Carolina Performing Arts Announces the 12/13 Performance Season

Featuring Commemoration of 100th Anniversary of The Rite of Spring Premiere

Chapel Hill, NC?Carolina Performing Arts announces its eighth season featuring 46 performances and a very special centennial celebration of the premiere of The Rite of Spring.

The 12/13 Season presents several highly anticipated performances by renowned artists such as indie-bluegrass band the Punch Brothers (Oct. 16), acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell (Nov. 2), the celebrated authentic performance pioneers Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique with conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner (Nov. 14), Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis (Feb. 10, 2013) and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Feb. 26?27, 2013).

The season also features a celebration commemorating the centennial anniversary of the premiere of The Rite of Spring, the ground-breaking ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky to a score by Igor Stravinsky and performed by Serge Diaghilev?s Ballets Russes. This shockingly new artwork debuted on May 29, 1913 and resulted in a riot at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The Rite of Spring premiere is considered a cultural milestone by ushering in the Modernist era.

Carolina Performing Arts? 100th anniversary celebration, titled The Rite of Spring at 100 (Rite 100), is the most daring endeavor ever undertaken by the organization. As part of Rite 100, Memorial Hall will host nine world premieres and two U.S. premieres and 11 new works commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts. The new works, created by world-renowned composers, choreographers and performers, will revisit, re-examine and respond to the Stravinsky-Nijinsky masterpiece. In addition to the new works, several dance companies will perform new interpretations of The Rite of Spring choreography that were created during the past century.

The complete The Rite of Spring at 100 performance schedule:

Rite 100 also incorporates two major academic conferences in Moscow and Chapel Hill, artist residencies, masterclasses, university courses and multidisciplinary collaborations. To learn more about the performances and special events, go to www.theriteofspringat100.org

The 12/13 Regular Season

The 12/13 Season opens with the National Theatre of Scotland returning to Chapel Hill and presenting David Greig?s award-winning The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, staged at Top of the Hill?s Back Bar (Sept. 16?20). The performance is described as an evening of ?anarchic theater, live music and strange goings-on.?

In October, Carolina Performing Arts presents the world premiere of Elsewhere, a ?CelloOpera? by Maya Beiser, a virtuosic cellist and diva of the avant-garde and featuring vocalist Helga Davis. This haunting new multimedia performance stages two dramatic interpretations of apocalyptic visions in a stunning showcase of postmodern collaboration. The work features an assemblage of original video, choreography and stage environments under the direction of Robert Woodruff.

In addition to the premieres and new works, the 12/13 Season features eagerly anticipated performances by artists returning to Memorial Hall.  Carolina Performing Arts welcomes back multi-Grammy Award-winning Latin superstar and social activist Gilberto Gil (Nov. 12) with a program that pays homage to baião music pioneer Luiz Gonzaga.

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, with Sir John Eliot Gardiner return to Memorial Hall, after selling out two concerts in 2011, will perform Beethoven?s greatest masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony with the Monteverdi Choir in one of only three stops on their U.S. tour.

Also returning to Carolina Performing Arts is KODO (Feb. 25, 2013), the world-renowned Japanese ritual drumming ensemble known for their high-energy, speed, dexterity, precision and muscular endurance.

The holiday season features the enduring favorite, The Nutcracker (Dec. 1?2) by the Carolina Ballet. Carolina Performing Arts, for the first time, will also present Jazz for the Holidays (Dec. 7) by the NC Jazz Repertory Orchestra with special guest jazz vocalist John Pizzarelli, performing a special selection of holiday favorites and classic tunes.

Later in the season, Carolina Performing Arts, in a partnership with the Center for Global Initiatives and the Center for the Study of the American South, will host two performances as part of the annual Global American South Conference. Ambassadors of African-American string band music, The Carolina Chocolate Drops will perform with fellow returning artist Vusi Mahlasela, known simply as ?The Voice? in his home country of South Africa (Feb. 8, 2013). The following evening, Abigail Washburn, clawhammer banjo player, will perform with Kai Welch alongside Wu Fei, an internationally acclaimed guzheng master from China (Feb. 9, 2013).

As part of the season?s classical recitals, violinist Joshua Bell will perform a program of Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, Antonin Dvo?ák and Sergei Prokofiev (Nov. 2). Radu Lupu, a seminal pianist of his generation, will be performing compositions by César Franck and Franz Schubert (Jan. 19, 2013).

The jazz series brings to Chapel Hill two Cuban jazz musicians, a living legend and a new force on the scene.  Chucho Valdés (Nov. 27), who just won the 2011 Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album with Chucho?s Steps, is one of the legendary innovators of Cuban jazz and hailed as one of the greatest jazz pianists in the world. On Feb. 22, 2013, the Dafnis Prieto Sextet takes the Memorial Hall stage. A Cuban-born drummer and composer now living in New York City, Prieto has had a major impact on the world of jazz, receiving a MacArther ?Genius? Fellowship just last year. His band will be appearing in conjunction with Carolina Jazz Festival. Also featured in the jazz series is vocalist Kurt Elling (Mar. 20, 2013), who will bring his rich baritone and vocalese style to Chapel Hill.

Tickets

Tickets to the general public go on sale June 19 and can be ordered over the phone by calling (919) 843-3333, going online at www.carolinaperformingarts.org or visiting Memorial Hall Box Office on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

Subscription packages go on sale to the general public June 9. This year, Carolina Performing Arts is offering a ?choose your own? ticket package with special discounts for packages of four, six, eight or more tickets to different performances. As in every year, Carolina Performing Arts is offering special discounts for pre-selected ticket packages including Great Orchestras of the World; Recitals, Classically; American Roots; Dance = Freedom of Movement; Jazz Masters, Global Connections and The Complete Rite of Spring at 100 Experience. To learn more about subscription packages, go to www.carolinaperformingarts.org/tickets/

About The Rite of Spring at 100

On May 29, 1913, Serge Diaghilev?s Ballets Russes took to the stage in Paris to give the first performance of The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky to a score by Igor Stravinsky, with sets and costumes created by artist Nicholas Roerich. The premiere set off a shock wave that is still being felt today. In the centennial year of this famously scandalous premiere?an epoch-making event in the arts and society alike?Carolina Performing Arts at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will present The Rite of Spring at 100, an unprecedented nine-month festival taking place from September 2012, through May 2013.

Through partnerships with UNC?s College of Arts and Sciences and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC, the campus will engage in a year-long dialogue on the impact of The Rite of Spring and its historical narrative through artistic residencies, masterclasses and interdisciplinary courses. Through partnerships with UNC?s Department of Music and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Carolina Performing Arts is supporting the creation of 14 new academic courses developed in conjunction with The Rite of Spring at 100 and two scholarly conferences in Chapel Hill, featuring eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin, and in Moscow that will shed new light and renewed reflections on this seminal work. For more information, please visit www.theriteofspringat100.org

About Carolina Performing Arts

The mission of Carolina Performing Arts is to enrich lives by creating and presenting exceptional arts experiences and connecting them to the UNC community and beyond. Established in 2005 at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Performing Arts presents the very best from the full spectrum of the performing arts: internationally renowned recitalists and orchestras; dance and chamber ensembles; jazz, folk and world music performers; and opera and theatre companies.

CPA strives to nurture artistic innovation and the development of new works on and off campus; to challenge and inspire audiences with powerful and transformative performances; and to integrate the arts into the life of the University, embracing its mission of teaching, research and public service.

Date: May 17, 2012
Contact:
Ellen James
Communications and Marketing Manager
(919) 843-0516
ellen_james@unc.edu

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