Composer

Known as the best in the world on her instrument (pipa), Wu Man plays new music by Pulitzer Prize–winner Du Yun, herself celebrated as a "groundbreaking artist" (The New York Times). Debussy’s Prelude, with its dreamy flute solo, evokes longing and desire. Our celebration of Rachmaninoff at 150 ends with his last work for orchestra, a powerful, heart-pounding ride.

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Debussy & Rachmaninoff

Orchestra Hall

The Knights are a musically omnivorous chamber ensemble, a self-described “fellowship of adventurous musicians dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience.” In this program of Ravel, Weill and Brecht, Bob Dylan, Chico Buarque, and Du Yun, the orchestra—conducted by Eric Jacobsen—welcomes pipa virtuoso Wu Man, “one of the rare musicians who has changed the history of the instrument she plays” (The Boston Globe); and The Knights’ own multifaceted violinist and singer-songwriter Christina Courtin. To close the evening, special guest Magos Herrera—a versatile interpreter of jazz and Latin American music—joins the group for a new arrangement of Buarque’s powerful, Weill/Brecht–inspired “Geni e o Zepelim.” As part of Carnegie Hall’s Fall of the Weimar Republic festival, this program looks to the past and present through multiple layers of history and culture, in true “Knightsian” style.

The Knights

Carnegie Hall

Professor and faculty composer Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Angel’s Bone opens Oper Wuppertal‘s 2023-24 season in Germany September 1 and runs through September 9.

Faculty Event: Du Yun

Wuppertal Theater

In an intrepid act of programming, the insightful young violinist Alexi Kenney matches well-loved solo works by J.S. Bach with new compositions by the best and brightest voices in contemporary music. Kenney, a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, enjoys melding the new with the old, the familiar with the undiscovered, and here highlights the spiritual and mystical dimensions of Bach’s music. The revered Chaconne from the Partita in D minor is the jewel at the center of Kenney’s recital, illuminating recent works for solo violin (with and without electronics) by a host of contemporary composers. The title Shifting Ground references the heart of all Baroque music—the omnipresent ground bass—upon which variations are built. “Spellbinding…[an] architect’s eye for structure and space and a tone that ranges from the achingly fragile to full-bodied robustness” (The New York Times).

Alexi Kenney, violin

University of California, Berkeley

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun’s one-man opera stars baritone Nathan Gunn as a father-to-be struggling to become a man his daughter would be proud of. His journal — a gift for his unborn daughter — traces the journey unfolding before him. You don’t have to be a father to love this story.

In Our Daughter's Eyes

Walt Disney Concert Hall

LA Opera Off Grand presents a new one-person opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, presented in collaboration with Beth Morrison Projects. Told through the perspective of a new father (baritone Nathan Gunn), In Our Daughter’s Eyes shows the journey of the protagonist as he wrestles with truly becoming a man that his daughter would be proud of. He imparts passages from the journal he keeps—a gift for his unborn daughter—as the moments of this journey unfold before him. The story traces his wife's joyful and fraught pregnancy, the legacy of the family's past, and the personal demons that he vows to vanquish before assuming the role of a father. Along the way, mounting complications take the story through unexpected and sobering turns that test our flawed hero as he discovers a strength of self and purpose that he never imagined possible.

Du Yun

Composer

Events

5 - 7 Apr, 2024

Debussy & Rachmaninoff · Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Feb 29, 2024

The Knights · Carnegie Hall

Sep 1, 2023

Faculty Event: Du Yun · Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University

Feb 26, 2023

Alexi Kenney, violin · Cal Performances

13 - 17 Apr, 2022

In Our Daughter's Eyes · LA Opera

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