SOLUNA: International Music & Arts Festival, Dallas Arts District

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s new three-week, annual classical music and fine arts festival is centred in the Dallas Arts District and anchored by orchestral and collaborative performances, the commissioning of new works of art and the exhibition of works by internationally acclaimed visual artists. This year the theme is to be Destination: (America), and new works will come from international artists such as Alex Prager, Pipilotti Rist, Yael Bartana, Kevin Beasley, Monte Laster and Francisco Moreno.

Alex Prager’s three films Face in the Crowd, La Petite Mort, and Despair are to be screened during SOLUNA’s Opening Performance on 6 May, with their scores performed live by an orchestra; the following day sees the opening of Prager’s solo exhibition of three video installations and a new body of photographs (in their USA debut) at the Goss-Michael Foundation.

Meanwhile, Pipilotti Rist has made an original video piece to accompany the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Miklos Rozsa’s Andante for Strings, Op. 22a, which will have its world premiere on 8 and 9 May. The film looks at those early 20th century composers who fled Nazi Germany for America such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Korngold and Rozsa.

Yael Bartana’s recent film Inferno is to be screened on 14 and 16 May alongside live performances of Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3; Kevin Beasley’s performance will study the physicality of sound and take place during the Dallas Museum of Art Friday Late Nights, on 15 May; and Monte Laster’s social sculpture Destination, in Five Movements will see its world premiere. The participatory artwork was made during three weeklong sessions over a six-month period, and will be unveiled in Klyde Warren Park during a public event video and musical performances.

Finally, Francisco Moreno will debut a new installation and performance in a derelict warehouse. To view WCD Project, visitors will enter a dark space to the sound of a deep rumble and will watch a dynamic performance involving a Japanese car and a custom-built engine, inspired by Moreno’s experience as a Mexican immigrant arriving in the United States.

SOLUNA: International Music & Arts Festival, 4 – 24 May, Dallas Arts District. For more information visit www.mydso.com

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Credits
1. Alex Prager, Crowd #2 (Emma), 2012. Courtesy of the artist.