CHASING LIGHT
Conducted by Daniela Candillari
Rene Orth: Chasing Light
Stacy Garrop: Fredrick and Susan B. (Michelle Areyzaga, Soprano/ Sidney Outlaw, Baritone) (World Premiere | Festival Commission)
Aleksandra Vrebalov: This Kiss for the Whole World
Julia Wolfe: Pretty (West Coast Premiere)
For the second Festival concert, guest conductor Daniela Candillari leads the Festival Orchestra in works by Rene Orth, Stacy Garrop, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Julia Wolfe, presenting a palette of compositions that both illuminate and embolden.
The Festival will introduce composer Rene Orth to audiences for the first time with her piece Chasing Light. Connecting with the theme of light and iridescence, Chasing Light is a heart-pumping relay race through the orchestra. The piece captures not only the infinite energy of youth but also ageless, relentless anxiety – a colorful testament to the courage required to outrun our shadows.
The Festival presents the world premiere of a new song cycle for baritone Sidney Outlaw and soprano Michelle Areyzaga by Festival veteran Stacy Garrop. Frederick and Susan B. sets text sourced from correspondence, papers, and speeches of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony – leaders of two of the 19th Century’s most important social movements. This Festival Commission will explore Douglass and Anthony’s dynamic 45-year friendship and their unflinching courage in the face of opposition, painting their struggles in suffrage with vibrant historical hues.
For composer Aleksandra Vrebalov, “a kiss is a sign of an open heart, of acceptance.” This Kiss for the Whole World, inspired by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and its message that mutual love and solidarity strengthen us against hardship and oppression, reflects how artists have always courageously responded to difficult times.
Julia Wolfe‘s West Coast Premiere of Pretty boldly refracts society’s complicated conception of feminine beauty. Returning to the less saccharine old English origin of the word–”cunning, crafty, clever,” Pretty is a raucous celebration–embracing the grit of fiddling, the relentlessness of work rhythms, and inspired by the distortion of rock and roll. Wolfe’s composition dares to strip away superficial layers, revealing the true colors of strength that lie beneath conventional beauty.
Featured Artists
Michelle Areyzaga, Soprano
Praised as a “consummate vocal actress”, she is held in high regard throughout the United States and beyond for her “appealing, expressive soprano.” —New York Times.
As an orchestral soloist, Michelle Areyzaga has performed with the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland, Minnesota, Colorado, Phoenix, Richmond, North Carolina, Wichita, Fort Wayne, South Dakota, Hartford, San Antonio, Toledo, and Rochester; and the Philharmonic orchestras of Buffalo, Rhode Island, and Chicago. Appearances also include Ravinia, Oregon Bach, Blossom, Tucson Desert Song, and Grant Park music festivals.
Overseas, Ms. Areyzaga has performed with the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo, and Uruguay’s Orquesta Sinfónica del Sodre. She sang in Costa Rica’s Bach B Minor Mass with the National Symphony Orchestra; has appeared as soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor at England’s York Minster Cathedral, and St. Mary’s Church in Oxford; and at Paris’s L’église de la Madeleine, where she was soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with London’s Royal Academy of Music.
She has sung leading roles with New York City Opera and Chicago Opera Theater. Other roles have included Micaela, Cio-Cio-San, Susanna, Musetta, Pamina, and Cunegonde.
An avid chamber musician and recitalist, she has been a repeat guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the New York Festival of Song, the Avalon String Quartet, and the Chicago Ensemble. On numerous occasions she has championed Leonard Bernstein’s music and was named Musical Ambassador of the Ravinia Festival’s Bernstein at 100 Centennial Celebration.
She has recorded for Naxos, Proteus, 4Tay Records, and the Cedille labels.
Sidney Outlaw, Baritone
Lauded by The New York Times as a “terrific singer” with a “deep, rich timbre,” Sidney Outlaw is an “opera powerhouse” who has delighted audiences in the U.S. and abroad with his “weighty and forthright” sound (San Francisco Chronicle) since 2010 when he exploded onto the international scene after winning Grand Prize at the Concurso Internacional de Canto Montserrat Caballe.
Last season, Mr. Outlaw sang Marcello in La bohème with Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette with Toledo Opera, and the title role in Don Giovanni with Boston Baroque, and has appeared in concert with Opera Memphis, American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Jacksonville Symphony, the Oratorio Society of New York, and Colorado and Nashville Symphony. He made his San Francisco Opera début as the First Mate in Billy Budd, he sang Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony, and Tommy McIntyre in Fellow Travelers with Madison Opera. On the concert platform, he made his début with Boston Baroque as soloist in Handel’s Messiah, returned to Oratorio Society New York as soloist in Bach’s B Minor Mass, and joined Youngstown Symphony Orchestra forMahler’s Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen.
A sought-after concert singer and recitalist, Mr. Outlaw made his Schwabacher Recital début at the SanFrancisco Opera center with pianist John Churchwell and collaborates regularly with renowned pianistWarren Jones. His concert and recital appearances include débuts of renowned works at major concert halls: Haydn’s The Creation and Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Avery Fisher Hall, He traveled to Guinea and The Republic of Chad as an Arts Envoy with the U.S. State Department, where he performed a program of American art songs including world premiere of Wayne Oquin’s A Time to Break Silence: Songs inspired by the Words and Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., commissioned by The Juilliard School. and most recently 26 ways of looking at a black man by Dr. B. E. Boykin commissioned by the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco. He has a GRAMMY nomination for the Naxos Records recording of Darius Milhaud’s 1922 opera trilogy, L’Orestie d’Eschyle, in which he sang the role of Apollo. Lament, his début solo album recorded live with Warren Jones, was released by Emitha LLC in 2021 and his sophomore album titled “Black Pierrot” with Warren Joneswill be released on March 28, 2025. Mr. Outlaw it’s currently working on his Masters degree in Music Education at Teachers College Columbia University while holding positions on the voice faculty at the Manhattan School Of music and The Conservatory at Brooklyn College.
Composers
Rene Orth
Rene Orth—“a master composer” with a “sophisticated sound world” (Classical Voice North America)—writes music described as “always dramatic, reflective, rarely predictable, and often electronic” (Musical America). She recently completed a three-year tenure as Composer-In-Residence at Opera Philadelphia.
Upcoming premieres for the 2025-26 season consist of a solo cello piece for Sarah Rommel, a violin and bass clarinet piece for Yvonne Lam and Mingzhe Wang, and an eight minute scene as part of a larger commissioned work for Opera Philadelphia’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Recently, Opera Philadelphia presented the “triumphant world premiere” (Wall Street Journal) of 10 Days in a Madhouse, co-commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Tapestry Opera, which subsequently won the 2024 MCANA Best New Opera Award and was a finalist in the 2024 International Opera Awards for “Best World Premiere.” The New York Times writes, “opera needs works like “10 Days,” which treats the medium with affection and respect while also chafing at its tropes throughout history.” With a libretto by Hannah Moscovitch, this psychological drama follows the trailblazing reporter Nellie Bly through her internment at Blackwell’s Asylum, exposing, as Bly did historically, notions of madness and societal biases against women. The opera, conducted by Daniela Candillari, starred Kiera Duffy, Raehann Bryce-Davis, and Will Liverman.
Other recent premieres include a Vocal Arts DC song cycle, At First, Now, Always, for mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack; “A Prayer,” a duet for mezzo-soprano J’nai Bridges and baritone Will Liverman’s GRAMMY-nominated album, Show Me the Way; an electronic dance piece “I Praise the Dance” for mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis’ debut album, Stand the Storm; and a chamber opera, Love, Loss, and the Century Upon Us, with librettist Jerre Dye and The Chautauqua Institution as part of a larger work called A Summer Place.
Distinctions include grants and awards from OPERA America, American Composers Forum, Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
Stacy Garrop
Dr. Stacy Garrop is an award-winning, internationally recognized freelance composer and lecturer whose music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. Her catalog covers a wide range of genres, with works for orchestra, opera, oratorio, wind ensemble, choir, art song, and various sized chamber ensembles. Dr. Garrop has received numerous awards and grants including an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fromm Music Foundation Grant, Barlow Prize, and three Barlow Endowment commissions. Notable commissions include Forging Steel for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, There’s a village in my sneakers for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Battle for the Ballot for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Goddess Triptych for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Berko’s Journey for the Omaha Symphony, Forged by the Sea for the U.S. Navy Band, The Transformation of Jane Doe for Chicago Opera Theater, In a House Besieged for The Crossing, Give Me Hunger for Chanticleer, Glorious Mahalia for the Kronos Quartet, Rites for the Afterlife for the Akropolis and Calefax Reed Quintets, and My Dearest Ruth for voice and piano with text by the husband of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Since 2022, she has served as the featured composer of the Bowling Green State University New Music Festival and the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, with additional guest residencies at the Great Plains Saxophone Workshop, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan State University, Florida State University, Kennesaw State University, University of Northern Colorado, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has previously served as a mentor composer for the Cabrillo Conductors/Composers Workshop, LunART Festival Composers Hub, and the Toulmin Foundation. Garrop is an ongoing mentor for Chicago a cappella’s HerVoice Emerging Women Choral Composers Competition.
Theodore Presser Company carries her works. Dr. Garrop is a Cedille Records artist; her works are also commercially available on more than a dozen additional labels.
Aleksandra Vrebalov
Aleksandra Vrebalov, the 2024 Grawemeyer Music Award recipient, has composed more than a hundred works ranging from concert music to opera, dance, and experimental and documentary film scores. Her work is characterized by a fusion of influences from various musical traditions of the countries where she has lived or traveled, including Serbia, the United States, and the Middle East.
Her works have been commissioned by prestigious institutions such as Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (2024/25), the English National Ballet, the Cincinnati and Glimmerglass Opera, the Serbian National Theater, the Belgrade Philharmonic, The Forbidden City Orchestra in Beijing, and the Jose Limon and Rambert Dance Companies. She has extensively collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, for whom she has written 19 works. Vrebalov has written music for Western instruments, as well as ethnic and historical instruments from the Balkans, Asia, and Poland.
A fellow of the MacDowell Colony, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, Djerassi, American Opera Projects, The Hermitage, and Tanglewood, Vrebalov has received The Harvard Fromm Commission, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, the Barlow Endowment Commission, and a MAP Fund grant.
In Serbia, her country of origin, she has been honored with the Golden Badge of the Cultural and Educational Association of Serbia/Ministry of Foreign Affairs for her long-term contribution to Serbian culture (2015). She is a two-time winner of the Mokranjac Award—in 2009 for Stations and in 2011 for the opera Mileva. She has also won the “Muzika Klasika” award for Composer of the Year twice, for her opera Mileva (2011) and “Antennae” (2021), the latter commissioned by the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Vrebalov has engaged in humanitarian work, making music with young refugees from Syria and Iraq at the Flying Carpet Festival on the Turkish/Syrian border in 2018 and 2019, curated by composer Sahba Aminikia.
There are more than twenty CD releases featuring Vrebalov’s work, recorded for labels such as Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, Innova, Orange Mountain Music, New Amsterdam, Centaur Records, and Vienna Modern Masters. Her self-published works are distributed by Composers Edition in London, UK.
Julia Wolfe
Wolfe’s recent premieres include Pretty, premiered in June 2023 by conductor Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic. Co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Pretty is a raucous celebration—embracing the grit of fiddling, the relentlessness of work rhythms, and inspired by the distortion and reverberation of rock and roll.
unEarth, commissioned and premiered in June 2023 by the New York Philharmonic, is a large-scale work for orchestra, men’s chorus, and children’s chorus that addresses the climate crisis. Performed in three movements, the 40-minute piece is realized with spatial staging and scenic design projected on a large circular screen.
Her Story, a 45-minute semi-staged work for orchestra and women’s chamber choir, received its world premiere in September 2022 with the Nashville Symphony, conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, the vocal ensemble Lorelei, and stage direction by Anne Kauffman. Co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and National Symphony Orchestra, Her Story invokes the words of historical figures and the spirit of pivotal moments to pay tribute to the centuries of ongoing struggle for equal rights and representation for women in America.
In addition to receiving the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Wolfe was a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. She received the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music, and was named Musical America’s 2019 Composer of the Year. Julia Wolfe is co-founder/co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can, and she is Artistic Director of NYU Steinhardt Music Composition.
Her music is published by Red Poppy Music and G. Ricordi & Co., New York (ASCAP) and is distributed worldwide by the Universal Music Publishing Group.
Program Notes
Chasing Light (2015)
Rene Orth (b. 1985)
Sometimes in life we find ourselves running a seemingly impossible race, just trying to get to that light at the end of the tunnel. Deadlines, stress, and pressure combined to create this sensation during my writing of Chasing Light. The majority of the piece depicts that frantic experience with small glimpses of hope, but the reward comes near the end, when that moment of relief and peace is finally achieved.
– Rene Orth
Frederick and Susan B. (2025)
Stacy Garrop (b.1969)
[World Premiere | Festival Commission]
Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony were more than titans in the battle for Suffrage; they knew each other for over forty years. Historical records show that the Douglass and Anthony families met as early as 1845, when the Anthony family purchased and moved into a farmhouse in Rochester, New York, which served as a meeting place for anti-slavery activists. Frederick, also a Rochester resident, frequently visited the Anthony farm. Over the following decades, Frederick and Susan actively worked together for voting rights, often taking part in the same organizations and speaking at the same meetings and conventions.
But were they friends? In conducting extensive research for my musical work, it is apparent that they were acquaintances who had moments in which they were strong allies for the same causes and other moments in which they were not. Frederick and Susan had a particularly fractious moment in 1869 at the American Equal Rights Association convention, when they debated each other onstage regarding who should get the right to vote first. Frederick advocated for granting Black men this right, while Susan argued her strong belief in “universal suffrage,” granting voting rights to all citizens. Susan remained bitter with Frederick over the matter, writing of her disappointment in 1884 in a letter to fellow Suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Regardless, Frederick’s and Susan’s efforts to attain Suffrage—through the speaking tours they undertook, the essays and articles they wrote, the organizations they helped to form and run—all helped to bring about societal change. Frederick witnessed Black men getting the right to vote when the 15th Amendment passed Congress in 1869 and was ratified by the States in 1870, then helped stump for women to gain the same right. Neither Frederick nor Susan lived to see women secure the vote, but as Susan wrote in 1902, “We old fighters have prepared the way…”
I composed Frederick and Susan B. to be a conversation between these two remarkable individuals regarding their reasons and struggles for the right to vote. All texts are drawn from the speeches they gave, along with essays and newspaper articles they wrote, and comprise the material of each of my piece’s five movements. I wrote brief texts for the introduction and short interludes between the movements to provide historical context for the listener.
– Stacy Garrop
This Kiss for the Whole World (2022)
Aleksandra Vrebalov (b. 1970)
For me, a kiss is a sign of an open heart, of acceptance. It’s a moment of authenticity, generosity, and connection between two people.
This Kiss for the Whole World was composed during the celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, inspired by his Ninth Symphony and its beautiful message to humanity that mutual love and solidarity make us strong in the face of hardship and oppression. It takes its title (in German: “Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt”) from a line in Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” sung by the choir in the Ninth Symphony.
While there are no direct musical references to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in my work, I thought about how artists have always responded to difficult times. Beethoven was both a revolutionary and a humanist. With so many conflicts and challenges around us today, it’s important to remember that music has the power to unite and heal. If we remind ourselves of the beauty and values humanity has created throughout history—from music to poetry, to architecture to scientific inventions—we will believe in the ultimate triumph of goodness in humanity.
As artists, our contribution is our art. Through our creative work, we can help envision a world built on beauty, kindness, cooperation, and understanding—a world in which we would want to live.
– Aleksandra Vrebalov
Pretty (2023)
Julia Wolfe (b. 1958)
[West Coast Premiere]
The word “pretty” has had a complicated relationship to women. It implies an attractiveness without any rough edges, without strength or power. And it has served as a measure of worth in strange, limited, and destructive ways. It has a less sweet origin from Old English—“cunning, crafty, clever.” As words evolve, it morphed to a much softer sentiment. My Pretty is a raucous celebration—embracing the grit of fiddling, the relentlessness of work rhythms, inspired by the distortion and reverberation of rock and roll.
– Julia Wolfe