The Princeton Festival Set for June 4th – 26th!
The Princeton Festival (www.princetonfestival.org) has announced its 2016 season, featuring 22 music and stage performances in 11 different genres plus lectures and other events. Now in its twelfth season, the Festival will run from June 4 to June 26 in venues throughout the Princeton area.
The events range from Benjamin Britten’s masterful opera Peter Grimes to Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLoren Salvant. Stephen Sondheim’s musical A Little Night Music runs for 10 performances. There is a special presentation of the silent film masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc, accompanied by a live performance of Richard Einhorn’s oratorio Voices of Light, written especially for the film. Also featured: the sizzling dance group Complexions Contemporary Ballet, the Concordia Chamber Players, a baroque orchestra and choral concerts, an organ recital by Kristiaan Seynhave, and more.
“This is our twelfth season and we’ve been proud of them all, but 2016 promises to be a new high point,” said Richard Tang Yuk, the Festival’s artistic director and general manager. “Audiences will have a lot to cheer about. These are wonderful artists, doing wonderful work.”
Mr. Tang Yuk noted that the Festival’s program of diverse musical and staged offerings is enriched with free lectures, previews, workshops, a conducting master class, and a piano competition for young artists.
Full descriptions of all offerings are available on the Festival website, with instructions for ordering tickets by phone, email, or online.
Performance Overview
Twenty-two performances by outstanding artists and ensembles begin on June 4.
- A cappella vocal jazz: featuring the ensembles The Fonic and Break from Blue Collar, Saturday, June 4, Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall, Princeton University.
- Voices of Light: a live performance of an oratorio accompanying The Passion of Joan of Arc, the film for which it was written, with The Princeton Symphony Orchestra, The Princeton Festival Chorus, and soprano soloist Jessica Beebe, Thursday, June 9, Princeton University Chapel.
- Concordia Chamber Players perform music by Britten, Pärt, and Brahms Friday, June 10, Miller Chapel, Princeton Theological Seminary.
- Musical Comedy: A Little Night Music, June 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24,25, 26, Matthews Acting Studio, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, 185 Nassau Street.
- Piano Competition for Young Artists, Finals: Sunday, June 12, Clark Music Center, The Lawrenceville School.
- Opera: Britten’s Peter Grimes. Saturday, June 18, Thursday, June 23, Sunday, June 26, Matthews Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton.
- Organ Concert: Symphonic works by Franck and Widor, performed by Kristiaan Seynhave, Sunday, June 19, Princeton University Chapel.
- Jazz: Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sunday, June 19, Berlind Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton.
- Baroque Music: Princeton Festival Baroque Orchestra, Wednesday, June 22, Miller Chapel, Princeton Theological Seminary.
- Choral Concert: Bach cantatas with Dr. Jan Harrington’s conducting masterclass participants leading the Princeton Festival Baroque Orchestra and Chorus, Saturday, June 25, Miller Chapel, Princeton Theological Seminary.
- Dance: Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Saturday, June 25, Berlind Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton.
For more information and a link to ticket sales (handled by McCarter Theatre), visit www.princetonfestival.org. To purchase tickets by phone, call McCarter Theatre at 609-258-2787.
Program Details
The Princeton Festival’s award-winning opera series continues with a production of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, one of the rare 20th century operas that has become part of the standard repertory. It tells the story of an outsider in a small fishing village on the English coast. Grimes is a masterpiece, combining high drama, sweeping music, and human insight. The people in the village are recognizable and believable: the lawyer, the landlady of the local pub, a widowed schoolmistress, the town drunk and the town busybody, a respected retiree, and Peter Grimes himself. Britten’s famous orchestral Sea Interludes frame each scene.
Enjoyment of the opera will be enhanced by the Festival’s free Education and Community Engagement Events, including an Artists Roundtable and a series of lectures by Scott Burnham, Stephen Arthur Allen, Marianne Grey, and Timothy Urban.
A cappella jazz kicks off the Festival season on June 4 with two all-male groups, The Fonic, a five-man vocal band based in New York City that specializes in rock, and Break from Blue Collar, doing barbershop classics and rock & roll. They are followed on June 9 by a Festival first, a collaboration with The Princeton Symphony Orchestra and the Garden Theatre presenting Voices of Light/The Passion of Joan of Arc, a multimedia experience with the legendary silent film of 1928 and a score by Richard Einhorn for orchestra, chorus and soloist, performed in the Princeton University Chapel.
Concordia Chamber Players, an annual highlight of the Festival, return on June 10 with a program of Britten, Arvo Pärt, and Brahms. The next evening is the opening performance of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, Best Musical of 1973 and a favorite ever since. Filled with enchanting music (including “Send in the Clowns”), Night Music will have a run of ten performances, June 11, 12, 16,17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26
Sunday, June 19 showcases the scope of The Princeton Festival. The acclaimed Belgian organist Kristiaan Seynhave plays Romantic 19th century music on the Mandor organ in the Princeton University Chapel in the afternoon, and Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant brings down the house in McCarter’s Berlind Theatre in the evening.
The 2016 Princeton Festival winds up with four performances in different genres. There is a concert by the Festival Baroque Orchestra on June 22. The orchestra also accompanies a concert of Bach cantatas performed by The Princeton Festival Chorus on Saturday, June 25, led by participants in the Festival’s week-long conducting class. The choral concert will be followed that evening by Complexions Contemporary Ballet, a group which Dance Magazine said makes it “sensationally, jaw-droppingly clear that we live in an age of the super dancer.”
The Festival ends Sunday, June 26 with the final performance of Peter Grimes and A Little Night Music.
