For Immediate Release: Press Contacts: March XX, 2016 Eileen Chambers, 312.294.3092
Photos Available By Request [email protected]
SINGER-SONGWRITER LILA DOWNS JOINS THE CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA JUNE 28 FOR AN EVENING OF MUSIC INCLUDING SELECTIONS FROM HER LATEST RELEASE BALAS Y CHOCOLATE
Tickets on Sale Tuesday, March 8
CHICAGO – The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) is pleased to announce the addition of a Special Concert for the 2015/2016 season. Singer-songwriter and multi-Grammy® Award-winning artist, Lila Downs, performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) led by guest conductor Donato Cabrera, on Tuesday, June 28 at 7:30 p.m.
The program features Downs performing with the CSO in selections from her 2015 release Balas y Chocolate (Bullets and Chocolate) as well as traditional selections chosen by Downs.
Born in Oaxaca, Mexico to a Mixtec Indian mother and a British-American father, Downs’ music reflects a childhood which straddled Mexican and North American cultures. Her style embraces traditional folk music from the U.S. and Mexico while also fusing jazz, blues, hip-hop, cumbia, and even klezmer influences. With lyrics in English, Spanish, Portuguese and indigenous Mexican languages, she sings of social justice, the search for cultural roots and the lives of Mexican migrant workers in the United States.
Beginning with her 1994 debut album, Ofrenda, Downs has released 12 studio albums garnering multiple Grammy® nominations and ultimately earning both a Grammy® and a Latin Grammy® for her 2011 release, Pecados y Milagros. She has been invited to sing at the White House, the 75th Annual Academy Awards®, the 2012 Latin Grammy® Awards, and has performed at music festivals around the world and at prestigious venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and the San Francisco Symphony’s Davies Hall.
Downs’ latest album, Balas y Chocolate was released in March 2015 to much critical acclaim. Inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead, the album examines the themes of sensuality, life and death, and celebration and mourning. In keeping with these dichotomies, it is an optimistic album despite being influenced, in particular, by the violence that plagued Mexico in 2014. Since its release, it has been hailed as one of the Best Albums of 2015 by the UK Sunday Times and among the best world music releases by iTunes in that same year.
The program opens with the CSO performing contemporary Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s Danzón No. 2 led by Donato Cabrera. This colorful orchestral work was inspired by the danzón dance style, which originated in Cuba in the 19th century and is still danced in the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. Cabrera has been the Resident Conductor at the San Francisco Symphony since 2009, and simultaneously serves as the Music Director for the San Francisco Youth Orchestra, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and the California Symphony.
Tickets for Lila Downs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra go on sale Tuesday, March 8 at 10 a.m. and are available in person at Symphony Center, 220 South Michigan Ave., by calling the Symphony Center Box Office at 312-294-3000, or online at cso.org.
Discounted student tickets for select concerts can be purchased, subject to availability, online in advance or at the box office on the day of the concert. For group rates, please call 312-294- 3040.
Artists, programs and prices are subject to change.
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Chicago Symphony Orchestra Tuesday, June 28, 2016, 7:30 p.m. Special Concert Chicago Symphony Orchestra Donato Cabrera, conductor Lila Downs, vocals
Márquez Danzón No. 2 Lila Downs Selections to be announced from the stage
Tickets: $20 - $90
Lila Downs Multiple Grammy® award winning artist, Lila Downs, cannot be put in a single category. She has captivated audiences around the world with her soaring voice and innovative fusion of world music sounds with traditional Mexican and native Mesoamerican music, vintage cumbia, Latin American hip- hop, jazz, blues and even gypsy flavored Klezmer. She sings in Spanish, English, Portuguese and a number of indigenous Mexican languages.
Lila’s music and vocal artistry are as varied as the different cultures that serve as her inspiration. Her compositions are often striking commentaries on social conditions, reflecting migration, the search for roots as a core human need, the excesses in modern life, empowerment/equality of women, lost love, heartbreak, passion, justice, equality, and freedom. Her latest Latin Grammy® winning album Balas y Chocolate (Platinum in Mexico) combines love, sensuality, death and... chocolate. The album was included in the UK Sunday Times 2015 Best Albums of the Year as well as the US iTunes best world music releases of 2015.
Lila has performed in some of the most prestigious venues, festivals, and televised events around the world, including Mexico's Auditorio Nacional, Carnegie Hall, Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires, the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, the White House, the Apollo, Live Earth, Womad, the Panamerican Games, the Latin Grammy Awards and the Academy Awards. Her music was featured in a number of international movies, including the Oscar nominated Kahlo and she has collaborated with artists as varied as Juanes, Carlos Santana, Celso Duarte, Los Tigres del Norte, 1 Giant Leap, Kevin Johansen and La Niña Pastori. http://www.liladowns.com/en/
Donato Cabrera Donato Cabrera has been the Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and the Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) since 2009. In 2014, Cabrera was appointed Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra and has been Music Director of the California Symphony since 2013.
As SFS Resident Conductor, Donato Cabrera works closely with San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and frequently conducts the San Francisco Symphony throughout the year, including the SFS’s annual Día de los Muertos Community Concert, Concerts for Kids, Adventures in Music, and Music for Families concerts. In 2012, Cabrera led the San Francisco Symphony Chorus with Paul Jacobs on organ, in the world premiere of Mason Bates’ Mass Transmission, subsequently conducting it with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City in Carnegie Hall for the American Mavericks Festival. Cabrera made his San Francisco Symphony debut in April 2009 when he conducted the Orchestra with 24 hours’ notice.
Under Donato's leadership, the Las Vegas Philharmonic recently announced that with subscription sales higher than ever, its 2015-16 season will expand from 11 to 19 concerts, including five Sunday matinees. In addition to featuring symphonic works by Beethoven, Brahms, Gershwin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Sibelius, the season will include music by acclaimed American composers Mason Bates, Philip Glass, D. J. Sparr and Dan Visconti, demonstrating Cabrera’s commitment to programming music by living composers.
The 2015-16 season marks Cabrera's seventh season as Music Director of the SFSYO. In 2012, he lead the orchestra in their eighth European tour, which won a 2011-12 ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of American Music on Foreign Tours. From this tour, a critically acclaimed live recording from the Berlin Philharmonie of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 is available on SFS Media. Cabrera lead the orchestra in their ninth tour of Europe in summer 2015, performing celebrated concerts in Amsterdam's Het Concertgebouw, Milan's Sala Verdi, Prague's Smetana Hall, and again in Berlin's Philharmonie.
At the California Symphony, Cabrera is committed to featuring music by American composers, supporting young artists in the early stages of their careers, and commissioning world premieres from talented resident composers.
A champion of new music, Donato Cabrera was a co-founder of the New York based American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), which is dedicated to the outstanding performance of masterworks from the 20th and 21st centuries. In September 2012 he conducted ACME in the world premiere of the all-live version of Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11 for three string quartets and tape at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. He made his Carnegie Hall and Cal Performances debuts leading the world and California premieres, respectively, of Mark Grey’s Ătash Sorushan. In 2010, Cabrera stepped in on short notice for the acclaimed British composer/conductor/pianist Thomas Adès to conduct the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
In 2002, Cabrera was a Herbert von Karajan Conducting Fellow at the Salzburg Festival. He has served as assistant conductor at the Ravinia, Spoleto (Italy), and Aspen Music Festivals, and as resident conductor at the Music Academy of the West. Cabrera has also been an assistant conductor for productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. From 2005 to 2008, he was Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Opera and in 2009, he made his debut with the San Francisco Ballet. In March 2009, Cabrera was asked to be one of eight participants in the 2009 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, leading the Nashville Symphony over two days in a variety of works. Cabrera was the rehearsal and cover conductor for the Metropolitan Opera production and DVD release of Doctor Atomic, which won the 2012 Grammy® Award for Best Opera Recording.
In 2010, Donato Cabrera was recognized by the Consulate-General of Mexico in San Francisco as a Luminary of the Friends of Mexico Honorary Committee, for his contributions to promoting and developing the presence of the Mexican community in the Bay Area. He holds degrees from the University of Nevada and the University of Illinois and has also pursued graduate studies in conducting at Indiana University and the Manhattan School of Music. http://www.donatocabrera.com/
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra: www.cso.org and www.csosoundsandstories.org Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. Since 2010, the preeminent conductor Riccardo Muti has served as its 10th music director. Yo-Yo Ma is the CSO’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant, and Samuel Adams and Elizabeth Ogonek are its Mead Composers-in-Residence.
From baroque through contemporary music, the CSO commands a vast repertoire. Its renowned musicians annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in Chicago and, each summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. They regularly tour nationally and internationally. Since 1892, the CSO has made 58 international tours, performing in 29 countries on five continents.
People around the globe listen to weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings on the WFMT radio network and online at cso.org/radio . Recordings by the CSO have earned 62 Grammy Awards, including two in 2011 for Muti’s recording with the CSO and Chorus of Verdi's Messa da Requiem (Muti’s first of four releases with the CSO to date). Find details on these and many other CSO recordings at www.cso.org/resound.
The CSO is part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which also includes the Chicago Symphony Chorus (Duain Wolfe, Director and Conductor) and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training ensemble for emerging professionals. Through its prestigious Symphony Center Presents series, the
CSOA presents guest artists and ensembles from a variety of genres—classical, jazz, world, and contemporary.
The Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO offers community and education programs that annually engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages and backgrounds. Through the Institute and other activities, including a free annual concert with Muti and the CSO, the CSO is committed to using the power of music to create connections and build community.
The CSO is supported by thousands of patrons, volunteers and institutional and individual donors. Bank of America is the Global Sponsor of the CSO. The CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the Negaunee Music Institute.