With his characteristic humor, swagger, and irreverence, Geoff Nuttall transformed Spoleto’s Bank of America Chamber Music series into something akin to rock-and-roll rather than buttoned-down classical. To honor Nuttall’s curatorial genius and infectious enthusiasm, some of his closest musical colleagues and special guest stars perform a concert of virtuosic debauchery—a brilliant tribute to a singular artist.

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Celebrating Geoff Nuttall

Gaillard Center

Rising operatic superstar Nicole Heaston takes on the titular role in this powerful existential drama, set to one of the most beautiful scores of the 20th century. Tucked away in a countryside mansion, Vanessa has waited 20 years for the return of her lover, Anatol. When his deadringer son arrives instead, a love triangle ensues between the conniving young suitor, Vanessa, and her impressionable niece.

American composer Samuel Barber won the Pulitzer Prize for Vanessa’s sweepingly lyrical score, which explores the full depths of the characters’ psyches in what librettist and Spoleto’s founder Gian Carlo Menotti characterized as a universal human dilemma.

Vanessa

In a radical retelling of Homer’s epic poem, acclaimed director Lisa Peterson and Tony Award-winning actor Denis O’Hare (Take Me Out) craft a work of “pure theater: shocking, glorious, primal, and deeply satisfying” (Time Out New York). O’Hare, who has brought powerful performances to numerous films and featured roles on TV’s The Good Wife and American Horror Story, shapes this breathtaking tour de force into a sweeping account of humanity’s unshakable attraction to violence, destruction, and chaos.

An Iliad

Dock Street Theatre

Spoleto Festival USA’s Jazz Curator Larry Blumenfeld speaks with artists from the 2023 Wells Fargo Jazz Series. These discussions are free (tickets required).

Jazz Talks

Queen Street Playhouse

Riviera Theater

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

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

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36M5Hi6O80

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

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59E40S_EQSY

The Artelize Podcast: A love letter that was never sent

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THv6htilWtI

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

Based on creator Odile Gakire Katese’s collected letters from survivors and perpetrators of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, The Book of Life leads audiences on a remarkable journey of pain, grief, acceptance, and rebirth. In this deeply moving performance about finding hope in the aftermath of tragedy, the playwright and cultural entrepreneur’s story reverberates through spoken word and the rhythms of Ingoma Nshya, Rwanda’s first-ever female drumming ensemble founded by Katese. In a world racked with hatred and struggle, The Book of Life celebrates healing after trauma and the resilience of the human spirit.

The Book of Life

Festival Hall

Emmy Award-winning CBS News correspondent Martha Teichner hosts riveting, intimate conversations with the artists and companies of Spoleto Festival USA, illuminating the creative process and delving into the stories that form the 2022 productions. These discussions are free (tickets required).

Conversations With

One of indie-music’s most in-demand violinists, multi-instrumentalist Kaoru Ishibashi (a.k.a. Kishi Bashi) has collaborated with such names as Regina Spektor, Sondre Lerche, and of Montreal. Since stepping out on his own, Bashi has “transformed into a mad pop scientist, giving life to earworms by looping together Eastern sounds, Philip Glass improvisations, and ’70s prog-rock inspiration” (NPR). His latest oeuvre celebrates his cultural heritage, using Japanese refrains as compositional and textural devices while exploring themes of love and self-discovery.

Kishi Bashi with Strings

College of Charleston

2022 NPR Tiny Desk Contest winner With “a powerful voice whose tender performance commands attention and fosters connection” (NPR), Alisa Amador captivates. Her music—a synthesis of rock, jazz, funk, and alternative folk—is deeply rooted in the Latin folk and jazz she grew up with in a family of musicians. Amador’s soulful singing, poetically incisive lyrics, and syncopated rhythms will fill you with longing and leave you wanting more

Alisa Amador

Nickel Creek—the platinum-selling, internationally renowned trio of Chris Thile, Sara Watkins, and Sean Watkins—ushered in a new era of bluegrass infused with jazz, classical, pop, and rock for a sound all their own. As multi-Grammy-winning artists, the band has brought their progressive blend of acoustic roots, folk, and “newgrass” to a broad audience, greatly influencing the sound and trajectory of all three genres in the process. As part of their long-awaited reunion tour, the Watkins siblings and Thile—whose blistering mandolin was last heard at Spoleto with the Punch Brothers in 2019—fill the Cistern Yard for two unforgettable nights.

Nickel Creek

Exalted on “Best of” lists at The New York Times, Washington Post, and Time, Only an Octave Apart sparkles from start to finish. In this “breathtaking cabaret-fantasia” (New York Magazine), Justin Vivan Bond—“the greatest cabaret artist of their generation” (The New Yorker)—pairs with the ever-brilliant, world-class countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo for a hilarious, vulnerable, and utterly spectacular opera-meets-cabaret-meets-pop hybrid that “shatters categorical constraints” (Broadway World). Co-created by Zack Winokur, Only an Octave Apart revels in the coexistence of contrasts, celebrating the historical and the hysterical, countertenor to counterculture.

Only an Octave Apart

New Orleans-based singer and multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla mines her Haitian American heritage for a sound at once earthy, elegant, and soulful—vibrating with Creole, Cajun, and American jazz and folk influences. Formerly a cellist with the Grammy-winning string band Carolina Chocolate Drops and part of the ensemble Our Native Daughters with Festival-favorite Rhiannon Giddens, the “liquid-voiced” McCalla topped NPR’s “Best Roots Music of 2022” with her latest solo project, Breaking the Thermometer, which the outlet deemed one of the year’s “most compelling.”

Leyla McCalla

A New Orleans native, Courtney Bryan is “a pianist and composer of panoramic interests” (The New York Times), an artist shaping the future of American contemporary classical music. Bridging the sacred and the secular, Bryan’s compositions explore human emotions through sound, finding the connective tissue between jazz and traditional gospel, spirituals, and hymns. At the Queen Street Playhouse, Courtney performs solo twice, then adds in a quartet of saxophone, piano, electric bass, and drums.

Courtney Bryan

At 25 years old, Immanuel Wilkins is already one of the most highly regarded saxophonists and composers in jazz today—his album, The 7th Hand, was included among the 10 Best of 2022 by the The New York Times and NPR’s Nate Chinen’s Favorite Music of the Year. Filled with empathy and conviction, Wilkins’s music draws inspiration from critical thought and spiritual traditions. Experience the musical wunderkind championed by eminent artists including Jason Moran as he performs with his acclaimed quartet in brilliant improvisatory synergy.

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet

Her feet are just that fast. Described by The New York Times as “a wonder, as humanly appealing as she is superhumanly skilled,” choreographer and performer Ayodele Casel returns to Spoleto with her latest work, Chasing Magic. Onstage with six tap dancers and a group of live musicians including jazz virtuoso and 2023 Grammy Award-winner Arturo O’Farrill, Casel explores the magic of tap dance and daily life, capturing that spark of connection and creation. A celebration of gratitude, friendship, and trust, Chasing Magic is a joyous feast for the eyes, ears, and soul.

Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic

Celebrated as one of the most forward-thinking American musicians, Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Threadgill has forged a legendary career in unconventional territory—challenging bedrock ideas about jazz and exploring new approaches to composing and improvising. For this exciting Spoleto debut, Threadgill’s Zooid quintet (an unorthodox combination of reeds, acoustic guitar, cello, tuba, and drums) presents a performance at once radical, reverent, and remarkable.

Henry Threadgill Zooid

Salem is on the brink. Its people fear the shadows in the forest, but the real monsters are much closer to home. Returning to Spoleto after its lauded 2015 rendition of A Streetcar Named Desire, Scottish Ballet unleashes the emotional force of Arthur Miller’s masterpiece in this “blazing interpretation” (The Observer), choreographed by Helen Pickett and accompanied by members of the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra.

Scottish Ballet: The Crucible

Led by 2023 Grammy-winning pianist/composer Kris Davis, this special concert is named for Davis’s 2019 breakthrough album, which was awarded “Jazz Album of the Year” by both The New York Times and NPR. “Bringing together wildly diverse musicians in tangled unity,” Davis often sets her improvisations to “grooves played with prismatic nuance” (The New York Times) by drummer Terri Lyne Carrington—a four-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master herself. Turntablist and electronic musician Val Jeanty, bassist Trevor Dunn, and guitarist Julian Lage add layers of sonic texture for a thrilling and unexpected sound.

Kris Davis Diatom Ribbons

After sold-out runs at Spoleto in 2014 and 2018, the high-octane Australian physical theater company returns, this time with the electric Out of Chaos—a work the troupe describes as “our boldest and most ambitious yet.” Hard-edged, explosive acrobatics collide with intimate, verbal confessions to create insight into how things—people and planets, sound and light—come together. This US premiere bounces between chaotic creation and a seemingly ordered understanding of the here and now, all the while hinting at the strange spaces in between.

Gravity & Other Myths: Out of Chaos

Distinguished pianist and NEA Jazz Master Abdullah Ibrahim remains at the zenith of his career—recently releasing an acclaimed album, Solotude, and celebrating his 88th birthday while on a world tour. A hero to the anti- apartheid movement, Ibrahim’s first album—released under the name Dollar Brand—was censured by the South African government. Years later, he performed at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. Join us in welcoming Ibrahim and his band Ekaya to hear a true “modern master—steeped in blues, with a classicist’s touch and poet’s sense of phrasing” (The Wall Street Journal).

Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya

Grammy-nominated harpist Brandee Younger is revolutionizing the instrument for the 21st century, stretching its boundaries and musical limitations. An avid hip-hop fan as a teen, she studied classical music at the University of Hartford and soon ventured into the world of jazz. Since then, “the most heralded new voice on the harp” (NPR) has worked with cultural icons including Common, Beyonce, Lauryn Hill, and Stevie Wonder—not to mention some of jazz’s current greats, from Ravi Coltrane to Reggie Workman. In five concerts during Spoleto’s new Jazz at the Playhouse series, Younger presents her signature “dreamy, harp-forward, R&B-inflected jazz.”

Events in Charleston, SC

Celebrating Geoff Nuttall...

Spoleto Festival USA

Vanessa

Spoleto Festival USA

An Iliad

Spoleto Festival USA

Jazz Talks

Spoleto Festival USA

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Book of Life

Spoleto Festival USA

Conversations With

Spoleto Festival USA

Kishi Bashi with Strings

Spoleto Festival USA

Alisa Amador

Spoleto Festival USA

Nickel Creek

Spoleto Festival USA

Only an Octave Apart

Spoleto Festival USA

Leyla McCalla

Spoleto Festival USA

Courtney Bryan

Spoleto Festival USA

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet

Spoleto Festival USA

Ayodele Casel: Chasing Ma...

Spoleto Festival USA

Henry Threadgill Zooid

Spoleto Festival USA

Scottish Ballet: The Cruc...

Spoleto Festival USA

Kris Davis Diatom Ribbons...

Spoleto Festival USA

Gravity & Other Myths: Ou...

Spoleto Festival USA

Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekay...

Spoleto Festival USA

Brandee Younger

Spoleto Festival USA