Cal Performances hits high notes in year’s top-10 event rankings

Four Cal Performances events were named in the San Francisco Chronicle’s 2012 list of best classical-music events: John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit, part of Ojai North!; Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s masterpiece Einstein on the Beach; and concerts by the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, with conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London under Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Matías Tarnopolsky, director of Cal Performances, arranged for members of the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus to perform with the Philharmonia in its production of Wozzeck in Berkeley, then to tour with Salonen and the ensemble. The 25 instrumentalists and 30 choristers performed in Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; the instrumentalists continued on to New York’s Avery Fisher Hall. Adding to the praise, New York magazine named Wozzeck the No. 1 classical-music event of 2012.

Two dance companies were named to the top-10 dance list: Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The granddaddy of winners was Einstein on the Beach (equal parts opera, theater and dance), which was named to the classical music list and also ranked the No. 1 theater event of the year.

To top it off, the following week, when the Chronicle cited the most exciting events scheduled for 2013, Cal Performances scored 10 mentions in the dance, theater and music listings.

“We are thrilled to receive this recognition from arts writers here and in New York,” said Tarnopolsky. “This has been an exceptional six months with residencies and premieres expanding and deepening our audience’s experience of great art.”