Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Performing Arts Center will present the Grammy Award-winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on March 27 at 3 p.m. in Hodgson Concert Hall. Music Director Robert Spano will conduct the ASO with special guest, Metropolitan Opera star Dawn Upshaw in her Athens debut.
The performance will feature innovative pairings of works for soprano and orchestra with symphonies by the same composer. The first half of the performance will include She Was Here, four songs by Franz Schubert, paired with Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, followed in the second half by Jean Sibelius’ tone poem, Luonnotar, paired with the Sibelius Symphony No. 5.
Upshaw has been hailed as “one of the most consequential performers of our time,” by the Los Angeles Times. A four-time Grammy Award winner, she was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 2007, the first vocal artist to be awarded the five-year grant. In 2008, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Many of the world’s leading composers, including Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Adams, and Kaija Saariaho, have written for her, and during the 2010-2011 season she is performing five world premieres composed for her.
A native of Nashville, Tenn., Upshaw began her career as a 1984 winner of the Young Concert Artists Auditions. She holds honorary doctoral degrees from Yale University, the Manhattan School of Music, Allegheny College and Illinois Wesleyan University.
Vanessa Tome, a doctoral student in music at UGA, will give a pre-concert lecture 45 minutes prior to the performance. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Performance underwriters are Libby V. and C. Van Morris, George and Lisa Foreman and the Trashy Book Club of Athens.
When:March 27, 3 p.m. / Pre-concert lecture at 2:15 p.m.
Where:Hodgson Concert Hall in the UGA Performing Arts Center, 230 River Rd., Athens
Tickets:$20 – $52 with discounts for UGA students and groups of 15 or more
Box Office:706/542-4400, 888/289-8497 or www.uga.edu/pac.