NEW YORK, NY (June 20, 2017)—Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Jane Moss today announced Lincoln Center’s 2017 White Light Festival, which runs from October 18 through November 15. With more than 35 events presented in 13 venues throughout the city, including U.S. and New York premieres and nine commissions, the eighth annual international festival will explore transcendence, interior illumination, and faith in the human spirit, as exhibited through artistic expression across continents and centuries. The multidisciplinary festival takes its name from a quotation by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt: “Icouldcomparemymusic to white light, which contains all colors. Only a prism can divide the colors and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.”
 
The White Light Festival continues to highlight the transformative power of art to illuminate our individual and communal lives. Said Moss, “In these challenging and fractious times, the White Light Festival's focus on the self-illumination, nourishment, and expansion offered by art seems especially timely and necessary. The festival invites audiences to experience timeless works from across a multitude of cultures and disciplines in this year’s thought-provoking performances.”
 
The 2017 White Light Festival opens on Wednesday, October 18, by celebrating the birth of a legend and the genesis of opera. To mark Claudio Monteverdi’s 450th birthday, John Eliot Gardiner brings his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists to perform three semi-staged performances of the composer’s three surviving operas: L’Orfeo, followed by Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria andL’incoronazione di Poppea.
 
Grappling with the mysteries of faith, a centerpiece of this season’s festival is The Psalms Experience, an unprecedented 12-concert event that brings together four internationally renowned choirs performing musical settings of the complete psalms, exploring their contemporary relevance in a secular world. Through ageless poetry and inspired composition covering 1,000 years of music, The Psalms Experience presents all 150 psalms set by 150 different composers, from Bach and Handel to Nielsen and Arvo Pärt to new commissions by eight composers from around the world, including Michel van der Aa, David Lang, Nico Muhly, Evelin Seppar, and Isidora Žebeljan. Choral works expressing gratitude, abandonment, solace, and redemption will be sung across four New York City venues by the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Netherlands Chamber Choir, Tallis Scholars, and Norwegian Soloists’ Choir.
 
Grounded in the present and looking to the future, pioneering vocalist and composer Meredith Monkpresents a melding of music and movement in Dancing Voices, in partnership with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, incorporating a U.S. premiere in a retrospective of Monk’s work refashioned for a new generation.
 
In a Lincoln Center co-commission, the Mark Morris Dance Group returns to the festival with the New York premiere of Layla and Majnun, a Middle Eastern opera of forbidden love reinterpreted by choreographer Mark Morris, featuring the Silk Road Ensemble and two iconic Azerbaijani vocalists, Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova, as the star-crossed lovers from Persian folklore. In another exquisite offering, Jessica Lang choreographs and directs Pergolesi’s ravishing Stabat Mater with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and soprano Andriana Chuchman alongside the arresting movement of Jessica Lang Dance.
 
Following its acclaimed performances at the 2015 White Light Festival, Gare St. Lazare Ireland returns for another Beckett presentation, The Beckett Trilogy. This theatrical event considers the human condition through excerpts of Beckett’s novels Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable in a solo performance by actor Conor Lovett, a preeminent Beckett interpreter.
 
Combining powerful sound and image, Australian video artist Lynette Wallworth collaborates with French organist Bernard Foccroulle in the U.S. premiere of Darkness and Light, a selection of Baroque and 20th-century music accompanying projections of the natural world and industrial development in a nuanced exploration of duality and paradox.
 
Other highlights range from the Emerson String Quartet pairing late Shostakovich and Beethoven to pianists Steven Osborne channeling a mystical Messiaen and Jenny Lin honoring the visionary Valentin Silvestrov. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra presents Beethoven’s towering Missa solemnis, and Swedish Radio Choir offers a luminous a cappella concert in the intimate Church of St. Mary the Virgin.
 
The festival culminates in The Routes of Slavery from beloved early music interpreter Jordi Savall, who gathers artists from Africa, Europe, and the Americas to explore the incredible musical legacy from over four centuries of music across three continents. Through tracing journeys of unspeakable cruelty, Savall and his collaborators honor the endurance and vibrant sense of community forged from the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.
 
In addition to the performances, the 2017 White Light Festival will offer pre- and post-performance artist talks, White Light Lounges, a film screening, and special panel discussions. White Light Lounges follow many performances. These receptions are exclusive to White Light Festival ticketholders and provide opportunities to mingle with artists and fellow concertgoers while enjoying a complimentary glass of wine or sparkling water.
 
Tickets for the 2017 White Light Festival are available online at WhiteLightFestival.org, by calling CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or at the David Geffen or Alice Tully Hall Box Office (Broadway and 65th Street). Single tickets will be available to purchase on June 26, 2017.
 

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White Light Festival 2017 
Artists and Programs Listed in Chronological Order

 

MONTEVERDI: THE BIRTH OF OPERA
Wednesday, October 18 – Saturday, October 21
 
The year 2017 marks the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi’s birth. To illuminate the origins of an art form, the peerless John Eliot Gardiner brings his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists to Alice Tully Hall for semi-staged concerts of the composer’s three surviving operas—L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and L’incoronazione di Poppea.
 
ORFEO
Wednesday, October 18 at 7:00 pm         
Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Krystian Adam, Orfeo
Hana Blažíková, Euridice
John Eliot Gardiner and Elsa Rooke, stage direction
 
Alice Tully Hall
A White Light Lounge follows the performance
 

MONTEVERDI: L’Orfeo, SV 318

 
Composed in 1607, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo is considered the first great opera. It offers a probing investigation of human nature, character, and desire through the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, brought to life by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in this stirring period performance.
 
Pre-concert lecture: Ellen Rosand, author of Monteverdi’s Last Operas: A Venetian Trilogy, speaks at
5:45 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.
 
THE RETURN OF ULYSSES
Thursday, October 19 at 7:00 pm
Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Furio Zanasi, Ulisse
Marianna Pizzolato, Penelope
Krystian Adam, Telemaco
Hana Blažíková, Minerva
John Eliot Gardiner and Elsa Rooke, stage direction
 
Alice Tully Hall
A White Light Lounge follows the performance
 

MONTEVERDI: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, SV 325

 
Based on the second half of Homer’s Odyssey, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria is a tale of treachery and deception that ultimately resolves into the triumph of enduring love. John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir, and English Baroque Soloists recreate the passionate sound world of this 1640 opera.
 
Pre-concert lecture: Ellen Rosand, author of Monteverdi’s Last Operas: A Venetian Trilogy, speaks at
5:45 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.
 
THE CORONATION OF POPPEA
Saturday, October 21 at 7:00 pm 
Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Hana Blažíková, Poppea
Kangmin Justin Kim, Nerone
Marianna Pizzolato, Ottavia
Carlo Vistoli, Ottone
John Eliot Gardiner and Elsa Rooke, stage direction
 
Alice Tully Hall
A White Light Lounge follows the performance
 

MONTEVERDI: L’incoronazione di Poppea, SV 308

 
Monteverdi’s final opera, L’incoronazione di Poppea, first performed in the 1642–43 carnival season in Venice, was unusual in its time for abandoning mythology in favor of a retelling of historical events. The composer’s operatic swan song contains the earliest version of a great diva scena by the self-proclaimed “despised queen,” Ottavia. John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir cast an irresistible spell in this musical retelling of Poppea’s evolution from Roman Emperor Nero’s bewitching mistress to his queen.
 
Pre-concert lecture: Ellen Rosand, author of Monteverdi’s Last Operas: A Venetian Trilogy, speaks at 5:45 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.
 
All performances sung in Italian with English supertitles.
These performances are also part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers.
Made possible in part by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
 
 
DANCING VOICES
Friday, October 20 at 7:30 pm     
Saturday, October 21 at 3:00 pm and 7:30 pm
Meredith Monk, voice, composer, and director
Young People’s Chorus of New York City
Francisco J. Núñez, artistic director
Katie Geissinger, voice
Allison Sniffin, voice and piano
American Contemporary Music Ensemble
 
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College
A White Light Lounge follows the October 20 performance
 
Vocalist, composer, and director Meredith Monk and members of her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble join forces with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City to offer an intergenerational experience of music and movement where “the body sings and the voice dances.” The program encompasses Monk’s choral, duet, and solo works, including the U.S. premiere of Dancing Voices, a new choral arrangement of “Three Heavens and Hells,” “Ascent” from Songs of Ascension, and selections from ATLAS: an opera in three parts and Book of Days. Monk and her Vocal Ensemble presented the opening performance of the inaugural White Light Festival, The Soul’s Messenger, in the David Rubenstein Atrium in 2010.
 
 
EMERSON STRING QUARTET: NEARING THE END
Tuesday, October 24 at 7:30 pm
 
Alice Tully Hall
A White Light Lounge follows the performance.
 

BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 127
SHOSTAKOVICH: String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor, Op. 144

 
In its first White Light Festival appearance, the exemplary Emerson String Quartet explores the introspective genius of Shostakovich and Beethoven through the prism of two works written toward the end of each composer’s life: Beethoven’s otherworldly Op. 127 quartet and Shostakovich’s intensely personal Quartet No. 15. The Emerson, which has an extensive Lincoln Center performance history, won Grammy Awards for its complete Beethoven string quartets released in 1997 and for its recording of the complete Shostakovich quartets in 2000.
 
This performance is also part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers.
 
 
LAYLA AND MAJNUN(NEW YORK PREMIERE)
Thursday, October 26 – Saturday, October 28 at 7:30 pm  
Sunday, October 29 at 3:00 pm
Mark Morris Dance Group
Silk Road Ensemble
Mark Morris, choreographer and director
Alim Qasimov, Majnun
Fargana Qasimova, Layla
Howard Hodgkin, scenic and costume design
James F. Ingalls, lighting design
 
Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall
White Light Lounges follow the October 26, 27, and 28 performances
 
Sung in Azerbaijani with English supertitles
 
This timeless story of impossible love predating Romeo and Juliet emerges from the cultural intersections along the Silk Road. Star-crossed lovers Layla and Majnun are central characters in Persian and Arabian folklore and the subject of the first Muslim opera written more than a century ago. In this inspired adaptation by choreographer Mark Morris, celebrated Azerbaijani mugham singers Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova perform with the Silk Road Ensemble on stage with the Mark Morris Dance Group, featuring bold costumes and set design by the late abstractionist Howard Hodgkin.
 
Pre-performance talk: Mark Morris and Ara Guzelimian discuss choreographing a Middle Eastern opera on Friday, October 27 at 6:15 pm.
Post-performance talk: Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova discuss Azerbaijani music and opera following the Saturday, October 28 performance.
 
Layla and Majnun is a Mark Morris Dance Group/Cal Performances, UC Berkeley, California production in association with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, New York; Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Chicago, Illinois; Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.; Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, College of Fine + Applied Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Meany Center for the Performing Arts, Seattle, Washington; Melbourne Festival, Victoria, Australia; Sadler’s Wells, London, England; and University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
 
 
WHITE LIGHT CONVERSATION: FAITH
Saturday, October 28, 3:00 - 4:30 pm
 
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse
 
In times of turmoil, when contention and strife hold sway in all corners of the public square, what can we hold onto when the ground beneath us shifts? WNYC’s John Schaefer moderates a free discussion, in which leading thinkers and theorists ponder the question of faith from diverse perspectives, examining its myriad meanings for secular seekers and religious adherents alike. Panelists include singer-songwriter John Darnielle.
 

STEVEN OSBORNE: GAZING AT THE DIVINE
Tuesday, October 31 at 7:30 pm
 
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse
A White Light Lounge follows the performance
 
            MESSIAEN: Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus
 
British pianist Steven Osborne presents Olivier Messiaen’s complete Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (“Twenty contemplations of the infant Jesus”), a 20-part work of herculean proportions lasting more than two hours without intermission. Messiaen, a devout Catholic, infused the 1944 keyboard piece with joie de vivre despite composing it during France’s German occupation. Osborne was invited to study the work by the composer’s widow, Yvonne Loriod, for whom the piece was written. Osborne’s 2002 recording of Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus on Hyperion received a Gramophone Award nomination and was selected as Critics’ Choice and Editor’s Choice by Gramophone as well as Best CD of 2002 by BBC Music Magazine.
 
Pre-concert talk: Steven Osborne will discuss Messiaen’s work at 6:15 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.
 
 
STABAT MATER
Wednesday, November 1 and Thursday, November 2 at 7:30 pm
Jessica Lang Dance
Jessica Lang, director and choreographer
Orchestra of St. Luke’s
Speranza Scappucci, conductor
Andriana Chuchman, soprano
Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor
 
Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall
White Light Lounges follow each performance
 
With English supertitles
 

MOZART: Divertimento in F major, K.138
PERGOLESI: Stabat mater

 
Giovanni Pergolesi’s ravishingly spare Stabat mater, depicting Mary’s suffering at the scene of the Crucifixion, was composed weeks before his untimely death at age 26. New York–based choreographer Jessica Lang adds “gracious flow and arresting gesture” (New York Times) to this union of sacred music and dance, featuring dancers on stage with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and soprano Andriana Chuchman. Developed at the Glimmerglass Festival, Lang’s Stabat Mater premiered in Cooperstown, New York, in 2013.
 
 

  
 
THE BECKETT TRILOGY
Friday, November 3 and Saturday, November 4 at 7:00 pm
Sunday, November 5 at 3:00 pm
Gare St. Lazare Ireland
Conor Lovett, actor
Judy Hegarty Lovett, director
Simon Bennison, lighting design
 
The Duke on 42nd Street, a New 42nd Street® project
A White Light Lounge follows the November 3 performance
  
For this singular theatrical engagement, Gare St. Lazare Ireland presents excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s novels Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable in an exceptional solo performance by actor Conor Lovett, described as “the greatest Beckett interpreter alive today” by Australian Arts Hub. While exploring the absurdities of the human condition, Lovett portrays a philosophical vagrant, an elderly man lost to memory and fantasy, and a paralyzed protagonist in turn. Molloy premiered at Battersea Arts Centre in March 1996; Malone Dies and The Unnamable premiered at Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2000 and 2001 respectively. Gare St. Lazare Ireland presented acclaimed performances of Beckett’s The End and Here All Night at the White Light Festival in 2015.
 
 
WHITE LIGHT ON FILM - SACRED: MILESTONES OF A SPIRITUAL LIFE
Tuesday, November 7 at 7:00pm
Directed by Thomas Lennon
 
Walter Reade Theater
 
Shot by leading independent filmmakers in over 25 countries, this impressionistic documentary explores faith as a primary human experience. Global in reach, yet intensely intimate, Sacred observes how people across the world turn to ritual and prayer to navigate life’s milestones and crises, transcending cultural and religious differences to offer a universal celebration of our shared humanity.  
 
Presented in association with Film Society of Lincoln Center
 
 
DARKNESS AND LIGHT (U.S. PREMIERE)
Thursday, November 9 at 7:30 pm           
Bernard Foccroulle, organ
Lynette Wallworth, video
 
Church of the Ascension
(Fifth Avenue at Tenth Street)
  
For this U.S. premiere, world-renowned organist Bernard Foccroulle and Australian video artist Lynette Wallworth collaborate on a multisensory experience confronting the role of light and darkness in music and in nature. The project takes its name from Light and Darkness (Hell und Dunkel), a composition by the Russian mystical composer Sofia Gubaidulina. The program comprises a mixture of Baroque and 20th-century music, drawing the audience into a dualistic allegory for day and night, life and destruction, or joy and terror. Wallworth’s contemporary video imagery unites these aspects through natural and industrial scenes. Darkness and Light premiered in March 2014 at the Klarafestival in Brussels and has since received critical acclaim in London, Aix-en-Provence, Luxembourg, Sydney, Hamburg, and Japan. Wallworth’s installation Duality of Light was featured at the White Light Festival in 2012.

 
JENNY LIN: THE PAST MADE PRESENT
Sunday, November 12 at 11:00 am          
 
Walter Reade Theater
  
Visionary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov describes his work as “metamusic,” in which he creates spare, universally affecting compositions infused with melodic tension. For this intimate morning recital, pianist Jenny Lin honors Silvestrov’s 80th birthday by pairing his lyrical meditations on Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and others alongside the masterworks that inspired him.
 
This performance is also part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts series.
 
 
MISSA SOLEMNIS
Sunday, November 12 at 3:00 pm
Swedish Chamber Orchestra
Swedish Radio Choir
Thomas Dausgaard, conductor
Peter Dijkstra, choral director
Malin Christensson, soprano
Kristina Hammarström, mezzo-soprano
Michael Weinius, tenor
Josef Wagner, bass
 
David Geffen Hall
  
Sung in Latin with English supertitles
 
Historically deemed too big for the church, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis evokes the immensity, power, and pathos of humanity’s search for redemption. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra, under renowned Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard, accompanies a cast of primarily Scandinavian vocalists along with the impeccable Swedish Radio Choir in Beethoven’s sublime setting of the Catholic mass.
 
Pre-concert lecture: Andrew Shenton will speak at 1:45 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.
 
This performance is also part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Symphonic Masters series.
 
 
SWEDISH RADIO CHOIR: ETERNAL LIGHT
Tuesday, November 14 at 7:30 pm          
Peter Dijkstra, choral director
 
Church of St. Mary the Virgin (145 West 46th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues)
A White Light Lounge follows the performance
  
In an illuminating a cappella concert at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the Swedish Radio Choir, named one of the world’s leading choirs by Gramophone, spotlights ethereal works by living composers. The program culminates in Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Choir, a moving 20th-century choral masterpiece based on The Book of Lamentations by Armenian monk Grigor Narekatsi.
 
 
THE ROUTES OF SLAVERY
Wednesday, November 15 at 7:30 pm
Jordi Savall, director
Hespèrion XXI
La Capella Reial de Catalunya
The Fairfield Four
Kassé Mady Diabaté, Voice (Mali)
Ballaké Sissoko, Kora (Mali)
Mamani Keita, Nana Kouyaté, Tanti Kouyaté, Vocals (Mali)
Rajery, Valiha (Madagascar)
Driss el Maloumi, Oud (Morocco)
Maria Juliana Linhares, Soprano (Brazil)
Zé Luis Nascimento, Percussion (Brazil)
Adriana Fernández, Soprano (Argentina)
Iván García, Bass (Venezuela)
Ada Coronel, Vihuela, Wasá, Dance & Voice (Mexico)
Enrique Barona, Vihuela, Leona, Jarana, Quijada de caballo, Dance & Voice (Mexico)
Ulises Martínez, Violin, Vihuela, Leona & Voice (Mexico)
Leopoldo Novoa, Marimbol, Marimba de chonta & Tiple colombiano (Colombia)
 
Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall
 
Esteemed early music interpreter Jordi Savall explores the history of human exploitation in The Routes of Slavery (1444–1888), which traces over four centuries of music from three continents involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Joined by guest artists from Africa, Europe, and the Americas, Savall and his collaborators incorporate musical and oral traditions from Africa to the New World in a multicultural program illuminating both the cruelest depths and extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. Savall released the three-disc (audio and video) recording The Routes of Slavery (1444–1888) on Alia Vox in February 2017. Savall presented The Cycles of Life: A Musical Exploration of the Balkans at the 2013 White Light Festival to great acclaim. 
 
Pre-concert talk: Jordi Savall speaks with Ara Guzelimian at 6:15 pm in the
Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Studio.
 
Programs, artists, repertoire, and ticket prices are subject to change.