Opening on April 4 and running through April 28, 2019, the festival will take place at venues in the Dallas Arts District and throughout the city. Tickets for SOLUNA events go on sale on January 18, 2019, at mydso.com/soluna.
SOLUNA will present performances and installations by an expansive range of contemporary artists working across multiple mediums. In its fifth year, the festival continues a compelling collaboration with the Dallas arts community, engaging both local and international talent to present singular and unique programming for all audiences. Throughout the course of the festival, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will stage performances that share innovative classical music with new audiences, reinforcing the vital role that the orchestra plays within contemporary American culture.
“Over the course of several weeks, the festival will highlight the richness of the Dallas arts scene and pair great music with artists, dancers and performers to create a hub of cross-disciplinary thinking,” said DSO President & CEO Kim Noltemy. “The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is proud to have founded SOLUNA.”
Highlights of SOLUNA’s past four years include St. Vincent’s orchestral debut in 2015; the world premiere collaborative performance piece Rules Of The Game with choreography by Jonah Bokaer, set design by Daniel Arsham and an original score by Pharrell Williams with David Campbell in 2016; and Jessica Mitrani’s Traveling Lady starring Rossy de Palma, performed for the first time in Texas in 2017. 2018 featured several world premieres of SOLUNA-commissioned works including Melodies of Certain Damage, a performance by Israeli artist Naama Tsabar in which shattered guitars strung with piano keys were collectively activated to create an immersive soundscape; Breaking Shadows, a performance on a synthetic ice skating rink by professional figure skater Jennifer Wester with an original composition of sounds harvested from her own skates; and Mariachi Wagner, a mariachi interpretation of Richard Wagner’s most iconic compositions by Dallas’s only all-female mariachi ensemble, Mariachi Rosas Divinas.
NEW FOR 2019
Due to popular demand, SOLUNA will offer two levels of passes for this year’s festival. The Explorer Festival Pass, available for purchase for $50, provides premium seating for seven signature events. The Culture Junkie Festival Pass, available for purchase for $100, provides the benefits of the Explorer Pass and also includes a 25% discount at many partner performances. Details on tickets and festival passes can be found at mydso.com/soluna.
In addition, patrons can keep up with SOLUNA events, purchase tickets and learn more about artists and partners with the new SOLUNA app.
The app will be available this spring and may be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play.
SOLUNA WEEK ONE
April 4, 6, 7
The festival will kick off with 2018 Musical America Instrumentalist of the Year, Augustin Hadelich, performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the DSO as part of the Texas Instruments Classical Series. The program will be repeated on April 6 and 7. Under the baton of John Storgårds in his DSO debut, the Dallas Symphony will also perform Haydn’s Surprise Symphony and Carl Nielsen’s powerful Fifth Symphony.
April 5
The opening weekend will also include the Southwest’s premier contemporary chamber music ensemble, Voices of Change performing works by Julio Racine, Andrew Thomas, Toshio Hosokawa and Georgy Sviridov at Arts Mission Oak Cliff.
The same night, at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, acclaimed American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham will present an evening of song as a benefit for her alma mater, Texas Tech University.
April 6
A new work by sound artist Aki Onda will activate the galleries of the Crow Museum of Asian Art with a performance celebrating contemporary music and art. This fusion of the auditory and the visual will unfold beneath Jacob Hashimoto’s soaring site-specific installation which weaves through the gallery’s architecture and will be on view for the final day of Hashimoto’s Crow exhibition.
Additionally, Live from Here with Chris Thile (formerly A Prairie Home Companion) will travel to Dallas for a live broadcast of the radio variety show. Presented by the AT&T Performing Arts Center Winspear Opera House, the evening will feature music from Chris Thile and the show band, comedy sketches and much more.
April 7
A screening of Spike Lee’s 25th Hour will be followed by an artist talk with renowned jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard. Blanchard wrote the music for all of the director’s films including the recent BlacKkKlansman, and his deep knowledge of the arts will be highlighted at multiple events throughout the festival. This event will be held at Alamo Drafthouse Cedars.
The culmination of the Children’s Chorus of Greater Dallas’s season will feature the world premiere of two commissions by British composer Alan Bullard. Performed at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, this event is made possible by a grant from the TACA New Works Fund and a gift from CCGD founder, C. Michael Hawn.
SOLUNA WEEK TWO
April 8
The second week of SOLUNA will begin with A Musician’s View, a pillar event of the festival, which will include performances of chamber works by members of the DSO. Audience members will be invited to join the musicians on stage or in the choral terrace of the Eugene McDermott Concert Hall at the Meyerson and enjoy post-concert refreshments and conversation with DSO members.
April 9
GRAMMY® Award-winning jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, internationally renowned choreographer Rennie Harris and Dallas-based visual artist Andrew Scott will team up for an interdisciplinary world-premiere performance exploring the intersection of art and racial healing. With live music, dance, visual projections, sculpture and projection mapping, Caravan: A Revolution on the Road will examine the ability of art and music to bring about conversation, empathy and healing in difficult societal issues. This cornerstone event will be preceded that afternoon by a community discussion about activism and the arts, featuring Blanchard, Scott, Dallas-born dancer My’kal J. Stromile and activist Collette Flanagan and will be moderated by artist Vicki Meek. This event is a recipient of a grant from the TACA New Works Fund.
April 10
The trolls will take Texas: artist Egill Sæbjörnsson will bring the infamous trolls he let run amok at the 2017 Venice Biennale to SOLUNA in When the Trolls Go Rolling In. Using a mix of sculpture, painting and video projection, Sæbjörnsson gives life to Ūgh and Bõögâr, two trolls who are curious about classical music. This project is a continuation of SOLUNA’s long-standing partnership with the Dallas Art Fair, the preeminent art fair in the state of Texas.
April 11 – 13
The second weekend of SOLUNA will feature the DSO and the Dallas Symphony Chorus on the stage of the Meyerson with music by Rachmaninoff, Liszt and Tchaikovsky as part of the Texas Instruments Classical Series. Conductor James Gaffigan will lead the orchestra in Rachmaninoff’s choral and orchestral work, The Bells. These performances will mark the first time that the DSO has performed this work in the orchestra’s 119-year history. Renowned pianist Yefim Bronfman will solo in Liszt’s virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 2, and the program will conclude with chorus and orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s theatrical 1812 Overture.
SOLUNA WEEK THREE
April 14
The New Philharmonic Orchestra of Irving will present Mariachi and Mayan Night!, a salute to Mexico’s most-loved popular arts – mariachi and ballet folklorico.. The evening will feature Revueltas’s music for the film, The Night of the Mayas, choreography and dancers from Anita Martinez Ballet Folklorico and Mariachi Pegaso from Booker T. Washington HSPVA.
April 15
Bang on a Can All-Stars and Verdigris Ensemble will perform Anthracite Fields. Written by Julia Wolfe, Anthracite Fields is a powerful oratorio that evokes Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th Century and is the winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Called “unforgettably haunting” by the LA Times, this one-hour piece is set to a film by Jeff Suggs that is comprised of archival footage of coal country, providing context for the dreamlike commission. This will be the first performance of Wolfe’s work in Dallas since her appointment as the DSO’s Composer-in-Residence.
April 17
A signature SOLUNA event, Music and the Brain, presented in partnership with UT Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, will return on April 17. The annual seminar will feature world-renowned clinicians and scientists discussing the universality of music and rhythm through the lens of neuroscience in a program titled Minds Connect: Music and the Social World.
April 18, 19
Fabio Luisi makes his first appearance on the Dallas Symphony’s podium since the announcement of his position as Music Director Designate. Luisi will lead the orchestra in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and works by Frank Martin and “the Dean” of African-American composers, William Grant Still.
“I am honored to join the Dallas Symphony Orchestra during the fifth year of SOLUNA.” said Luisi. “The festival provides such fertile ground for new ideas, and it challenges the boundaries of classical music.”
This week also brings a special appearance by Lonnie Holley, one of the most renowned artists to come out of the Deep South and famed for his boundless improvisational and multidisciplinary creativity. At the Dallas Museum of Art, Holley will improvise on piano with his longtime collaborator, cellist Dave Eggar, and musicians from the Meadows POINT Ensemble. This performance will meditate on American history and ties into the museum’s forthcoming exhibition America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape.
SOLUNA WEEK FOUR
April 25 – 28
In the final week of the festival, the DSO will present two of Stravinsky’s most-loved works – Fireworks and The Firebird – alongside Bernstein’s mesmerizing Age of Anxiety, in performance with conductor David Robertson and pianist Orli Shaham, as part of the Texas Instruments Classical Series.
April 24
SOLUNA will partner again with the new artist incubator The Cedars Union. Sheryl Anaya and James Talambas will intertwine their respective mediums to compose a work that evokes humankind’s internal and collective rhythmic nature. A chamber performance by Talambas will pair Ellen Fullman’s Long String Instrument with DSO musicians beneath a suspension of delicately interwoven fibers by Anaya, creating an immersive web of dissonant light and consonant shadow.
April 26 – 28
The Verdigris Ensemble will present Faces of Dallas from April 26 through 28, a program celebrating the community and culture of Dallas. Synthesizing the poetry of local writers with visual artwork by Stephen Zhang, Verdigris will use a program of choral music to bring watercolor portraits of the people of different Dallas neighborhoods to life.
April 27
To close the festival, the interactive and family-friendly event Passport to the Park, a day of free, culturally diverse performances and activities at Klyde Warren Park, will return for its third year. Participants can take part in yoga with Exhale Spa, featuring classical music; help create a community mosaic art project; and explore scientific fun with the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. The afternoon will feature performances by New York-based Banda Magda, Booker T. Washington HSPVA’s Mariachi Pegaso, Bruce Wood Dance, SMU World Music Ensemble and the TI Jazz Band, “Across Dallas, our community will have the opportunity to engage with art in new and inspiring ways,” said Gillian Friedman Fox, Director of CONTEMPORARY & SOLUNA Programs. “Thoughtful art galvanizes subtle and significant change, prompting us to think critically and creatively about the world around us.”