For her second appearance with the Tucson Desert Song Festival next week, soprano Susanna Phillips is bringing a couple of friends.
The award-winning vocalist, who has performed on some of the world’s biggest stages, is introducing Tucson to her SPA Trio on Wednesday, Feb. 19, at an Arizona Friends of Chamber Music recital.
Soprano Susanna Phillips, from left, teamed up with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott and violist Paul Neubauer in 2011 as SPA Trio. The ensemble makes its Tucson debut on Wednesday, Feb. 19, with Arizona Friends of Chamber Music as part of the Tucson Desert Song Festival.
The trio, with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott and violist Paul Neubauer, has been playing together since 2011. Their concert at Leo Rich Theater, 260 S. Church Ave., opens with Mendelssohn’s concert aria “Infelice” and includes works from Benjamin Dale, Wagner, Clara Schumann and Ernesto De Curtis.
A highlight will be the West Coast premiere of Michael Brown‘s “Pas de trois” for soprano, viola and piano, inspired by his longtime collaboration with SPA Trio. Brown has said he drew on their personalities when he was composing the piece last year.
We get to hear the piece weeks after its world premiere on Jan. 22 at the Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival in Florida.
Wednesday’s concert will be Phillips’ first in Tucson since she performed the world premiere of Jocelyn Hagen‘s choral symphony “Here I Am” with True Concord Voices & Orchestra as part of the 2023 song festival.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45, $12 for students, through arizonachambermusic.org.
Tucson Desert Song Festival wraps up its winter leg with the Grammy-nominated True Concord’s “The Tucson Spirit, the Love of Flight: An All-American Program” Feb. 28-March 2. The spring leg runs April 1-19. Details at tucsondesertsongfestival.org.
Sci-fi and the symphony
The Tucson Symphony Orchestra this weekend is “boldly going where no man has gone before.”
OK, we couldn’t resist.
The orchestra’s special “Symphonic Sci-Fi” concert conjures up all those wonderful sci-fi TV/movie taglines and one-liners:
“ET, phone home.”
“May the force be with you.”
“Luke, I am your father.”
“We are not alone.”
“The universe is so much bigger than you realize.”
“The ultimate trip.”
But it’s the music that will take you back to the cineplex where you first saw “Star Wars” on the big screen or “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” which made us wonder if space aliens are among us.
The orchestra, under the baton of guest conductor Jeff Tyzik, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra‘s principal pops conductor, will perform the music of a half dozen sci-fi movies and TV shows that gave us a glimpse into what could lie beyond our galaxy.
Jeff Tyzik, principal pops conductor for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as well as Detroit Symphony, Oregon Symphony and Florida Orchestra, brings the "Symphonic Sci-Fi" concert to Tucson Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
The program includes a medley of songs from “Star Trek” by Alexander Courage and a pair of John Williams “Star Wars” themes — “Across the Stars” from “Star Wars, Episode II – Attack of the Clones” and the ubiquitous theme from the original “Star Wars.”
We’ll hear from a pair of Strausses — Richard (“Also sprach Zarathustra”) and Johann “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” — whose music was used in “2001: A Space Odyssey”; and Claude Debussy’s hauntingly beautiful “Clair de lune” that was featured in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
Of course a sci-fi greatest hits concert is not complete without Williams’ “E. T. Adventures on Earth” and his theme for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
The program also includes Tyzik’s “Star Suite,” composed in 2022 to celebrate man’s space explorations.
The orchestra will perform “Symphonic Sci-Fi” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 16, at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $15-$78 through tucsonsymphony.org.
