Benjamin Britten News

Following a successful opening week of Festival 2013, Dance Theatre of Harlem returns with an all-new program. DTH gave its first professional performance at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 1970; since that date, DTH and the Pillow have enjoyed a longstanding and fruitful artistic relationship. The company, led by Artistic Director Virginia Johnson, performs Donald Byrd's smooth yet power-packed contemporary ballet Contested Space, which features a plethora of solos and duets. past-carry-forward, created for DTH by Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, conveys the spirit and significance of the Harlem Renaissance. The cornerstone of this dynamic evening is the late choreographer Ulysses Dove's moving, elegiac ballet Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, danced to "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten" by Arvo Part. The company appears in a special seven-show engagement in the Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob's Pillow, July 9-13.

This summer, Nicholas Phan returns to his roots, joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood to sing the title role in Bernstein's Candide, the work that first inspired him to pursue a career in opera (Aug 16). In his third consecutive residency at the Oregon Bach Festival (June 26–July 10), the tenor takes part in performances of Vespers by Monteverdi and Rachmaninoff; Mozart's Requiem, led by Festival Director Emeritus Helmuth Rilling; an evening of Strauss Lieder; and after proving himself “the standout among the vocal soloists” (New York Times) in Bach's St. Matthew Passion at Carnegie Hall last month, a reconstruction of the Baroque master's St. Mark Passion. Phan also makes his Seattle Chamber Music Festival debut with Vaughan Williams and Brahms (July 18 & 21), and returns to New York's Bard Music Festival, now celebrating its 25th anniversary season, to sing Schubert in recital and with members of the American Symphony Orchestra (Aug 8 & 10).

On Site Opera, which has garnered acclaim for immersive, site-specific productions, will perform Rameau's one-act Pygmalion in two unusual-and unusually apt-venues this summer, just before the 250th anniversary of the composer's death: Madame Tussauds New York, on June 17, and Lifestyle-Trimco Showroom, on June 20 & 21.

On Site Opera, which has garnered acclaim for immersive, site-specific productions, will perform Rameau's one-act Pygmalion in two unusual-and unusually apt-venues this summer, just before the 250th anniversary of the composer's death: Madame Tussauds New York, on June 17, and Lifestyle-Trimco Showroom, on June 20 & 21.

Investec Opera Holland Park and ImmerCity present a unique double-bill of opera and immersive theatre as part of OHP's first ever production of a Britten opera, the taut, brilliant The Turn of the Screw. After the opera, an eerie theatrical promenade piece, The Dwindling House of Holland, will explore the tangled history of the Holland family.

The Bijou Theatre is teaming up with New England Ballet Company to put together their first-ever Children's Series, which will run on one Sunday per month at 3pm. The diversity between live musical theatre and a professional dance company will provide a little something for everyone. The first show of the series will be the timeless classic 'Peter and the Wolf' on Sunday September 28 at 3 PM.

Violinist Simone Lamsma makes her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), today, June 5-8, with guest conductor Jaap van Zweden leading Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto. Also featured on the program is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47. Lamsma's appearance is endowed in part by the Nuveen Investments Emerging Artist Fund, which is committed to nurturing the next generation of great classical music artists.

Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir perform music of Arvo Part at Carnegie Hall to enthusiastic crowd.

The National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA)-a dynamic new orchestra created in 2013 by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute featuring some of the best young musicians from across the country-caps its eight-concert, coast-to-coast U.S. tour with a concert at The Music Center's Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on Monday, August 4 at 7:30 p.m.

The Arvo Part Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary presents a concert in Carnegie Hall devoted to the music of Estonian composer Arvo Part. The concert will take place tonight, May 31 at 8:00 p.m. in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, and will feature performers closely associated with Mr. Part's music.

Violinist Simone Lamsma makes her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), on June 5-8, with guest conductor Jaap van Zweden leading Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto. Also featured on the program is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47. Lamsma's appearance is endowed in part by the Nuveen Investments Emerging Artist Fund, which is committed to nurturing the next generation of great classical music artists.

The Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary presents four concerts from today, May 27 to June 2 devoted to the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The concerts take place in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Theater (today, May 27) and The Phillips Collection (May 29) and in New York City at Carnegie Hall (May 31) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (June 2), and will feature performers closely associated with Pärt's music. Traveling from Estonia for these events are the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra with their conductor Tõnu Kaljuste.

Geoff Nuttall, now in his fifth year as Spoleto Festival USA's Charles E. and Andrea L. Volpe Director for Chamber Music, today announced details of the Bank of America Chamber Music series comprising 11 programs, each performed three times at the Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina from today, May 23 through Sunday, June 8.

UNDERSTUDY BLUES, the debut production from Canned Rice Productions, will open at the Galloway Theatre in Cape Town for a nine-performance run this month.

Following the record-breaking attendance of Festival 2013, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival announces the full 2014 Festival free and ticketed event schedule. Jacob's Pillow is a National Historic Landmark, home to America's longest-running dance festival, and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Noted dance writer Jennifer Dunning has called the Pillow "the dance center of the nation, possibly the world."

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) presents its annual spring festival from May 19 to June 8, 2014, which this year is entitled Truth to Power. Inspired by the phrase "speaking truth to power"-part of a 1955 Quaker treatise that outlined alternatives to violence and served as a cornerstone for the pacifist movement-the Truth to Power Festival highlights the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev, three composers who believed in music's ability to connect people and thus harness the power of shared experience.

On Site Opera, which creates immersive, site-specific opera productions, has partnered with Figaro Systems, developer of groundbreaking libretto simultexting technology, to preview a future in which opera is further freed from the opera house. OnThursday, June 19 at Lifestyle-Trimco Showroom in Manhattan, the companies will give a special performance of On Site's new production of Rameau's one-act Pygmalion for users of Google Glass. As the performers move about the space during the performance, audience members will be able to read an English translation of Ballot de Sovot's libretto conveniently in their Glass field of vision.

From May 2014 - March 2015, Sadler's Wells presents its biggest ever programme of inclusive dance. =dance is a new series featuring some of the most exciting and innovative work created and performed by deaf and disabled artists.

Eminent English choirmaster and composer Philip Moore will make his Chicago-area conducting debut when he leads the St. Charles Singers in an all-British season-finale program at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 17, 2014, at Grace Lutheran Church, 7300 Division St., River Forest, Ill., and at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 18, at Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, 307 Cedar Ave., St. Charles.