EPSG:4326

French Riviera

First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley

Literary Soundscapes

Take flight through a mesmerizing symphonic journey where color, light, and soulful melodies intertwine. Ellington's Solitude, arranged by Morton Gould, evokes the voices of jazz legends Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. Let the celestial phenomenon of the Northern Lights come to life through Jimmy López Bellido's enchanting West Coast premiere of his Aurora Violin Concerto, featuring the virtuosity of Leticia Moreno. Immerse yourself in the striking spectacle of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, vividly depicting Viktor Hartmann's paintings, orchestrated by Ravel. Prepare for a transcendent fusion of sight and sound, as music paints a colorful landscape that will leave you spellbound.

Pictures at an Exhibition

University of California, Berkeley

Over the past decade, vocalist and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant has evolved from a youthful talent making waves in the jazz world into a mature artist with a distinctive creative voice. A MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy winner, Salvant has a gift for storytelling and for curating layered, evocative programs that draw connections between vaudeville, blues, international folk traditions, theater, jazz, and classical music, delivering it all with her powerfully swinging voice. Salvant sings selections from her latest release, Mélusine, featuring a mix of original songs and interpretations of French-language repertoire that dates as far back as the 12th century, inspired by the story of a dragon woman from European folk legend. “Salvant, regularly and rightly, is considered one of the greatest jazz singers of her generation” (Rolling Stone).

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Podcast link: https://youtu.be/4hagYvrYbuM

The Artelize Podcast and Kasper Holten - Pedefining Opera for the modern world

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The Artelize Podcast - A legacy of innovation in Opera: Celebrating Marc A. Scorca

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The Artelize Podcast: A love letter that was never sent

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The Artelize Podcast and Adolfo Corrado: Mediterranean flavors, opera and social media

For lovers of live performance, there is a deeply satisfying combination of delights that the Trocks deliver better than almost anyone else: exquisite technique and elegant styling, deftly delivered with a hilarious punchline. Celebrating its landmark 50th anniversary season, the all-male drag ballet company is adored for affectionately skewering the old warhorses of classical dance and inviting audiences to rediscover both obscure and beloved scenes from classic repertoire. The Trocks were groundbreaking at their founding in 1974, and their irreverent, deeply informed romps through the glories and excesses of the dance world continue to offer laughs for aficionados and novices alike. “This is a company that brings its audiences pure joy” (The Seattle Times).

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

The young Italian pianist Filippo Gorini brings equal parts exuberance and profundity to his performances of Bach’s The Art of Fugue. Rather than treating this enigmatic collection of works as a series of exercises, Gorini approaches the composition as a single unfolding narrative, and has said that he is intent on both uncovering the singing quality in the composer’s lines and connecting Bach’s counterpoint and canons to an emotional tension latent below the music’s complex surface. Gorini has the credentials to pull it off, having won the Diapason d’Or Award for his debut recording of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, and received the prestigious Franco Buitoni Prize. “These beautifully understated accounts…beguile and charm in equal measure…wonderfully free from pianistic effects, elegantly understated and technically perfect” (Early Music Review).

Filippo Gorini, piano

In Michael Sturminger’s absurd and macabre production, multiple Academy Award nominee John Malkovich seduces, shocks, and appalls as the slithering real-life serial killer Jack Unterweger—back from the dead to plug his new autobiography. The one-man play-meets-chamber opera unfolds as a series of monologues, and the killer’s grisly deeds come alive through a consort of elegant sopranos who pose as women from Unterweger’s life as they sing opera arias by Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Haydn, and others. For this Berkeley appearance, Malkovich is joined onstage by guest vocalists supported by the acclaimed Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, the music providing both a sumptuous soundtrack and ironic commentary on Unterweger’s disturbing confessions. “Malkovich is captivating as the smarmy, clearly deranged madman, embodying the role with extra relish” (This Week in NY).

John Malkovich in The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer

UC Berkeley’s acclaimed ensemble in residence pays tribute to the work of Music Department faculty member and eminent composer Cindy Cox, whose compositions are inspired by the invisible laws of nature. The program presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of Cox’s chamber music over several decades, from 1989’s [Four Studies of Light and Dark] for piano and percussion to 2010’s Cañon for an octet of woodwinds and brass, to 2014’s Hishuk ish ts’ awalk (All Things are One), a piece for clarinet, strings, and piano, inspired by the rainforest and native inhabitants of Canada’s Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. The concert also features the world premiere of selections from Cox’s large new theatrical work for vocal soloists, chorus, and ensemble, The Road to Xibalba. “Her music…is always buoyant, puckish, rhythmically alive and crisply engaging” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Eco Ensemble

In the 20 years since its founding as a student ensemble at the Juilliard School, the two-time Grammy-winning Attacca Quartet has been at the vanguard of a new generation of American ensembles making their own rules about what contemporary chamber music can be. Gleefully gliding between the music of the 18th to the 21st century, Attacca’s recent recording projects have included a minimalist/Renaissance mashup featuring works by Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, and Renaissance composers like John Dowland and Orlando Gibbons; an award-winning collaboration with composer Caroline Shaw; and most recently, a collection of strings-and-electronics arrangements produced by Michael League of the jazz-fusion band Snarky Puppy. Attacca spins out works from these efforts and others as part of its “playlist” program, modeled after music streaming service playlists. Beethoven’s ravishing late-period Op. 131 quartet serves as a counterweight to what promises to be an engagingly eclectic program. “[Attacca] lives in the present aesthetically, without rejecting the virtues of the musical past” (The Nation).

Attacca Quartet

Radiant soprano Renée Fleming graces Berkeley with her star power once again, lending her warmth and sensitivity to a recital program of songs and arias in several languages. Fleming’s shimmering, lustrous voice is the stuff of legends. Affectionately coined “America’s Diva,” only she can claim to have sung at the Super Bowl, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, at a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and at a Presidential inauguration, in addition to all the world’s major opera houses—not to mention boasting five Grammy wins, an indie rock album, and a Tony Award-nominated Broadway appearance. Beyond the opera stage, Fleming’s artistic curiosity has led her to follow her creativity in countless directions, pursuing fascinating projects, collaborations, commissions, and—luckily for us—more of her rare and special recital appearances. She will be among the artists celebrated at the 46th Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievement in December 2023, along with Grammy-winning singer Dionne Warwick; rapper, singer, and actress Queen Latifah; and pop singer and songwriter Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.

Renée Fleming, soprano

One of the most recognizable and unique voices on his instrument today, pianist Brad Mehldau has forged a distinctive path, his music infused with the essence of jazz exploration, classical romanticism, and pop allure. In the Bay Area premiere of his new Cal Performances co-commissioned solo work, 14 Reveries, Mehldau reflects on the interior experience we create from our own consciousness, independently of those around us. Written from a similar impulse as his Suite April 2020, 14 Reveries is a meditation on the space a composer leaves between specific directions in the score that lets the beauty of the music reveal itself as it allows for new discovery.

Brad Mehldau: 14 Reveries

Across decades and continents, the chamber music power couple of cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han has been plumbing the depths of Beethoven’s five spectacular cello sonatas, rediscovering and reinventing them through each probing and committed performance. The works elevate musical interaction and communication to its highest level, and in some ways, the deeply collaborative repertoire mirrors the duo’s lives as dedicated artistic partners and co-artistic directors of Music@Menlo and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where vision, dedication, and creative chemistry have made them beloved by audiences on both coasts. “Finckel and Han played with just the right combination of abandon and care, paying as much attention to the dramatic pauses as to the tumultuous cascades and swirling arpeggios” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

David Finckel, cello Wu Han, piano

In this double-bill production, Pina Bausch’s iconic The Rite of Spring, a “ferocious roar of a piece” (The Guardian), is performed by an ensemble of more than 30 dancers from 14 African countries and assembled through a collaboration with the Pina Bausch Foundation, École des Sables, and Sadler’s Wells. Stravinsky’s searing, ominous score takes on new meaning through visceral choreography as a “chosen one” is sacrificed.

The Rite of Spring

Critics can’t help but draw parallels between pianist Víkingur Ólafsson’s pristine, crystalline touch at the keyboard and the bracing landscapes of his native Iceland: light reflected on snow, mountainous vistas, sparkling Nordic waterfalls. Ólafsson’s recordings have been wildly popular internationally, winning both Album of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards and Gramophone’s Artist of the Year in 2019, and more recent local performances have both impressed and delighted audiences here in the Bay Area. Known for both his imaginative interpretations and his engaging onstage banter, Ólafsson plays the complete set of Bach’s Goldberg Variations—his renditions praised by Bachtrack as “a complete show of mastery and virtuosity”—in his Cal Performances debut.

Víkingur Ólafsson, piano

Taylor Mac, the MacArthur Fellow, Kennedy Prize winner, and Pulitzer Prize finalist, visits with with the West Coast premiere of Bark of Millions, an epic four-hour “parade trance extravaganza.”  Bark of Millions is a rock opera meditation on queerness featuring 54 original songs (one song per year since the Stonewall uprising) inspired by queer antecedents throughout world history and performed by a diverse cast of 13 ensemble members and a band of 11 musicians. As in his legendary retelling of American history, 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Mac, his cast, and longtime collaborators Matt Ray (music) and Machine Dazzle (costumes) use music, dance, and drag spectacle to subvert and deconstruct conventional narratives, and joyfully, transgressively celebrate queerness in all its forms. “Taylor Mac uses his many talents to get us to listen, think and feel. The effect is heartening, vital and liberating” (The London Times).

Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s Bark of Millions

Over the past four decades, Angélique Kidjo has cemented her status as one of the most adventurous and omnivorous artists on the international pop music scene. The five-time Grammy winner is known for making connections across genres, generations, and geopolitical boundaries, enlisting her clarion voice and dynamic, eclectic musical vision to address complex subject matter through radiantly joyful music. Kidjo’s recent projects range from her theatrical work Yemandja to a reboot of the Talking Heads’ classic 1980 album Remain in Light (both part of the Cal Performances 2021–22 season); a tribute to salsa queen Celia Cruz; and most recently, Mother Nature, a cri de coeur against climate change and political corruption featuring African millennial superstars. Throughout all this, “Kidjo’s voice is constant, an instrument of such power and clarity that it sounds equally capable of polishing glass or announcing Judgment Day” (The New Yorker).

Angélique Kidjo

Darlings of the opera world, the wife and husband duo of soprano Amina Edris and tenor Pene Pati returns to the Bay Area—where they were Adler Fellows in San Francisco Opera’s prestigious training program, and where both have enjoyed career-launching star turns in major productions in recent years. Edris, who was born in Egypt and raised in New Zealand, portrayed a “tonally luxuriant” (San Francisco Chronicle) Cleopatra in the world premiere of John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra last season, and Pati, who was born in Samoa and also grew up in New Zealand, was a sensation in his transition from understudy to headliner in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet three seasons before. In recital, expect all the vocal power, charisma, and dramatic flair these extraordinary singers bring to the opera stage, in a varied program of songs traversing eras and continents.

Amina Edris, soprano & Pene Pati, tenor & Robert Mollicone, piano

Returning to its West Coast home away from home, the Mark Morris Dance Group visits with the world premiere of a new Mark Morris creation. In the more than 35 years since the company first appeared on the UC Berkeley campus, Cal Performances audiences have been treated to the first performances of more than a dozen new Morris works, many of which went on to become beloved company classics. Whether playful and exuberant or tender and refined, Morris’ productions are always stylish and smart, his profound sensitivity to music on display whether he is choreographing to nostalgic pop songs, cool jazz, Baroque opera, or classical repertoire. More details will be announced in the coming months, but buy your tickets today to guarantee you’ll be part of another magical visit by this renowned company!

Mark Morris Dance Group

Among the world’s finest string quartets, the beloved Takács returns for two concerts this season. For its second concert this season, the Grammy and Gramophone Award-winning Berkeley favorite presents a stellar program of works covering a vast emotional terrain. Hugo Wolf’s tuneful Italian Serenade is balanced by Bartók’s awesome second quartet, which patiently unfolds in a long, almost spiritual dramatic arc. Schubert’s diabolically challenging final string quartet is a lesson in extremes of tone, texture, and tempo. The singular Takács has the range and focus to pull it all off seamlessly. “You will not hear better string quartet playing anywhere in the world today” (BBC Music Magazine).

Takács Quartet

Celebrate the 300th anniversary of the creation of this masterwork!

The great Passions of J. S. Bach remain unparalleled in their dramatic impact and universally experienced emotional effects. Bach took the genre to new worlds of expression, incorporating new Italianate operatic elements with the Lutheran tradition of sung chorales. The result is a powerful force of rhetoric that tells the Passion story reinforced by personalized illuminations.

This is music that transcends cultural, religious, and theatrical boundaries between performers and audience members, drawing in listeners as historical participants. Maestro Thomas, one of the Baroque music world’s most celebrated Bach specialists, brings his unique and insightful perspectives to the podium in definitive performances that are profoundly beautiful and moving.

Events in Berkeley, CA

French Riviera

UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra

Literary Soundscapes

UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra

Pictures at an Exhibition...

UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Cal Performances

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

Les Ballets Trockadero de...

Cal Performances

Filippo Gorini, piano

Cal Performances

John Malkovich in The Inf...

Cal Performances

Eco Ensemble

Cal Performances

Attacca Quartet

Cal Performances

Renée Fleming, soprano

Cal Performances

Brad Mehldau: 14 Reveries...

Cal Performances

David Finckel, cello Wu H...

Cal Performances

The Rite of Spring

Cal Performances

Víkingur Ólafsson, piano

Cal Performances

Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s B...

Cal Performances

Angélique Kidjo

Cal Performances

Amina Edris, soprano & Pe...

Cal Performances

Mark Morris Dance Group

Cal Performances

Takács Quartet

Cal Performances

Saint John Passion 300th ...

American Bach Soloists