07-12 Blind Boys B:Gp 3.qxt 7/2/10 9:32 AM Page 1 Sponsor Welcome to Lincoln Center Festival 2010. We have searched the world to bring you some of the best the performing arts have to offer. Over the 18 days of this month’s Festival, we present 45 performances by artists and ensembles from 12 countries, and expand our venues to include a new site on Governors Island. The Lincoln Center Festival opened with the Chui Chai . The title, meaning “transformation,” North American premiere of Musashi , a lavish is as much a metaphor for Pichet’s own mod - Noh-inspired drama. Yukio Ninagawa directed ernization of Thai classical dance as it is a the late Hisashi Inoue’s reworking and revital - description of the Ramayana, an Indian epic on ization of a traditional Japanese tale based on which it is based. the life of a real samurai warrior. Two dynamic directors give new life to classics If we had a musical survivors series, it would from literature and film at our newest perfor - undoubtedly include three groups making mance venue. An industrial warehouse on Festival debuts this month: The Blind Boys of Governors Island will be the dramatic backdrop Alabama, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, for the North American premieres of Peter and Emir Kusturica and The No Smoking Stein’s marathon adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Orchestra. The Blind Boys have inspired musi - novel The Demons and Toneelgroep Amster- cians and music lovers of all tastes for decades, dam’s Teorema , based on the film by Pier Paolo and over three nights we’ll celebrate their con - Pasolini and directed by Ivo van Hove. tribution to the American music scene. Benin’s Orchestre Poly-Rythmo and Sarajevo’s No Georgian writer, director, and master puppeteer Smoking Orchestra are hugely successful in Rezo Gabriadze returns with an encore of his their homelands but have only recently burst elegant and elegiac The Battle of Stalingrad . onto the international scene. Both make their Puppet theater for adults, it mixes humor and U.S. debuts at the Festival. heartbreak to tell the story of one of the most devastating battles of World War II. It is always a pleasure to present innovative work from the world of dance, and wonderful to We take an unprecedented look at the complete wel come back the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane work of 20th-century musical maverick Edgard Dance Company. Bill has never been one to shy Varèse with a two-night retrospective. A true away from difficult subjects, and his Fondly Do pioneer, Varèse longed to “liberate sound” to We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray is an inspiring reflect in music the immense technological and emotionally wrenching work. Dancer and changes of the last century, and the forces of choreographer Saburo Teshigawara, who made the New York Philharmonic, International Con- his Lincoln Center Festival debut in 2006, brings temporary Ensemble, S o¯ Percussion, Musica back his laser-like focus for the compelling one- Sacra, and the Oratorio Society reveal his suc - man tour-de-force Miroku , and Pichet Klunchun cess . With the Festival debut of Germany’s brings his brilliant company from Bangkok for Wuppertal Opera and the North American pre - miere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s La porta della legge , we continue to celebrate composers who break with convention. A master of harmonics and structure, Sciarrino challenges all pre-con - ceived notions of what opera can be. I am pleased that you are joining us and hope that you will visit often throughout the month. Nigel Redden Director Lincoln Center Festival The Blind Boys of Alabama Photographer credit: Shannon Brinkman 07-12 Blind Boys B:Gp 3.qxt 7/2/10 9:32 AM Page 2 Lincol n Cente r Festiva l 2010 The Unbroken Circle The Blind Boys of Alabama July 14 Jimmy Carter ALICE TULLY HALL Bishop Billy Bowers Ben Moore Eric (Ricky) McKinnie There will be no intermission Tracy Pierce Joey Williams Program to be announced from the stage Peter Levin Yonder Mountain String Band Guitar Adam Aijala Mandolin Jeff Austin Banjo Dave Johnston Bass Ben Kaufmann Allison Moorer Ray Benson and Jason Roberts Sara Watkins Ralph Stanley Guitar James Alan Shelton Lincoln Center Festival 2010 is made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Depart - ment of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Sponsor 07-12 Blind Boys B:Gp 3.qxt 7/2/10 9:32 AM Page 3 Lincol n Cente r Festiva l 2010 About The Blind Boys To hear them sing is to recognize the basis of soul, ’60s R&B, and to some extent, rock of Alabama and roll. Artists including James Brown and For seven decades The Blind Boys of Ala- Little Richard have acknowledged the bama have been making distinctively familiar legacy of The Blind Boys in helpi ng to shape music, as recognizable as it is original. To their own musical styles. When you experi - hear them is to understand their conviction ence a Blind Boys concert today you hear that they were put on Earth for the singular songs that you might not have thought of purpose of singing—something they have as gospel, like Norman Greenbaum’s been doing since first coming together in “Spirit in the Sky” or Ben Harper’s “I Shall the late 1930s. Not Walk Alone,” or even The Velvet Under- ground’s “Jesus,” and you hear gospel- After the successes of the Gospel Caravan inspired music reconnect with its roots. days of the 1940s and ’50s the music busi - ness began to change, and while The Blind It is the giving spirit of The Blind Boys Boys continued to sing, old-time gospel that is the key to their long success, not was played in obscure venues, often hin - only to their audiences, but to the other terland churches that were anything but artists with whom they freely collaborate. mainstream. When I heard them live for As one generation learns from the other, the first time in the mid-1980s, at a hastily it’s in the giving that you receive, and at the arranged concert in California with barely end of the day, the message is clearly 30 people in the audience, I didn’t know found in the music. exactly what to expect. I saw a line of lavender-clad, elderly gentlemen walk care - It is with great pride that The Blind Boys fully onto the stage, each with his hand on have been asked to curate, host, and per - the back of the one in front of him. When form in three distinct programs developed the music began, they transformed into specially for Lincoln Center Festival audi - ageless musicians with more energy than ences. In tonight’s performance, the sec - you see from performers 50 years their ond of the series, The Blind Boys explore junior. Though it was essentially the same the intersection of soul, gospel, and country performance they’d been giving for decades, music. By joining together with legendary it was one of the most mind-blowing, amaz - country bluegrass artist Ralph Stanley and ing, and unique musical experiences I have others, the group highlights the many con - ever had. nections between these not-so-distantly- related musical forms. —Chris Goldsmith, Artistic Consultant 07-12 Blind Boys B:Gp 3.qxt 7/2/10 9:32 AM Page 4 Lincol n Cente r Festiva l 2010 About the Artists Gospel at Colonus , which brought the The Blind Boys of Alabama are recog - timeless sound of The Blind Boys to an nized worldwide as living legends of gospel enthusiastic new audience. In recent years music. Celebrated by the Grammys and The Blind Boys have been awarded five the National Endowment for the Arts with Grammy Awards culminating with a Lifetime Achievement Awards, they have Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 attained the highest levels of achievement Grammys. Their colleagues have paid in a career that spans over 60 years and homage to their legacy and their continued shows no signs of diminishing. Longevity relevance by asking them to contribute and and major awards aside, The Blind Boys collaborate on new projects. The Blind have earned praise for their remarkable Boys have appeared on recordings with interpretations of everything from tradi - Bonnie Raitt, Randy Travis, k.d. lang, Lou tional gospel favorites to contemporary Reed, Peter Gabriel, Charlie Musselwhite, spiritual material by acclaimed songwriters Susan Tedeschi, Solomon Burke, Ben including Curtis Mayfield, Ben Harper, Eric Harper, Asleep at the Wheel, and many Clapton, Prince, and Tom Waits. Their per - others. The Blind Boys of Alabama have formances have been experienced by mil - profoundly influenced an entire generation lions on The Tonight Show , Late Night with (or two) of gospel, soul, R&B, and rock David Letterman , the Grammy Awards musicians and are still blazing trails after all telecast, 60 Minutes , and on their own hol - these years. iday PBS special. Unlike some of their old-time gospel music The Blind Boys of Alabama formed at the brethren, The Blind Boys eagerly embrace Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in the popular music world, bringing gospel 1939. They toiled for nearly 40 years, music to mainstream audiences. As a almost exclusively on the black gospel result the group has formed fast friend - circuit, playing in churches, auditoriums, ships with an impressive array of musi - and stadiums across the country. Their cians—venerable colleagues and youthful recorded output, reaching back to 1948 protégés alike—who span a wealth of gen - with their hit I Can See Everybody’s res.