Broad Stage Moves Outdoors

 

Deborah O'Grady

Birds in the Moon, a new opera co-commissioned by the Santa Monica stage.

The Broad Stage announces three live and in person attractions for fall 2021 – starting with the West Coast Premiere of the new opera Birds in the Moon, co-commissioned by The Broad Stage, for four outdoor performances in Santa Monica September 1 through 4.

Presented in partnership with Downtown Santa Monica at the corner of Arizona and 5th Avenue (Lot 27), Santa Monica. Birds in the Moon is supported by an Art of Recovery grant from the City of Santa Monica.

Birds in the Moon, a mobile, theatrical chamber opera by Mark Grey and Júlia Canosa i Serra, and directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. Featuring Maria Elena Altany as the Bird Mother and Austin Spangler as the Ringmaster, and with the Friction Quartet, soundscapes and video projections, Birds in the Moon tells a story about migration and a search for a better world.

It comes from a whimsical 17th century theory that birds migrated to the moon, spent their winters there and came back to earth where they would remain for the season. Birds in the Moon takes place on a traveling, magic box – a fully transformable, self-contained, state-of-the-art shipping container which opens to create a stage, with an LED screen, lights and sound system.

Two concerts mark the return of live performances to The Broad Stage. The Grammy nominated Danish String Quartet, performing on Friday, October 8, recipient of Musical America's 2020 Ensemble of the Year and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and coveted appointments that include the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS Two Program and the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists program.

Their eclectic repertoire includes the Mozart String Quartet No 16 in E-flat major, a Curated Suite of Dances including by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, John Adams, and Felix Blumenfeld, and a DSQ specialty – a selection of Nordic Folk Music – about which The New York Times said, "Most rare and interesting there's deep absorption, when players enter a kind of trance, a state of euphoric joy...for listeners, the world dissolves and we are carried along by sound. Theirs is playing of unusual, and unusually effective, liberty. When at their best, their tone throbs with joy."

Duets on Saturday, October 23 is an evening of piano duets with three masters of jazz. Five-time Grammy Award winner Dianne Reeves is the pre-eminent jazz vocalist in the world today - her arsenal of talents is richly on display in each and every song of her limitless repertoire. Hailed by The New York Times as "one of the greatest musicians in jazz history." Winner of six Grammy and three Latin Grammy Awards, the Cuban pianist, composer and arranger Chucho Valdés is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. Grammy Award-winning saxophone titan Joe Lovano has distinguished himself as a prescient and pathfinding force in the arena of creative music.

 

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