Tucson Desert Song Festival's "Bernstein At 100" kicks off weekend two Friday night with True Concord Voices & Orchestra.
The choir will fill the sizable Centennial Hall with beautiful harmonies and drama tonight when Grammy-winning baritone Jubilant Sykes sings the role of celebrant in Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
It is the first of two performances of the Mass this weekend; the second is 3 p.m. Sunday at Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. on the UA campus. Click here for tickets.
Eric Holtan will lead True Concord Voices & Orchestra in 26 concerts over six weeks as the professional ensemble adopts the NBA’s “bubble” concept.
At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 27, Arizona Opera opens Bernstein's "Candide" — the first time the company has ever mounted the comic operetta — at Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. It repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28. Click here for tickets.
And at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Arizona Early Music Society joins the "Bernstein At 100" fun with Pentimenti performing "Voltaire's Candide" that goes straight to the source material from the 18th century novella. The performance featuring tenor Aaron Sheehan, soprano Kathryn Mueller, John Lenti on guitar and theorbo, and Joanna Blendulf on viola da gamba, is at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams St., and will include readings from the Voltaire book and songs from the period. Click here for tickets.
Here are a few notes and notables from the first weekend:
• Tucson Symphony Orchestra reported its most successful song festival event in the six years it has participated in the festival. The symphony reported 1,400 people attended the "Kaddish" Symphony concert Jan. 19 featuring Bernstein's daughter Jamie as the narrator. When the concert repeated Jan. 21, more than 1,700 people attended.
• Marana High School Symphonic Choir kicked off the festival Jan. 16 with Bernstein's "Chichester" Psalms. They held the performance in the school auditorium in the middle of the morning, which explains the small audience. But it wasn't as small as you might have expected given that it was held in a high school on a school day. Between 60 or 70 people showed up including a few folks who looked like it had been a generation or two since they strolled the halls of a high school.
• Speaking of Marana High's "Chichester," the choir, under the direction of Sarah Ross, performed the work a second time at a forum Jan. 22 at the Tucson JCC that included a panel discussion on Bernstein's Jewish Heritage. Jamie Bernstein was on that panel, and according to Song Festival Director George Hanson, she teared up when the choir sang the finale.
Sarah Ross, choir director, leads her students during a rehearsal on January 08, 2018 at Marana High School. The choir will perform Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" as part of the Sixth Annual Tucson Desert Song Festival.
Days later, Bernstein emailed Ross, saying she was "deeply moved by the passion your high schoolers brought" to her father's work.
"They are very lucky to have you as their inspiring teacher," Bernstein told Ross. "A big grateful hug to you, and all best wishes for a wonderful year ahead. I hope our paths cross again."
Bernstein was the artist-in-residence.
• Speaking of Bernstein, moments after the Jan. 22 Jewish Community Center event, after a handful of the 250 people in the audience crowded around to meet her, Jamie Bernstein gave Hanson a big hug and told him she had a wonderful time in Tucson. She also said that the Tucson Desert Song Festival was "the model" when it came to events and festivals celebrating her father on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Bernstein's centennial year runs through August, when he would have turned 100. He died in 1190 at the age of 72
