Fusing music, movement and theater, DiDonato’s EDEN explores our individual connection to nature and its impact on our world
SUMMARY
- UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Joyce DiDonato: EDEN
- Saturday, January 24 | 7:00 p.m. | Granada Theatre
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- Joyce DiDonato, executive producer and mezzo-soprano
- Featuring early music ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro
- Zefira Valova, conductor; Marie Lambert-Le Bihan, stage director; John Torres, lighting designer
- Multi-award-winning artist Joyce DiDonato fuses theater, movement, activism and music in her latest groundbreaking work, EDEN
- With an appearance by the Music Academy’s Sing! youth choir
- EDEN is an Arts & Lectures co-commission with University Musical Society of the University of Michigan; the Harriman-Jewell Series, Kansas City; Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation; Cal Performances at University of California, Berkeley; and Stanford Live
- $20-$131 General Public / $20 UCSB Students & Youth (Current student ID required) (Includes facility fee)
- Tickets & Info: www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu, (805) 893-3535; or The Granada Theatre, www.granadasb.org, (805) 899-2222
“DiDonato’s EDEN beckons humanity back to the garden… [her] voice is truly one of nature’s great wonders: luminous, sIlken, flexible, full of colors and expressive shadings, always supported by the breath so even the finest threads of tone shine.” – NPR
SANTA BARBARA – UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) presents Joyce DiDonato in EDEN, Tuesday, January 24 at 7:00 p.m. at Granada Theatre. Fusing music, movement and theater, EDEN is a breathtaking, through-performed tour de force from the multi-award-winning Joyce DiDonato. EDEN explores our individual connection to nature and its impact on our world. By traveling seamlessly through four centuries of music, including a new commission from Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman, a searing and singular experience of hope unfolds. To ensure that the EDEN experience continues to grow outside of the concert hall, each audience member receives seeds to plant as DiDonato asks: “In this time of upheaval, which seed wIll you plant today?”
Conductor Zafira Valova and the acclaimed early music ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro join DiDonato onstage for the entire EDEN program. The Music Academy’s Sing! youth choir wIll participate in the evening’s finale, “Seeds of Hope,” an original composition known as the EDEN anthem. DiDonato’s album recording of EDEN with Il Pomo d’Oro won the 2022 Opus Klassik Award for “Solo Vocal Recording of the Year” and is nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award in the category “Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.”
View the EDEN tour trailer
Watch a short video documenting the creation of “Seeds of Hope” with the children’s choir of Bishop Ramsey School.
ABOUT JOYCE DiDONATO
Multi-Grammy Award winner and 2018 Olivier Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, Kansas-born Joyce DiDonato entrances audiences across the globe, and has been proclaimed “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation” by The New Yorker. With a voice “nothing less than 24-carat gold” according to The New York Times, DiDonato has soared to the top of the industry both as a performer and a fierce advocate for the arts, gaining international prominence in operas by Handel and Mozart, as well as through her wide-ranging, acclaimed discography. She is also widely acclaimed for the bel canto roles of Rossini and Donizetti.
DiDonato’s 2020/21 season began with performances of her baroque-inspired programme My Favourite Things with Il Pomo d’Oro in Bayreuth and Valencia, as well as a breathtaking recital for the Met Stars Live in Concert series. Further season highlights will include performances of her Songplay programme with Craig Terry in Oviedo, Madrid and Barcelona, and Werther in concert under Donald Runnicles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. This year DiDonato is also delighted to be an Artist Ambassador in partnership with the classical music streaming service Primephonic.
DiDonato was Carnegie Hall’s 19/20 Perspectives Artist with appearances including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Muti and Schubert’s Winterreise in recital with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The season also held the final tour of her album In War & Peacewith Il Pomo d’Oro to South America and culminating in Washington DC, and a tour with the Orchestre Métropolitain under Nézet-Séguin.
An exclusive recording artist with Erato/Warner Classics, DiDonato’s award-winning discography includes Les Troyens which in 2018 won the Recording (Complete Opera) category at the International Opera Awards, the Opera Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards and Gramophone’s Recording of the Year. An extensive recording artist, DiDonato’s other recent albums include Songplay, In War & Peace, which won the 2017 Best Recital Gramophone Award, Stella di Napoli, her Grammy-Award-winning Diva Divoand Drama Queens. Other honors include the Gramophone Artist of the Year and Recital of the Year awards, and an induction into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.
About UCSB Arts & Lectures
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
Joyce DiDonato is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures in association with The Music Academy, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and Community Environmental CouncIl. Tickets are $46-$131 General Public (Includes facility fee) / $20 UCSB Students (Current student ID required)
Special thanks to KCRW.
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2022-2023 season.
For tickets and more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu; or The Granada Theatre, www.granadasb.org, (805) 899-2222