Cambodian-born Chinary Ung will create a new work for the chorale's third installment of the 'LA Is the World' project.
By Chris Pasles,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 8, 2008
Three world premieres, two West Coast premieres and the close of the multiyear "Homage to Haydn" programs will highlight the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 2008-09 season, to be led in Walt Disney Concert Hall by music director Grant Gershon.
Cambodian-born, San Diego-based composer Chinary Ung will create a work as the chorale's third installment of the "LA Is the World" project. Ung came to the United States with his family in 1964 after graduating from Cambodia's national music conservatory.
His piece, to premiere Nov. 9, will be created in collaboration with dancer-choreographer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, a Khmer Rouge killing fields survivor who immigrated in the early 1990s to Long Beach, where she established one wing of the Khmer Arts Ensemble, dedicated to preserving the classical arts of her homeland. (The other base is in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.)
The Ung-Shapiro collaboration will be paired with Lou Harrison's "La Koro Sutro" (Esperanto for "The Heart Sutro"), composed for gamelan ensemble and choir.
The other world premieres are Andrea Clearfield's "Dream Variations" and a piece by Steven Sametz written to honor Gershon and the chorale. Both works will be sung Feb. 22.
The West Coast premieres will be Nico Muhly's "Expecting the Main Things From You" (also Feb. 22) and Roberto Sierra's "Missa Latina"(May 31, 2009). Washington Times critic T.L. Ponick called Sierra's Mass "shockingly brilliant" when it premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2006. Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy and baritone Nathaniel Webster will reprise their Kennedy Center solo roles.
Bass-baritone Eric Owens, who sang the title role of Elliot Goldenthal's "Grendel" for Los Angeles Opera in 2006, will sing the lead role in Mendelssohn's "Elijah" on Jan. 25.
The season will open Oct. 12 with selections from Rachmaninoff's "The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom" and Haydn's "Harmonie Mass.
"Gershon will share podium duties with the chorale's assistant conductor, Ariel Quintana, for two concerts, a holiday program Dec. 14 and a folk music program March 29, 2009.
The final installment of the Haydn project will take place May 3, 2009, when the composer's "Heilig Mass" will be paired with Messiaen's "Trois petites liturgies.
"There will be two "Messiah Sing-Along" concerts (Dec. 7 and 15).
As a supplement to the season, which runs through May 31, 2009 opera composer Ricky Ian Gordon ("Grapes of Wrath," "Orpheus & Euridice") will write a work for the 20th anniversary of the chorale's High School Choir Festival, in which more than 1,000 students from two dozen Southland high schools will participate April 24, 2009.
By Chris Pasles,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 8, 2008
Three world premieres, two West Coast premieres and the close of the multiyear "Homage to Haydn" programs will highlight the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 2008-09 season, to be led in Walt Disney Concert Hall by music director Grant Gershon.
Cambodian-born, San Diego-based composer Chinary Ung will create a work as the chorale's third installment of the "LA Is the World" project. Ung came to the United States with his family in 1964 after graduating from Cambodia's national music conservatory.
His piece, to premiere Nov. 9, will be created in collaboration with dancer-choreographer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, a Khmer Rouge killing fields survivor who immigrated in the early 1990s to Long Beach, where she established one wing of the Khmer Arts Ensemble, dedicated to preserving the classical arts of her homeland. (The other base is in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.)
The Ung-Shapiro collaboration will be paired with Lou Harrison's "La Koro Sutro" (Esperanto for "The Heart Sutro"), composed for gamelan ensemble and choir.
The other world premieres are Andrea Clearfield's "Dream Variations" and a piece by Steven Sametz written to honor Gershon and the chorale. Both works will be sung Feb. 22.
The West Coast premieres will be Nico Muhly's "Expecting the Main Things From You" (also Feb. 22) and Roberto Sierra's "Missa Latina"(May 31, 2009). Washington Times critic T.L. Ponick called Sierra's Mass "shockingly brilliant" when it premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2006. Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy and baritone Nathaniel Webster will reprise their Kennedy Center solo roles.
Bass-baritone Eric Owens, who sang the title role of Elliot Goldenthal's "Grendel" for Los Angeles Opera in 2006, will sing the lead role in Mendelssohn's "Elijah" on Jan. 25.
The season will open Oct. 12 with selections from Rachmaninoff's "The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom" and Haydn's "Harmonie Mass.
"Gershon will share podium duties with the chorale's assistant conductor, Ariel Quintana, for two concerts, a holiday program Dec. 14 and a folk music program March 29, 2009.
The final installment of the Haydn project will take place May 3, 2009, when the composer's "Heilig Mass" will be paired with Messiaen's "Trois petites liturgies.
"There will be two "Messiah Sing-Along" concerts (Dec. 7 and 15).
As a supplement to the season, which runs through May 31, 2009 opera composer Ricky Ian Gordon ("Grapes of Wrath," "Orpheus & Euridice") will write a work for the 20th anniversary of the chorale's High School Choir Festival, in which more than 1,000 students from two dozen Southland high schools will participate April 24, 2009.
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