The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) recently announced selected program details for the first annual SOLUNA: International Music & Arts Festival, launching in the Dallas Arts District May 7-24, 2015. Themed Destination (America), the inaugural festival will debut commissioned works and present unique projects by internationally acclaimed music and visual artists.

“When looking for artists to participate in the first SOLUNA and to commission for new works, we wanted to find people on the forefront of latest developments in the art world. People who were expressing things in new ways, across multiple disciplines and forms,” said Anna Sophia van Zweden, Director of Festival Advancement.

Artist Ryan McNamara introduced the announcement with a special performance in collaboration with DSO – enveloping the audience with a dynamic experience in symphonic music.

Photo credit: Sylvia Elzafon

Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist has been commissioned to collaborate with the DSO on a video work, which will receive its world premiere on May 8 & 9, 2015. Rist’s video and audio installations blur the boundaries between visual art and popular culture – exploring the unfamiliar in the everyday. Her works have been widely exhibited at international museums and festivals, including the biennales in Sao Paulo, Venice, Istanbul, the Caribbean and Santa Fe. As the recipient of the Public Art Fund NY Commission in 2000, Rist’s Open My Glad was broadcast on a screen in Times Square.

Filmmaker Yael Bartana will also be participating in the festival. Winner of the prestigious Artes Mundi Prize in 2010, her work focuses on ideas of displacement, belonging and the individual in society. One of her thought-provoking films will be screened prior to performances of “Kaddish”, Leonard Bernstein’s Third Symphony based on the Jewish prayer for the dead. Composed in 1963 in dedication to John F. Kennedy, “Kaddish” is a choral and orchestral piece invoking the complex relationships between man and the Divine, father and son, and man’s power and control in the universe.

Texan-born Parisian artist Monte Laster will is on board for a residency. Laster’s work questions the role of displacement and migration in the construction of identities and the formation of networks. His unique creative process, bringing people of diverse backgrounds into contact with one another results in interactions captured through a variety of mediums. For SOLUNA, Laster will engage local organizations and schools in the Dallas area in the creation of a socially conscious work/project.

Destination (America) was chosen as the theme of the inaugural festival to focus artistic cohesion and personality and to provide the broad platform for multiple art forms, artists and media to express their unique perspectives.

“There was an influx of creativity in art in America that largely began in the 20th Century and continues today,” said Jonathan Martin, President and CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. “That influx helped to shape modern American culture, and that’s why we chose Destination (America) as our theme for the first SOLUNA festival. All of our partners and their respective disciplines were shaped by these fresh voices, some looking to express their native land and some looking to shed the old cultures and create a new identity.”

ABOUT SOLUNA

Anchored by DSO performances led by Music Director Jaap van Zweden, SOLUNA: Dallas International Music & Arts Festival will showcase internationally-acclaimed guest soloists, visual artists and performing artists alongside leading Dallas-based companies and ensembles. A new annual, three-week multidisciplinary event, SOLUNA will stage performances and exhibitions across such venues as the Meyerson Symphony Center, the AT&T Performing Arts Center, the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art, as well as other prominent galleries and performance spaces in the Dallas Arts District.

ABOUT DSO

As the largest performing arts organization in the Southwest, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is committed to inspiring the broadest possible audience with distinctive classical programs, concerts with popular personalities, and innovative multi-media presentations. In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the DSO’s involvement with the City of Dallas and the surrounding region includes an award-winning multi-faceted educational program, community projects, popular parks and concerts, complimentary ticket distribution and children’s programming. The DSO has a tradition dating back to 1900, and it is a cornerstone of the unique, 68 acre Arts District in downtown Dallas that is home to multiple performing arts venues, museums and parks; the largest district of its kind in the nation.

Festival Partners Include: Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Chorus, AT&T Performing Arts Center, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Consulado de Mexico en Dallas, Dallas Black Dance Theater, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas Holocaust Museum Center for Education & Tolerance, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Theater Center, The Goss-Michael Foundation, Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, Klyde Warren Park, Latino Cultural Center, Nasher Sculpture Center, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Southern Methodist University, Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art and UT Southwestern Medical School.

Mark Your Calendars!