Mark Morris Dance Group
Mozart Dances
Choreography by Mark Morris
With pianists Garrick Ohlsson and Yoko Nozaki Conducted by Jane Glover
Three performances only! October 20 and 21, 2007 Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Mark Morris Dance Group will bring their acclaimed Mozart Dances to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion October 20 and 21 for three performances only. Formed in 1980, Mark Morris Dance Group is recognized as one of the world's leading dance companies and noted for its commitment to live music, a feature of every performance on its full international touring schedule since 1996. The Southern California Premiere of Mozart Dances will feature pianists Garrick Ohlsson and Yoko Nozaki with a full orchestra conducted by Jane Glover. The engagement, part of the Dance at Music Center season, is October 20 at 7:30pm, and October 21 at 2:00pm and 7:30pm.
Mozart Dances features Piano Concerto No. 11; Sonata in D Major for 2 Pianos and Piano Concerto No. 27 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The dancers perform against bold, fluid backdrops designed by acclaimed British artist, Howard Hodgkin. Choreographed for 16 dancers; Mozart Dances had its premiere in August 2006 at Lincoln Center’s New York State Theater as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival’s celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday. The music was chosen collaboratively by Morris, the pianist Emanuel Ax (who performed in all three compositions; his wife, the pianist Yoko Nozaki, joined him for the sonata), and Louis Langrée, the conductor of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.
Voice of Dance called the evening “one of the greatest dance events of the new century.” Mozart Dances was commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (New York), New Crowned Hope (Vienna) and the Barbican Centre (London). Tickets for Mark Morris Dance Group are priced from $25 to $95. Advance tickets are available at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Box Office, 135 N. Grand Avenue. Day of the performance tickets go on sale at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Box Office, 135 N. Grand Avenue, at 6:00 pm for evening performances and at 12:00 noon for matinee performances. Tickets are also on sale through Ticketmaster Phone Charge at 213/365-3500 or 714/740-7878, online at www.ticketmaster.com, and at all Ticketmaster Outlets.
About Mark Morris Dance Group
Mark Morris Dance Group was formed in 1980 and after giving its first concert that year in New York City, the company's touring schedule steadily expanded to include cities both in the U.S. and in Europe. In 1986, it made its first national television program for the PBS series “Dance in America.” In 1988, MMDG was invited to become the national dance company of Belgium, and spent three years in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. The company returned to the United States in 1991 as one of the world's leading dance companies, performing across the U.S. and at major international festivals. MMDG made its debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2002 and at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2003 and has since been invited to both festivals annually. The company's London seasons have garnered two Olivier Awards.
It has maintained and strengthened its ties to several cities around the world, most notably its West Coast home, Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA, and its Midwest home, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana, IL. MMDG also appears regularly in Boston, MA; Fairfax, VA; Seattle, WA; and at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA.
MMDG is noted for its commitment to live music, a feature of every performance on its full international touring schedule since 1996. MMDG collaborates with leading orchestras, opera companies, and musicians including cellist Yo-Yo Ma in the Emmy Award-winning film “Falling Down Stairs” (1997); Indian composer Zakir Hussain, Mr. Ma and jazz pianist Ethan Iverson in Kolam (2002); The Bad Plus in Violet Cavern (2004); pianists Emanuel Ax and Yoko Nozaki for Mozart Dances (2006) and with the English National Opera in Four Saints in Three Acts (2000) and King Arthur (2006), among others. In May of 2007 Mark Morris made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as a choreographer and director with the first new Metropolitan Opera production of Gluck's early masterpiece Orfeo Ed Euridice in over 35 years. MMDG's film and television projects also include “Dido and Aeneas,” “The Hard Nut” and two documentaries for the U.K.'s South Bank Show.
In fall 2001, MMDG opened the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, NY, the company's first permanent headquarters in the U.S., housing rehearsal space for the dance community, outreach programs for local children, as well as a school offering dance classes to students of all ages.
bout Mark Morris
Mark Morris was born on August 29, 1956, in Seattle, Washington, where he studied as a young man with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson. In the early years of his career, he performed with Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, Laura Dean, Eliot Feld, and the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble.
He formed the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980, and has since created more than 120 works for the company. From 1988-1991, he was Director of Dance at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the national opera house of Belgium. Among the works created during his tenure were three evening-length dances: The Hard Nut; L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; and Dido and Aeneas.
In 1990, he founded the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Morris is also much in demand as a ballet choreographer. He has created six works for the San Francisco Ballet since 1994 and received commissions from American Ballet Theatre, and the Boston Ballet, among others. His work is also in the repertory of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, New Zealand Ballet, Houston Ballet, English National Ballet, and The Royal Ballet.
Morris is noted for his musicality and has been described as “undeviating in his devotion to music.” He has worked extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, English National Opera, and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Morris was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991. He has
received eight honorary doctorates to date. In 2006, Morris received the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Mayor's Award for Arts & Culture and a WQXR Gramophone Special Recognition Award.
He is the subject of a biography by Joan Acocella (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and Marlowe & Company published a volume of photographs and critical essays entitled “Mark Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration.” Morris is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, he received the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival lifetime achievement award.
About Garrick Ohlsson
Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although he has long been regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Mr. Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature. A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Mr. Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. His concerto repertoire alone is unusually wide and eclectic – ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century – and to date he has at his command some 80 concertos.
In the 2007-08 season, Mr. Ohlsson appears in North America with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Fort Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, San Francisco, Seattle, and Toronto. Special projects include performances in Berkeley and Los Angeles with Mark Morris Dance Group and pianist Yoko Nozaki in the critically acclaimed “Mozart Dances”; performances with the Russian National Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski in California and at New York’s Lincoln Center; and a Florida tour with the Pittsburgh Symphony. With the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy, he will perform Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto to be recorded live on the Octavia Records label. A recital project focusing on the piano music of Scriabin and Russian contemporaries will begin in San Francisco and San Diego in the spring and will carry through the 08/09 season. Additionally, he performs with the Warsaw Philharmonic, RTVE Madrid, and the MDR Leipzig Symphony Orchestra.
In 2006-07, Mr. Ohlsson opened the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York in a live, nationally televised performance. Mr. Ohlsson is an avid chamber musician and has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Takács and Tokyo string quartets, among other ensembles. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio.
About Yoko Nozaki
Since her 1972 New York City debut recital, pianist Yoko Nozaki has won consistent critical acclaim during two decades of chamber music performances, recitals, and concerts with several major American orchestras. She has also appeared at such music festivals as Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Ojai, and Tanglewood and frequently collaborates with her husband, pianist Emanuel Ax.
Ms. Nozaki and Mr. Ax’s joint appearances have included recitals in the Distinguished Artist Series at the 92nd Street Y and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. They have performed together with several major orchestras, including St. Louis, Minnesota, Detroit, and Cleveland. During the summer of 1992, they gave performances of the Mozart Two-Piano Concerto at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York with Edo de Waart and at the Blossom Festival with Leonard Slatkin. They also participated in a Tanglewood Festival evening featuring the Brahms Leibeslieder Waltzes and the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle, commemorating that composer’s 200th birthday.
A performance of the Mozart concerto with Mr. Ax and the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of David Zinman soon followed. In August 1996, Ms. Nozaki made her Ravinia Festival debut in a performance of the Mozart Three-Piano Concerto with Mr. Ax and Christoph Eschenbach. That season also included debut appearances at the Ojai Festival and at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra.
More recently, Ms. Nozaki and Mr. Ax highlighted a four-city tour in 1999-2000 with an acclaimed performance at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 1999, the pair also toured with Jamie Laredo and the Brandenburg Ensemble, including a Celebrity Series performance at the Symphony Hall in Boston.
In 2001, Ms. Nozaki and Mr. Ax were joined by the percussionists Mark Damaloukis and Matt Wood for a Lincoln Center Great Performers concert exploring modern music for piano and percussion. Last season, she made her debut appearance at The Hollywood Bowl. Recent and upcoming engagements include appearances with The Toronto Symphony, and Orchestre de Lyon in Paris.
Dance at the Music Center presents some of the world’s most renowned ballet and contemporary artists on stage at the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theatre and Walt Disney Concert Hall. At Dance at the Music Center, the audience can experience compelling, sensual, and provocative dance events with works by some of the world’s greatest choreographers. This season includes The Mark Morris Dance Group, American Ballet Theatre, COMPLEXIONS Contemporary Ballet, and the Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company.
Dance at the Music Center tickets are priced from $25 to $115 and are available at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Box Office, 135 North Grand Avenue. Tickets are also available through Ticketmaster Phone Charge at 213/365-3500 or 714/740-7878, and at all Ticketmaster Outlets and online at www.ticketmaster.com. For groups of 15 or more, call Connie Nelson at (310) 831-1022. For more information about Mark Morris Dance Group and all Dance at the Music Center engagements, visit musiccenter.org.
