Hill Auditorium
Film with Live Music
Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky
Season tickets on sale 5/1 for general public.
Although known more for his ballet music, symphonies, and concertos, Sergei Prokofiev wrote several film scores: Lieutenant Kijé, The Queen of Spades, and his third score, Alexander Nevsky. The 1938 Soviet historical drama, directed by Sergei Eisenstein during the Stalinist era, was the first of his dramatic films to use sound, and it depicts the attempted invasion of Novgorod in the 13th century by the Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their subsequent defeat by Prince Alexander, aka Alexander Nevsky.
The film and music were a true collaboration in that some of the film was shot to Prokofiev’s music and some of Prokofiev’s music was composed to Eisenstein’s footage. A year after the film’s premiere, Prokofiev arranged the film score as a cantata, which is more frequently performed today. The cantata was first performed at UMS at the 1946 May Festival, less than a decade after its premiere, and most recently as part of the 1991 May Festival. The UMS Choral Union and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra perform the full score for the first time, presented alongside the original film.
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Film with Live Music
Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky
Hill Auditorium
Renewals start 4/24 for current subscribers.
Season tickets on sale 5/1 for general public.
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Contact Info
scottph@umich.edu
About Scott
Scott Hanoian is the music director and conductor of the UMS Choral Union where he conducts and prepares the Grammy Award-winning chorus in performances with the world’s finest orchestras and conductors. Choruses prepared by Mr. Hanoian have sung under the batons of Leonard Slatkin, Iván Fischer, Osmo Vänskä, Peter Oundjian, Fabien Gabel, and Arie Lipsky.
Mr. Hanoian is active as an organist, accompanist, continuo artist, conductor, choral adjudicator, and guest clinician. He is the director of music and organist at Christ Church Grosse Pointe, where he directs the church’s four choirs and oversees the yearly concert series. Mr. Hanoian has served on the faculty of Wayne State University and Oakland University and was the artistic director and conductor of the Oakland Choral Society from 2013–15.
As an organist and conductor, Mr. Hanoian has performed concerts throughout the US and has led choirs on trips to Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, France, and Spain. In the summer of 2017, Mr. Hanoian led the Christ Church Schola during their weeklong residency at Westminster Abbey.
Before moving to Grosse Pointe, Mr. Hanoian was the assistant organist and assistant director of music at Washington National Cathedral where he played the organ for many services including the funerals for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. Mr. Hanoian has recorded the complete organ works of Johannes Brahms for the JAV label.
Hailed by critics as a “rarity” and “a genuine contralto,” Meredith Arwady continues to delight audiences in the United States and abroad with rich vocal intensity and captivating stage presence.
Ms. Arwady has appeared with numerous opera companies in a variety of roles. Meredith Arwady has appeared at the San Francisco Opera as Mistress Quickly in Falstaff under Nicola Luisotti, a role which she then sang in a new production at Oper Frankfurt. She was seen at Houston Grand Opera as Erda in Das Rheingold, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Mme. Croissy in Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Santa Fe Opera in their double-bill The Impresario (Fräulein Krone) and Le Rossignol (Death). Ms. Arwady returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Erda in Der Ring des Nibelungen under the baton of Fabio Luisi, a role she also sang at Oper Frankfurt under Sebastian Weigle. She also appeared as Auntie in Peter Grimes with the Aspen Music Festival, in which the New York Times praised her “rich-toned contralto” performance. She has been seen at the Metropolitan Opera as Pasqualita in John Adams’s Dr. Atomic under Alan Gilbert and as the Marquise de Berkenfeld in La fille du régiment; San Francisco Opera as Zita in Gianni Schicchi, Mother Abbess in Suor Angelica, and the Marquise de Berkenfeld; Santa Fe Opera as Gaea in Strauss’s Daphne and as the title role in Peter Sellars’s production of Vivaldi’s Griselda; Houston Grand Opera as Auntie in Peter Grimes and in the world premiere of André Previn’s A Brief Encounter; Oper Frankfurt as Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera and Erda / First Norn in Der Ring des Nibelungen; English National Opera as Pasqualita in Dr. Atomic; Canadian Opera Company in The Nightingale; Dallas Opera in Boris Godunov; Opera Philadelphia as Quickly in Falstaff; and Fort Worth Opera as Cornelia in Giulio Cesare. An alumna of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Center, Ms. Arwady made her mainstage debut Tisbe in La Cenerentola conducted by Bruno Campanella. Since then, she has been seen as Pasqualita in Dr. Atomic under Robert Spano, Quickly in Falstaff, Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte, She-Ancient in Sir Michael Tippett’s A Midsummer Marriage, all under Andrew Davis, as well as productions of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Roméo et Juliette, and Dialogues des Carmélites.
Born in Michigan, Ms. Arwady received a Master of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied voice with Marlena Kleinman Malas.