Tucson musicians are in Colombia for namesake festival

Linus Lerner and his Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra apparently don’t know what it means to go on summer break.

Two weeks after closing their season with a remarkable performance of Peter Boyer’s moving multimedia work “Ellis Island: The Dream of America,” the ensemble boarded a plane on Thursday to Colombia for the second annual Festival Lírico SASO and Prolírica de Antioquia in Medellín.

It’s Lerner’s latest music festival, coming 10 years after he started his first one and the International Linus Lerner Vocal Competition in Mexico. The orchestra participated in Mexican festivals for eight years before Lerner launched the Colombian event last year.

Festival Lirico SASO is a collaboration with Colombia’s Prolírica de Antioquia, which Lerner described as a wonderful partner.

The festival’s highlight will be a fully professional performance of Verdi’s grand opera “Aida,” featuring an international cast of 200 from Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Ukraine, Guatemala, Spain and Colombia.

Lerner will lead a combined orchestra that includes 24 SASO members, four guest musicians from Tucson and Colombia’s EAFIT Symphony Orchestra (Escuela de Administración, Finanzas e Instituto Tecnológico – School of Administration, Finance and Technological Institute).

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Soprano Ana Isabel Lazo from Guatemala-Italy, a Verdi/Puccini specialist, will perform the title role while Ukrainian tenor Vitaliy Kovalchuk is in the role of Radamés, which he has done a number of times.

Lerner, in a phone call from Colombia during a rehearsal break Wednesday, compared Kovalchuk to a young Pavarotti.

“He has a wonderful voice,” he said, and in the background, you could hear Kovalchuk rehearsing a scene with Lazo.

Lerner said he anticipates as many as 5,000 people will see the production over three performances, June 5, 6 and 8 at Medellín’s 1,800-seat Teatro Metropolitano. At last year’s inaugural festival, 3,000 people attended a trio of operas, including Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” that were performed in three different venues.

SASO is no stranger to international travel. Since Lerner took the podium in 2008, the orchestra has toured China twice and performed more than 20 full-scale operas in Mexico.

SASO also has awarded more than $100,000 in prize money through its vocal competition and helped bring more than half-a-million dollars in institutional partnerships to support artistic and professional growth of emerging vocal talent.