Bermuda Festival of Performing Arts
MARLENA SMALLS AND THE HALLELUJAH SINGERS
Friday, 27 January
Saturday, 28 January
8:00pm City Hall
Tonight’s programme will feature the charismatic vocalist Marlena Smalls whose repertoire extends through gospel, jazz, blues, contemporary and sacred music. Also showcasing the Hallelujah Singers part of the programme will weave narration and music to celebrate the Gullah culture of South Carolina’s Sea Islands, and the language and traditions linked to its West African heritage.
This will be a vibrant and uplifting programme with an abundance of familiar melodies, rich harmonies and infectious rhythms guaranteed to get toes tapping.
GABRIELA MONTERO
Sunday, 29 January
4:30pm City Hall
Vivacious Venezuelan-born classical pianist Gabriela Montero presents a late afternoon concert that promises to sizzle with “emotionally charged virtuosity and kaleidoscopic sonic colouring.”
Montero became a household name following her performance with violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Yo-Yo Ma at the inauguration of US President Barack Obama. However, she is perhaps best known for what she calls “my playground” of musical improvisations in which she dazzles the audience with her inventiveness and dexterity.
Soliciting musical themes from the audience, she extemporizes on whatever is cast her way. Be it a Beethoven sonata, La Bamba or Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Montero will give it a treatment that will never have been presented before, nor heard again!
Do Bermuda proud and come up with some real challenges for her!
MOTHER TO MOTHER
Tuesday, 31 January
8:00pm City Hall
Mother To Mother brings together three powerhouse women of the arts in South Africa: writer, Sindiwe Magona; director, Janice Honeyman; and actress, Thembi Mtshali-Jones.
The play is loosely based on the murder of young American Fullbright scholar Amy Biehl in Cape Town’s Gugulethu township and recounts the events following the senseless killing.
It is staged as a fictional personal testimony from one mother to another in which Thembi Mtshali- Jones, as the mother of one of the four youths accused of the murder, tries to make sense of the events by recounting them in an imaginary communication with Amy’s mother. It is a tour-de- force performance delivered with dignity, sensitivity and humour and is not to be missed.
Ms. Mtshali-Jones last appeared at the Bermuda Festival in the highly acclaimed performance of A Woman In Waiting.
SCHUBERT ENSEMBLE OF LONDON
Friday, 3 February
8:00pm City Hall
The Schubert Ensemble has established itself as one of the world’s leading exponents of music for piano and strings and is one of the gems of the UK’s chamber music scene. Their deep affection for the music and their mutual understanding borne of long-term collaboration is evident in every note that is played. Look out for “musical textures…luminously articulated and intimacy…matched by vital spontaneity.”
- The Daily Telegraph
The Ensemble enjoys a busy, international touring schedule to highly prestigious venues such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and London’s Wigmore Hall, while also regularly releasing new recordings to wide acclaim.
Programme (Subject to change)
BUTLERAmerican Rounds for Piano QuintetSCHUMANNPiano QuartetSCHUBERTPiano Quintet in A, The Trout
Whilst on the Island the Ensemble will be working with local students and tickets purchased for tonight’s performance will entitle the holder to apply for complimentary tickets for the short joint concert to be performed by the students and the Ensemble on Saturday.
SCHUBERT ENSEMBLE OF LONDON - STUDENT CONCERT
2:30pm, Saturday, 4 February
City Hall Theatre
Schubert Ensemble of London with an orchestra of Bermuda’s young string students
The concert will be the result of a morning workshop where each member of the Schubert Ensemble will work with a different section of the local orchestra in preparation for a short afternoon concert.
It is hoped that the short concert will include one movement of a Mozart Piano Concerto and several movements from a Holst Suite.
After an intermission, the concert will conclude with a fun presentation by the Schubert Ensemble entitled Barefoot Schubert, “everything you have always wanted to know about classical chamber music, but never dared to ask.”
PROOFpresented by Walnut Street Theatre
Friday, 10 February
Saturday, 11 February
8:00pm City Hall
David Auburn’s acclaimed play Proof is the winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award for Best Play. Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre, founded in 1809, is the oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States. These two remarkable pedigrees surely combine to produce a performance you won’t want to miss.
The play tells of Catherine, a young woman who has sacrificed college to take care of her brilliant, yet mentally ill, math professor father. One of the professor’s former students comes to visit (in search of more proof of his genius) and falls in love with his remote and introspective daughter Catherine. This graceful, clever and often funny play is a delightful romance, a drama of finelysplintered family dynamics and a mystery about the true nature of genius.
CAROLE FARLEY
Thursday, 16 February
8:00pm City Hall
You are invited to indulge in a night of love conveyed through the words and music of three French writer-and-composer combinations: Baudelaire and Debussy; Parney and Ravel; Cocteau and Poulenc, in this entirely French programme.
Inspired by the passion, seduction and tempestuous affairs portrayed by the writers, the composers capture the full breadth of emotion in the baring of the soul. The programme will be performed in French by American soprano Carole Farley, who made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera at the tender age of nineteen, and will include a staged performance of Francis Poulenc’s one act opera La Voix Humaine, based on the play by Jean Cocteau. In this solo performance a woman makes a final desperate telephone call to her lover. English translation will be provided.
Programme (Subject to change) TOULOUSE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
conducted by José Serebrier
Friday, 17 February
Saturday, 18 February
8:00pm City Hall
FRIDAY, 17 FEBRUARY
Multi-Grammy winner, Maestro José Serebrier is renowned for his illustrious recordings with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Bournemouth Symphony and the Russian National Orchestra.
The wonderful Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, which performs in France and around the world, has been fortunate to be championed by the charismatic Serebrier who regularly conducts the ensemble and under whose baton it performs tonight. The first half of the programme features John Constable as soloist in a thrilling work by little known English composer Walter Leigh.
Programme I (Subject to change)
BachAir, from Suite No. 3BachSinfonia III Allegro assai- AllegrettoMozartDivertimento KV 136 in D MajorLeighConcertino for Piano and Orchestra
John Constable, pianoTchaikovsky
arr. SerebrierAndante CantabileArenskyVariations on a Theme by TchaikovskyTchaikovskyElegyTurinaLa Oración del ToreroBartokRumanian Folk Dances
SATURDAY, 18 FEBRUARY
The second Toulouse Chamber Orchestra concert features soprano Carole Farley as soloist and celebrates José Serebrier’s skills not only as conductor but also as composer. Enjoy this programme of hauntingly beautiful music, some of which may be new to you and some of which will be very familiar.
Programme II (Subject to change)
GriegHolberg Suite, Op. 40GriegTwo Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34Grieg arr. SerebrierIn the Time of Roses Mother’s Lament Solveig’s Cradle Song Carole Farley, soprano ZOOZOO
6:30pm Friday, 24 February
2:30pm Saturday, 25 February
6:30pm Saturday, 25 February
2:30pm Sunday, 26 February
6:30pm Sunday, 26 February
City Hall Theatre
ZooZoo is family entertainment at its very best appealing to all ages from the very young to the very old.
Visually arresting, humorous and endearing, the animals and birds brought to life in this extravaganza by Imago Theatre will warm your heart and lift your spirit.
Fantastic costumes and masks totally transform the actors into competitive penguins, insomniac hippos and dancing polar bears in a madcap revue of illusion.
A totally captivating treat for everyone!
SerebrierSymphony No. 3 (movements 1 & 4) Carole Farley, sopranoSerebrierTango in BluePucciniChrysantemiMozartEine Kleine Nachtmusik
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