Details of 2011 festivals in three states and in Ontario, Canada have been announced. The first Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (April 7 to May 1) has as its theme Paris between 1910 and 1920. The festival will feature more than 30 commissioned works and nearly 140 regional arts and cultural partner organizations in programs focusing on classical music, hip-hop, jazz, dance, and film. New Yorker classical-music critic Alex Ross and dance critic Joan Acocella will join historian Jeffrey Jackson and Philadelphia Museum of Art curator Michael R. Taylor in a symposium about Paris from 1910 to 1920. The Savannah Music Festival in Georgia (March 24 to April 9) will feature a mix of classical, jazz, Americana, and world music performers, including a program of “Sex, Violins, and Tales of the Baroque” with violinist Daniel Hope and friends; a recital with soprano Christine Brewer, bassist Edgar Meyer, and pianists Louis Lortie and Nikolai Lugansky; and cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han in Beethoven’s complete sonatas for cello and piano. The second Mizzou New Music Summer Festival of concerts, workshops, and masterclasses will be held on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia from July 9 to 17. Anna Clyne and Roger Reynolds will serve as guest composers, and the resident ensemble is Alarm Will Sound; they will work with eight composers, to be selected through a competitive application process. (The deadline for composers to apply for residency at the festival is February 1, 2011. For more information, visit http://newmusicsummerfestival.missouri.edu/application.html.) In Canada, the National Arts Centre has announced details of Prairie Scene, a multidisciplinary arts festival at more than 30 venues in Ottawa-Gatineau from April 26 to May 8. Among the artists scheduled to perform in the festival are violinists James Ehnes, Erika Raum, and sibling violinists Malcolm and Darren Lowe (concertmasters of the Boston and Quebec symphony orchestras, respectively); the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra; and the early-music ensemble Camerata Nova. The festival will also have theater, dance, and visual arts components; further programming details will be announced in February 2011 at http://www.prairiescene.ca.
Posted December 1, 2010
