Zellerbach Playhouse
101 Zellerbach Hall, #4800 Berkeley, CA, 94720
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Ojai at Berkeley 2016:
Kaija Saariaho
La Passion de Simone

Kaija Saariaho
La Passion de Simone
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text: Amin Maalouf
ICE
Roomful of Teeth
Julia Bullock, soprano
Joana Carneiro, conductor
Peter Sellars, director

The transcendent musical vision of Kaija Saariaho returns to Cal Performances, with a chamber version of the Finnish composer's powerful oratorio created in tribute to the radical 20th-century French philosopher, Simone Weil. Saariaho's "magically seductive" (Gramophone), meditative score is performed by ICE and the accomplished vocal group Roomful of Teeth in a new restaging by Peter Sellars; the role of Weil, initially created for Dawn Upshaw, is here portrayed by Upshaw's one-time student, the extraordinary young soprano, Julia Bullock.

Tickets

Ojai at Berkeley 2016 is the brainchild of Ojai festival music director, iconoclast stage director, and brilliant creator Peter Sellars—a force of nature in the arts, renowned for the ambitious scale and deep humanity of his innovative productions. Sellars' program, created in collaboration with Cal Performances, highlights the bold artistic and cultural contributions of women thinkers, artists, and activists of the past and present. Now in its sixth year, Ojai at Berkeley continues a fertile artistic partnership between the 70-year-old Ojai Music Festival and Cal Performances, two of the West Coast's leading presenters of transformative musical experiences.