoples in Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, and beyond.

Olivier Messiaen only became aware of Andean Harawi traditions through an ethnographic anthology written by Marguerite and Raoul d’Harcourt, however the melodies and themes seemed to provide a space where Messiaen could process why love, loss, absence, and presence are human preoccupations; and how shattered realities give way to expansiveness.

Messiaen’s life circumstances, relationships, and beliefs always seemed to infuse his compositions, oftentimes with explicit symbols and associations. Messiaen began to write this song cycle when he returned home after being a prisoner of war during World War II. Shortly after his return, the mind and body of Claire Delbos—a fellow musician, source of inspiration, and his wife—had begun to slowly degenerate, including total amnesia; all while a new love partner began entering his life.

While appropriating elements of Quechuan languages and Andean Harawi traditions, Messiaen’s song cycle Harawi explores dichotomies: life and death, pain and joy, spirituality and sensuality, sacrifice and preservation, fulfillment and loss. He seems to be asking from a place of personal grief: how do you stay connected to someone you love while the accumulated memories of your relationship begin to fade or drift? How do you recover and move on?

Our desire to perform this work originated from an intuitive interest in Messiaen’s expressions through his poetry and music. However, our discussions with current practitioners of Harawi, along with a direct acknowledgment of Olivier Messiaen’s difficult life circumstances while he wrote this piece, have informed our realization and revealed deep threads of resonance. We look forward to sharing where these explorations have led us.”

† These are fragments and impressions from conversations with Luz Zenaida Hualpa García, dancer and choreographer, and Karen Michelsen Castañón, visual artist. Both are current practitioners of Harawi.