A Movie Classic, Songwriting Phenoms, Opera and More at Singletary

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 16, 2016) — With the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra performing "Star Wars" as well as other major classical works, a concert featuring some of America’s finest songwriters, Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins and Anaïs Mitchell, and a weekend of performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's well-known opera "Così fan tutte" by UK Opera Theatre, not to mention several recitals and community events, the next two weeks at Singletary Center for the Arts demonstrate the breadth of arts programming presented by the award-winning center.

Each year, the Singletary Center, part of UK College of Fine Arts, presents and/or hosts around 400 artistic, cultural and educational events on its recital and concert hall stages for not only the university community, but Lexington and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In addition to the three major events above, the next two weeks will see the center hosting the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra’s teen arts festival, three UK student and guest artist recitals, and the Day of Percussion presented by the Kentucky chapter of the Percussive Arts Society.

John Williams conducts the Boston Pops playing the main theme from "Star Wars".

First Stop: Space

The UK Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of John Nardolillo, will take its audience on a voyage through the universe with performances of "Star Wars" and "The Planets" at its February concert. The program, which will also feature this year's Concerto Competition winners from UK School of Music, will begin 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19, at the Singletary Center. The concert is free and open to the public.

UK Symphony Orchestra's concert will feature popular pieces that connect listeners with space. Only months after the newest film from the "Star Wars" franchise hit theaters, the orchestra will perform the universally recognized main theme from the celebrated movies composed by John Williams. Continuing on the theme of space, the orchestra will also present one of Gustav Holst's most important works, "The Planets." For his magnum opus, Holst gave each planet a distinct astrological character, in a grandly orchestrated work that will also feature the UK Women's Choir, conducted by Lori Hetzel, associate director of UK School of Music.

In addition to performing the notable works by Williams and Holst, the orchestra will also celebrate the individual talents of two UK students who won the UK Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. The competition presents a prestigious opportunity for UK music students to perform a solo concerto with the orchestra. Artistic excellence is the primary criterion, but students must also be fulltime music majors and prepare the entire concerto. A panel of judges composed of artists outside UK reviews excerpts performed by each contestant and selects the top four to return and play their entire concerto. From these finalists, one to three winners are chosen to perform with the orchestra in the Concerto Competition Concert.

This year's winner is Christine Sallas and runner-up is Caden Holmes. Sallas, a doctoral student from Conyers, Georgia, will play an oboe concerto by Mozart. Holmes, a music performance junior from Madisonville, Kentucky, will play a trumpet concerto by Alexander Grigori Arutiunian.

For Sallas, whose maternal grandfather and mother also played the oboe, the concerto competition and possibility of playing with the orchestra was one the musician couldn't pass up. "I am honored to get the chance to perform as the winner. The chance to perform a concerto with a full orchestra doesn't come along very often, and I am thrilled that I can say I had this opportunity."

Sallas hopes the audience will take away the joy and excitement Mozart's music has to offer, while she experiences the magic of performing his work firsthand. "The Mozart Oboe Concerto is THE standard concerto in the oboe repertoire. It appears on nearly every major audition, and it is a piece I will be playing for the rest of my life. I wanted the chance to really experience this music as it was meant to be, not as an audition piece but as an incredible and moving piece of music."

Founded in 1918, the UK Symphony Orchestra is regarded as one of the nation’s best college orchestras. The 100-member all-student orchestra presents more than 50 concerts each year including classical, chamber and education concerts. The group is made up of undergraduate and graduate students from across the United States, Asia, South America and Europe.

UK's orchestra regularly performs with world-renowned concert artists including Itzhak Perlman, Sarah Chang, Gil Shaham, Mark O’Connor, Lynn Harrell, Denyce Graves, Lang Lang, Ronan Tynan, Natasha Paremski and Arlo Guthrie. Under Nardolillo's direction, the orchestra has performed not only in the concert hall at the Singletary Center but also around the U.S. and abroad, including concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2007 and 2010, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2009, and a tour of China in 2013.

The UK Symphony Orchestra also collaborates yearly with UK Opera Theatre and in recent years they have also begun an active outreach program bringing classical music to all corners of the Commonwealth. In addition to live performances, UK's orchestra is one of the only collegiate orchestra programs to record for with Naxos, the world’s largest classical music label.

Three Celebrated Songwriters, One Night Only Concert

For one night only, Bluegrass audiences will enjoy three of America’s finest songwriters on one stage as Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins and Anaïs Mitchell join together for a very special evening of music. Presented as a “songwriters-in-the-round” concert, all three of these celebrated performers will share songs and stories for an intimate and unforgettable evening beginning 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20, at the Singletary Center.

This special concert will close out the center's own programming for the year. "We’re excited to have this fantastic show be the capstone on our 2015-16 Signature Series where we have taken a bit of a break from some of the classical and jazz fare of previous years and have focused this year’s season on more of the rock and folk sounds of the American musical landscape," Singletary Center Marketing and Ticketing Director Matthew Gibson said. "Patty Griffin spans the genres of folk, blues, rock and gospel so well — she is a perfect performer to end the season with, to say nothing of the incredible talents and accomplishments of Sara Watkins and Anaïs Mitchell."

Patty Griffin performing "Servant of Love" from the "Servant of Love" album.

In a distinguished career spanning over 20 years, Grammy Award-winner Patty Griffin has established one of the strongest and most inimitable voices in contemporary folk music. In addition to standing out in a crowded field as an incredible vocalist, Griffin is also an accomplished songwriter, having written songs for artists including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Martina McBride, Emmylou Harris, Joan Osborne, Kelly Clarkson and Miranda Lambert, as well as most of the material on her own impressive catalogue of recordings. The artist’s recent collaborations include performances with Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples and Dierks Bentley, as well as touring in Band of Joy with Robert Plant and Buddy Miller. Griffin received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Gospel Album, a 2016 Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album and the American Music Association's 2007 Artist of the Year and Album of the Year awards.

Sara Watkins performs "You and Me" from the album "Sun Midnight Sun."

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Sara Watkins, first praised for her work as a founding member of Grammy Award-winning group Nickel Creek, has since established an extraordinary solo career including highly acclaimed studio albums and collaborations with artists such as John Mayer and The Decemberists. She has toured extensively as headliner, as well as performing and touring with such artists as Fiona Apple and Jackson Browne. Watkins is a frequent guest on NPR’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” and remains the only person invited to guest host on the program, which she did in 2010.

Anaïs Mitchell and the Young Man band perform "Dyin Day."

Widely known as the "Queen of Modern Folk Music," Anaïs Mitchell is first and foremost a storyteller. A Vermont-based singer-songwriter, Mitchell’s musical style, sound and performances have led her to be compared to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Gillian Welch. She was first signed by Ani Difranco to Righteous Babe Records, where she recorded for several years before starting her own Wilderland label in 2012. Among Mitchell’s recorded works are five full-length albums, including 2010′s sensationally reviewed "Hadestown" and 2012′s "Young Man in America," which was described by critics as "genre-defining" and her "second consecutive masterpiece,” and for which she received a BBC Radio Two Folk Award nomination for Best Original Song. In addition to headlining worldwide, Mitchell has supported tours for Difranco, The Low Anthem, Richard Thompson, Josh Ritter and Punch Brothers, as well as two sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall with the band Bon Iver.

Having such renowned artists come together on the Singletary stage is a thrill for the center's staff, who find it particularly exciting to have Griffin here on the heels of her Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. "She has not just received accolades for her past work, but is proving that some of the best performances of her career are happening right now. We can’t wait," Gibson said.

Tickets for the concert featuring Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins and Anaïs Mitchell range from $45 to $32 depending on location of seating. A ticket processing fee will be applied upon transaction. Tickets can be purchased from Singletary Center ticket office at www.scfatickets.com , phoning 859-257-4929 or at the venue.

'Così fan tutte' Marks Special UK Opera Appearance on Campus

In a rare treat for campus audiences, UK Opera Theatre brings its spring production to the Singletary Center for one weekend of performances of Mozart's "Così fan tutte." UK vocalists and the UK Symphony Orchestra will bring this opera to life Feb. 26-28, at Singletary Center.

This playful battle of the sexes finds two couples enjoying a romantic getaway when it is proposed that all women are cheaters — the bet is on.

Complete with sets and costumes, UK Opera Theatre presents Mozart’s masterpiece with a postmodern twist. Italian with English supertitles, the opera address the challenges of love, the pain of deceit, the power of temptation and the freedom of forgiveness in a lively comedic setting.

While UK Opera Theatre presents its annual musical revue, "It's a Grand Night for Singing!" at Singletary Center each summer, it is rarer for the opera program to present an opera production at the venue. So this will give audiences a special opportunity to see "Così fan tutte" staged on campus.

"We love presenting at the opera house and we look forward to our continued relationship with the Lexington Opera House, but when we can, we also want to bring our operas on campus," said Director of UK Opera Theatre Everett McCorvey. "Our audiences love Singletary Center because of the comfortable seating, the easy access and proximity to campus."

One of the challenges with Singletary Center is that it is not a theater, it is a concert hall. Most opera productions require fly space (where a pulley system pulls the scenery up into the ceiling) or wing space (where a set can be moved off into the wings). For this production, UK Opera Theatre had to design a set that can either remain on stage or be altered and changed on stage in front of the audience.

To make "Così fan tutte," UK Opera Theatre was able to utilize technology they developed with UK Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments for a previous production.  

"We are incorporating our SCRIBE system of digital projection which we used in 'Porgy and Bess,' so we are happy to reacquaint our audiences with this technology," McCorvey said. "The system is basically 50 to 60 projectors positioned on a rack, projecting scenery against a screen. Because of this technology, scenery can be projected against a screen and can move to different places on stage between acts or between scenes." 

UK Opera Theatre's "Così fan tutte" will take the stage 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 26 and 27, and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 27 and 28, at Singletary Center. Tickets for the opera range from $41.50 to $36.50 for general admission depending on location of seating. Student tickets with valid ID are only $9. A ticket processing fee will be applied upon transaction for all tickets. Tickets can be purchased from Singletary Center ticket office at www.scfatickets.com, phoning 859-257-4929 or in person at the venue.

With all these arts options at the community's fingertips, the Singletary Center hopes to see you in the audience soon. 

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu