Hill Auditorium
Orchestra of the Americas
with Yo-Yo Ma and Kayhan Kalhor
UMS hosts a special project and performance with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, composer and kamancheh (spiked fiddle) virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, and the Orchestra of the Americas on the University of Michigan campus.
Composed of fellows from the OAcademy Music Conservatory, a group of students from the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and Mexico’s Escuela Superior de Musica y Danza Monterrey, the Orchestra will be in residence for a week, culminating in a public preview performance of Kalhor’s new Double Concerto for Cello and Kamancheh, which will receive its world premiere at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany next year. The concert will also feature additional works performed by the orchestra.
The concerto will be workshopped and rehearsed with Ma and Kalhor on the University of Michigan’s campus with The Orchestra of the Americas, an international ensemble of university-level musicians from across the Americas and beyond. The residency week in Ann Arbor (June 5-11, 2024), will allow Kalhor, Ma, and the musicians to refine and rehearse the concerto with UMS serving as a convener, partner, and cultural resource by hosting 60 international musicians on U-M’s campus for a week. The musicians will live in U-M residence halls, rehearse at Hill Auditorium, and engage in additional opportunities on the U-M campus and in Southeast Michigan.
Kayhan Kalhor’s Venus in the Mirror is commissioned by UMS and Morgenland Festival Osnabrück and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra.
PROGRAM (Tue 6/11/2024: Hill Auditorium)
Gabriela Ortiz Téenek
Kayhan Kalhor Venus in the Mirror (Double Concerto for Cello and Kamancheh)
Ottorino Respighi Roman Festivals
Ottorino Respighi Pines of Rome
Thank You to Our Sponsors
PRESENTING SPONSOR
- Menakka and Essel Bailey
- Matt and Nicole Lester
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PRINCIPAL SPONSOR
- The Martin Family Foundation
- Elaine and Peter Schweitzer
- Linh and Dug Song
SUPPORTING SPONSOR
- Helga and Jerry Bilik
- Stephen and Faith Brown
- Rachel and Dan Feder
- Shaomeng Wang and Ju-Yun Li
- Ellie Serras
- Brian Weisman
- Dianne Widzinski
- Jon and Sandy Willen
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PATRON SPONSOR
- Thea Glicksman
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Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Ma strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.
Ma holds a lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society. It was this belief that inspired the formation of Silkroad, the global music collective. Through his work with Silkroad, as well as throughout his career, Ma has sought to expand the cello repertoire, premiering compositions by Osvaldo Golijov, Leon Kirchner, Zhao Lin, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Giovanni Sollima, and John Williams, among many others.
In addition to his work as a performing artist, Ma has partnered with communities and institutions around the world to develop programs that advocate for a future guided by humanity, trust, and understanding. Among his many roles, Ma is a United Nations Messenger of Peace, the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, and a member of the board of Nia Tero, the US-based nonprofit working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements worldwide.
Ma’s discography of more than 120 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) ranges from iconic renditions of the Western classical canon to recordings that defy categorization, such as “Hush” with Bobby McFerrin and the “Goat Rodeo Sessions” with Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Ma’s recent releases include “Six Evolutions,” his third recording of Bach’s cello suites, and “Songs of Comfort and Hope,” created and recorded with pianist Kathryn Stott in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh (spiked fiddle), who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian around the world and is a creative force in today’s music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and multiple collaborations have attracted audiences around the globe.
He has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular those of Khorason and Kordestan, and has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan and Masters of Persian Music. Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has also performed and recorded with Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. He has composed music for television and film and was featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Copolla’s Youth Without Youth in a score that he collaborated on with Osvaldo Golijov. John Adams invited him to give a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series and he has appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with the Festival Orchestra performing the Mozart Requiem.
Kayhan is an original member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project for whom he continues to compose for and tour with. His compositions appear on all of the Ensemble’s albums. His most recent albums include Silent City, a collaboration with Brooklyn Rider, and I Will Not Stand Alone with Santoor player Ali Bahrami Fard. Kayhan has been nominated for three Grammys and in 2017 was awarded a Grammy with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (2017).
Carlos Miguel Prieto is considered the leading Mexican conductor of his generation. A highly respected cultural leader, Prieto is Musical America’s 2019 Conductor of the Year. He possesses a wide-ranging repertoire, has led over 100 world premieres, and is a champion of American and Latin American composers. Prieto serves as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director of North Carolina Symphony and Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in Mexico, and Music Director of the Orchestra of the Americas. Prieto is a graduate of Princeton University and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.