Berio - Sinfonia
La Jolla Symphony - Steven Schick conductor
February 11, 2017 8 p.m. February 12, 2017 2 p.m.
Mandeville Auditorium, UC San Diego
Members of kallisti and guests join Maestro Steven Schick and the La Jolla Symphony in two performances of Berio's 1968 masterwork for eight amplified voices and orchestra.
Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in celebration of its 125th anniversary, Sinfonia (Symphony) it is an exuberant and unexpected post-serial classical work. The vocalist, who sing, shout and whisper, always using with amplification are utilized in an innovative and revolutionary manner, shouting words by the French philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss, (whose Le cru et le cuit provides much of the text) excerpts from Samuel Beckett's novel The Unnamable, instructions from the scores of Gustav Mahler among other writings. The second movement of the work, O King, is particularly notable for its musical deconstruction and construction of the name of the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Sung by:
Kirsten Wiest
Lauren Jones
Hillary Jean Young
Susan Narucki
Barbara Byers
Bernardo Bermudez
Jonathan Nussman
Phillip Larson