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Two new series usher in an enhanced selection of cultural offerings in the 2001-02 Performance Series at Lafayette’s Williams Center for the Arts.
Footlights will present a fresh look at programming in dance and theater, while Fast Forward will feature creative trailblazers of the contemporary performance world. World-renowned performers will visit Lafayette for the Chamber Music, Jazz Masters, and Sound Alternatives Series. All performances start at 8 p.m.
In a special non-series event, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and German countertenor Andreas Scholl will present their Carnegie Hall collaboration on Tuesday, Dec. 4. Tickets cost $25.
The Roy Hargrove Quintet will kick off Jazz Masters on Friday, Aug. 31, with a return to the Williams Center to perform the Grammy-Award winning “Habana Crisol,” an excursion into Latino jazz. The series continues on Thursday, Oct. 11, with “Dianne Reeves Celebrates Sarah Vaughan,” featuring the singer whom the Seattle Times calls “one of the most compelling vocalists in jazz.” The hard-driving Turtle Island String Quartet and Cuban-born genius Paquito D’Rivera follow up on 1999-2000 Williams Center engagements by collaborating on Wednesday, Jan. 30. Vibraphonist Gary Burton and pianist Makoto Ozone will offer their thoughtful reworking of classical masterworks, from Bach to Villa-Lobos, on Saturday, April 6. The cost of a subscription to Jazz Masters is $59, a $15 savings off the total cost of the four individual performances.
Pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn, an Avery Fisher honoree and rising star in chamber music, will begin the Chamber Music series with an all-Beethoven program of sonatas and bagatelles on Wednesday, Sept. 12. Orpheus Chamber Orchestra raises the curtain on its 15th year at Lafayette with works by Mozart, Schumann, and Franz Schubert on Wednesday, Oct. 10. Heralded as the “next generation” of great chamber musicians, Concertante will play selections for expanded string ensemble by Brahms, Richard Strauss, and Felix Mendelssohn on Saturday, Nov. 10. Orpheus returns on Friday, Feb. 1 to perform pieces by Mozart, Wolf, Dvorak, and Brahms. Piffaro and Capilla Flamenca, America’s finest renaissance wind musicians and Belgium’s premier early music vocal consort, respectively, will bring to life the glories of Flemish music from the Hapsburg golden age on Wednesday, Feb. 13. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will conclude the series on Saturday, April 13, with works by Arnold Schoenberg and Schubert. The cost of a Chamber Music subscription is $99, a savings of $18.
Noche Flamenca will usher in Sound Alternatives on Friday, Sept. 7, with Spanish music and flamenco dancing. Wadaiko Yamato will unleash authentic Japanese taiko drumming on Friday, Nov. 9. Kandia Kouyate will interpret the mythic sounds of the Mandinka people of West Africa on Friday, Feb. 8. Shafaatullah Khan, master of sitar and tabla, will come for a return engagement of Indian music on Saturday, April 20. The cost of a Sound Alternatives subscription is $59, a savings of $14.
Footlights will present Aquila Theatre of London’s performance of The Wrath of Achilles on Tuesday, Oct. 2. Urban Tap will blend live music and expressive dances from a variety of cultures on Tuesday, Nov. 13. MacArthur “genius” fellow Susan Marshall & Company will perform One and Only You — with text by Christopher Renino on Tuesday, Feb. 12. A program by African-American dance company Phildanco on Tuesday, March 19 will include dances by four of America’s leading women choreographers in a Women’s History Month Tribute. Washington Ballet will perform a major work inspired by the dances and music of Cuba, and another set to original music by Sweet Honey in the Rock, on Tuesday, April 9. The cost of a Footlights subscription is $64, a savings of $19.
Returning Williams Center sensation Rennie Harris and Puremovement will bring the hip-hop and b-boy culture of Harris’ Philadelphia in “Illadelph Legends,” a work-in-progress, on Saturday, Sept. 8 to start off Fast Forward. Early music specialist Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia ensemble (singing in Old Norse) will unveil the work of visionary theater artist Ping Chong in presenting Edda: Viking Tales of Lust, Revenge, and Family on Wednesday, Nov. 7. Having made her mark with Kronos Quartet, Joan Jeanrenaud uses cutting edge interactive video technology in her solo presentation of Metamorphosis on Saturday, Nov. 17. The Bang on a Can All-Stars sextet makes a return engagement, connecting avant-garde jazz and “next wave” voices in world music, on Wednesday, Feb. 6. Rennie Harris and Puremovement conclude Fast Forward with a new work-in-progress, Facing Mecca, on Wednesday, April 3. The cost of a Fast Forward subscription is $49, a savings of $16.
New subscription orders will be filled beginning Monday, Aug. 6. Subscribers to any of the five series are given priority seating; those who renew by Wednesday, Aug. 1 are guaranteed to keep the same seats they had for the same series last year. Orders for single tickets will be filled beginning Monday, Aug. 13. Tickets for a series or individual event may be ordered by calling the box office at 610-330-5009. For a season brochure, call 610-330-5010.
The 2001-02 Performance Series at Lafayette is support in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by provisions of the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, the James Bradley Fund, and the Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and New England Foundation for the Arts.