2006/07 Season
	2006/07 Calendar of Events From the Director Education & Community Programs

DEAR FRIENDS

I'm pleased to announce that subscriptions for our 2007/08 season will go on sale at 10 am next Thursday, April 19th! While I can't reveal any details at this time, I can tell you that in honor of the 40th anniversary of Zellerbach Hall, we've put together one of our biggest and most exciting seasons ever. Complete information, including ordering instructions, will be online at www.calperformances.net on Wednesday morning, April 18th. (If you are currently a Subscriber or Donor, watch for your renewal packet to come in the mail on Wednesday as well.)

But even as we look forward to a new season, I want to remind you that we still have several remarkable events to look forward to this season, including two Special Events!

Theater in Song: the Music of Jake Heggie and Ricky Ian Gordon (Apr 29)
I invite you to join me this April in Hertz Hall for Theater in Song, an intimate concert of contemporary art song by two celebrated composers — Jake Heggie and Ricky Ian Gordon — who will be performing their own compositions with the help of other acclaimed musical stars, including the Bay Area's own Frederica von Stade. The program will be highlighted by two West Coast premieres: Jake Heggie's At the Statue of Venus — his latest collaboration with theatrical genius Terrance McNally, their first since the opera Dead Man Walking — and Heggie's song cycle Here and Gone.

You can learn more about these two works in the latest installment of our Video Program Notes series, as Jake Heggie talks about his artistic process as a composer and about these two works in particular — even performing a few excerpts from At the Statue of Venus on the piano to give you a taste in advance of this highly anticipated premiere! Sung by soprano Kristin Clayton, who created a sensation when she performed the world premiere in Denver in 2005, At the Statue of Venus reveals a fraught interior monologue of an attractive woman waiting nervously to meet a blind date by the statue of Venus, and is described by Heggie himself as a "real workout" for a soprano from beginning to end!

You can hear also Jake Heggie — along with Ricky Ian Gordon — in a Key Notes lecture entitled "The Composer's Way" on Thursday, April 26, from 7-8:30 pm at the Men's Faculty Club on the UC Berkeley campus. In this conversational prelude to their concert, the two will discuss composing art songs in the 21st century. The Key Notes event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.

Sylvie Guillem & Akram Khan: Sacred Monsters (May 5 & 6)
In our final Special Event of the season, two icons of the dance world come together for a program that pushes the boundaries of their two dance forms. Superstar prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem was Rudolf Nureyev's protege and star of the Paris Opera Ballet. Akram Khan is Britain's foremost exponent of classical Indian kathak dance and widely considered one of the most gifted choreographers and dancers of this generation. After viewing the world premiere of this program at Sadler's Wells in London in September 2006, Debra Craine of The Times observed that Sacred Monsters "unites two ravishingly beautiful movers from opposing classical disciplines — ballet and kathak — and takes them to amazing places neither has gone before."

I encourage you to visit our web site event page and learn more about this fascinating event by listening to audio clips of cellist Phillip Shepherd's hypnotic score and enjoying two supplemental essays on the program itself and on kathak in general.

I hope to see you all in the coming month for these two spectacular events — as well as during our 2007/08 season!

Sincerely,

Robert Cole
Director, Cal Performances