“This year’s Spoleto Festival USA … will mark General Director Nigel Redden’s last, after 35 years,” writes Susan Elliott in Monday’s (4/5) Musical America (subscription required). “Running May 28-June 13, it will offer 70 live performances, mostly out of doors, in four different venues, the only insider being the tiny Dock Street Theater, where chamber music concerts will go on…. Under the guidance of host and Festival Chamber Music Director Geoff Nuttall, performances will run 45 minutes, only at 25 percent of audience capacity—a restriction that pertains to the entire festival. In addition to standard rep, the chamber series will include four premieres, two by composer-in-residence Jessica Meyer, one by Siegfried Thiele … and a new piece by Osvaldo Golijov for cellist Alisa Weilerstein, which she’ll perform with pianist Inon Barnatan. Two outdoor stages are under construction…. A live-streamed virtual gala on May 22 hosted by [countertenor] Anthony Roth Costanzo, with recorded performances and tributes, will celebrate Redden’s long and distinguished tenure at Spoleto…. The much-anticipated premiere of [Rhiannon Giddens’s] opera, Omar, will once again be postponed by one year [to open] the 2022 Festival.”
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