Da Camera Presents RADHE RADHE: RITES OF HOLI

Da Camera of Houston presents RADHE RADHE: RITES OF HOLI, scored and performed by Grammy-nominated pianist and composer Vijay Iyer with the International Contemporary Ensemble and conductor Steven Schick, on Friday, May 5, 2017, at 8 p.m. at the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center.

In RADHE RADHE: RITES OF HOLI, Iyer responds to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring with an explosive work of live music and film inspired by the ancient Hindu Holi festival of colors and love celebrated each spring in Southern Asia. Iyer is joined by members of International Contemporary Ensemble, the imaginative, genre-defying ensemble, which serves as Artists-in-Residence at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. The evening will start with a performance of The Rite of Springarranged by Cliff Colnot.

Iyer worked with film director Prashant Bhargava to construct and bring to life Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi, a filmic, musical meditation on Igor Stravinsky's 1913 ballet, The Right of Spring. "I created music based on the rhythms I was seeing in the film," Iyer said. "There is music everywhere - different bands of roving troops of drummers and singers worshiping and singing devotional songs. People are wandering around throwing colored powder and liquid everywhere. Musically it came together organically over a period of nine months."

An accomplished and acclaimed pianist and composer, The New York Times says of Iyer, "there's probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output of the the pianist Vijay Iyer." He was voted Downbeat's Artist of the Year in 2012, 2015 and 2016 and named Downbeat's 2014 Pianist of the Year. Iyer was also a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist. In 2014, Iyer began a permanent appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts in the Department of Music at Harvard University.

Tickets for Vijay Iyer start at $37.50 and are available by contacting Da Camera, 1402 Sul Ross, at 713-524, 5050 or online at www.dacamera.com. Tickets for students and senior citizens are always half price. $5 student rush tickets are available 30 minutes before the concert begins.