Spoleto Festival USA has announced programming for its 2017 festival, taking place in Charleston, South Carolina from May 26 to June 11. Orchestral highlights include Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra led by Resident Conductor and Director of Orchestral Activities John Kennedy, paired on a program with the U.S. premiere of Anna Thorvaldsottir’s Dreaming; and four concerts of contemporary music by Jose Manuel Serrano, Helena Tulve, and Luca Francesconi. Also planned are Sounding Peace, a new piece by composers Ted Hearne and Jonathan Holland written in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, and works by Lou Harrison and John Cage. A “Cinema and Sound” series will pair the silent films The Cameraman’s Revenge (1910), Suspense (1913), and Mighty Like a Moose (1926) with music composed by pianist Stephen Prutsman. Other offerings at the festival include dance works We Love Arabs and OCD Love by Israeli choreographers Hillel Kogan, Sharon Eyal, and Gai Behar; the U.S. premieres of two operas, Vivaldi’s Farnace (1727) and Luca Francesconi’s Quartett (2011); and circus troupe Compagnie XY in Il n’est pas encore minuit, billed as “a metaphor for the ways in which humanity faces instability and imbalance.”
Posted January 12, 2017
