California’s Pacific Symphony and Long Beach Opera will collaborate for a new Philip Glass Festival from February 27 to March 27, spotlighting works including the composer’s opera Akhnaten. The opera will be performed in Egyptian, Akkadian, Hebrew, and English, with English supertitles, receiving two performances at the Terrace Theater of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center. Other works to be performed during the festival include Glass’s Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra; the symphonic/choral work The Passion of Ramakrishna, with vocal soloists and the Pacific Chorale; the composer on solo piano in “Glass Plays Glass”; and screenings of the Glass-scored films The Illusionist, Naqoyaqatsi: Life as War, and Powaqqatsi: Life in Transition. On March 12 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Long Beach Opera Director Andreas Mitisek and Glass will participate in a discussion of Akhnaten, with questions from the audience and cast members performing selections from the opera. The Philip Glass Festival coincides with the Pacific Symphony’s 11th American Composers Festival, “The Passion of Philip Glass”; previous ACF themes include Hollywood’s ezgolden age, music inspired by the American Frontier, and Chinese and Chinese-American composers Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Joan Huang.
Posted February 3, 2011
