Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Announces its 2006 Spring Season with Eleven Engagements Featuring Music from Alvin Slaughter/Greater Allen Cathedral Mass Choir and Band, Arrested Development/Urban Word NYC/M1, Morris Day & The Time/Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings; Opera & Oratorio from Aix-en-Provence/Les Arts Florissants/William Christie/Luc Bondy, Sir Jonathan Miller; Theater by Sydney Theatre Company/Robyn Nevin, Theatre Royal Bath/Peter Hall Company/Sir Peter Hall, Robert Wilson/National Theatre of Bergen/Norwegian Theatre of Oslo; Dance from Mark Morris Dance Group, The Forsythe Company, DanceAfrica 2006/Chuck Davis; BAM 2006 Spring Season is sponsored by Bloomberg BAM’s Rhythm & BAM concert series, now in its fourth year: Stirring gospel tenor Alvin Slaughter and the powerful Greater Allen Cathedral Mass Choir and Band share an evening of praise music hosted by KISS-FM’s Nicole Brown……………………………………………page 6 Pioneering hip-hop collective Arrested Development takes the stage with rapper M1 of Dead Prez in a music/spoken word collaboration with the Urban Word NYC Teen Poetry Slam national champions..............…………………...page 7 The legendary Morris Day & The Time join forces with Brooklyn's own Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings for a rousing evening of funk, soul, and R&B...page 8 Resplendent opera and oratorio: William Christie conducts Les Arts Florissants in the renowned Aix-en-Provence Festival production of Handel's Hercules, directed by Luc Bondy...........………………………page 9 Sir Jonathan Miller returns with his incomparable staging of Bach’s great oratorio, St. Matthew Passion.........……………………………………………………………………………page 13 Three resounding theater productions: Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett makes her U.S. stage debut in Sydney Theatre Company’s acclaimed production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler......………………………..page 10 Ibsen’s Peer Gynt is re-imagined by director Robert Wilson in a co-production by Norway's National Theatre of Bergen and The Norwegian Theatre of Oslo………………………page 14 Renowned director Sir Peter Hall returns to BAM with Theatre Royal Bath/Peter Hall Company’s The Importance of Being Earnest, featuring Lynn Redgrave.……………...page 15 Three dynamic dance engagements: Mark Morris Dance Group’s month-long, 25th anniversary season features three different mainstage programs—including Mark Morris' conducting debut, a film series curated by Morris, and related BAMcafé Live and humanities events...…………………………….page 11 The Forsythe Company—a new ensemble led by former Ballett Frankfurt Artistic Director and choreographer William Forsythe—makes its U.S. debut with Kammer/Kammer.............page 16 DanceAfrica 2006, in its 29th year under the artistic direction of Founding Elder Chuck Davis, features visiting company Perú Negro and local favorites Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn, Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble, and the BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble....................................………………………………………………………….page 17 Brooklyn, NY, October 27, 2005---Joseph V. Melillo, executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, has announced programming for the BAM 2006 Spring Season, which runs from January 21—May 28, 2006. The 2006 Spring Season will feature eleven mainstage theater, dance, opera, oratorio, and popular music engagements, comprising an array of international artistic expression and achievement—further complemented by humanities events, BAMcinématek series, BAMart exhibitions, and popular music programming at BAMcafé Live. Spring Season subscription tickets go on sale Nov 8. Single tickets go on sale Dec 12. For ticket information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100 or order tickets online at www.BAM.org. Executive Producer Joseph V. Melillo commented on the coming season: “BAM’s Spring Season represents our ongoing commitment to resonant international work as well as to the diversity of the American artistic experience.” Melillo continued, “We are thrilled to present the U.S. stage debut of an enormously gifted actress, Cate Blanchett, in Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. And in further recognition of a 2006 worldwide Ibsen centennial, we welcome the return of visionary director Robert Wilson with a Norwegian 2006 Spring Season, 3 production of Peer Gynt. The renowned Sir Peter Hall—who delighted BAM audiences last spring with As You Like It—returns to direct Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, featuring the BAM debut of Lynn Redgrave. “Our dance engagements this season include a milestone—the 25th anniversary of our friends and neighbors of the Mark Morris Dance Group. We plan to honor them with a broad, celebratory spectrum of performances, film, music, and humanities events. We are also proud to present the first U.S. performances by choreographer William Forsythe’s new ensemble, The Forsythe Company, and to continue our relationship with a unique artist in this new incarnation. Chuck Davis, who has made immeasurable contributions to dance as well as to vital cultural awareness and education, will return for the 29th year with one of BAM’s most popular programs: DanceAfrica—this year featuring a visiting Peruvian company, Perú Negro. “In his fifteenth memorable BAM engagement since 1989, William Christie leads Les Arts Florissants in the impeccable Aix-en-Provence production of Handel’s Hercules, directed by Luc Bondy. And returning this spring is Sir Jonathan Miller’s stirring production of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion—a great director’s vision of a powerful oratorio, presented at BAM for the third and final time. “Our Rhythm & BAM concert series—now in its fourth year—features an exciting line-up of one-night-only events: an uplifting evening of gospel music by vocalist Alvin Slaughter and the Queens-based Greater Allen Cathedral choir; a spoken word-and-music event uniting the Urban Word NYC Teen Poetry Slam national champions with hip-hop greats Arrested Development and M1 of Dead Prez; and the legendary Morris Day & The Time, joined by Brooklyn’s Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. “The Spring Season will also feature humanities events designed to enrich the mainstage experience, great weekend music at BAMcafé Live, engaging programming at the acclaimed BAMcinématek, and an ongoing commitment to a variety of BAMart exhibitions and new partnerships.” BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins added, “The Spring Season program lineup represents everything that’s unique and special about BAM—return visits by great artists we’ve known for years as well as new discoveries. We are particularly excited about welcoming Bloomberg as our presenting sponsor.” Joseph V. Melillo, who oversees all artistic programming at BAM, became executive producer in July 1999 after joining BAM as director of the Next Wave Festival in 1983 and serving as producing director from 1992–99. Karen Brooks Hopkins, who recently marked her 25th year at BAM, was named president in July 1999 following a tenure as BAM’s executive vice president. About Bloomberg Bloomberg is the leading global provider of data, news and analytics. The BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL® service and Bloomberg's media services provide real-time and archived financial and market data, pricing, trading, news and communications tools in a single, integrated package to corporations, news organizations, financial and legal professionals and individuals around the world. Bloomberg's media services include BLOOMBERG NEWS®, the global news service with more than 1,800 journalists in 125 bureaus worldwide; BLOOMBERG TELEVISION®, the 24-hour business and financial network produced and distributed worldwide on ten separate channels in seven languages; and BLOOMBERG RADIOSM, which provides up-to-the-minute news on XM, Sirius and WorldSpace satellite radio around the world and on WBBR 1130AM in New York. In addition, BLOOMBERG PRESS® publishes books for investment professionals. For more information please visit http://www.bloomberg.com. Eat, Drink & Be Literary Starting in January, the Brooklyn Academy of Music in partnership with The National Book Foundation, will once again host prominent authors in the BAMcafé for literary evenings. Due to the success of the first program last year, the series has been expanded from six to nine evenings from January through June 2006. Participating authors during this series will include Jonathan Safran Foer, Gish Jen, John Sayles, Julian Barnes, Caryl Phillips, 2006 Spring Season, 4 Julia Alvarez, Jonathan Lethem, and Nicole Krauss. “Eat, Drink & Be Literary: Dinner and a Reading at BAMcafé,” will offer literary enthusiasts the chance to meet, eat, and talk before each reading in an informal setting which will include Pine Ridge wines and a buffet dinner—provided by restaurateur Great Performances. Tickets are $42 per event, available beginning November 8 via BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100 and BAM.org. In a related event, the BAMfamily Book Brunch will feature young adult author Jacqueline Woodson and special guests on Saturday, April 29 at noon. Tickets are $15 for children and $20 for adults. BAMcinématek Highlights of BAMcinématek spring programming include the 5th annual Best of African Diaspora Film Festival (February); an evening with writer Paul Auster—with a screening of Smoke (February); films of Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara, which will include a one-week run of his documentary Antonio Gaudi (March); a film series curated by Mark Morris—in conjunction with his company’s 25th anniversary season—(March); our fourth annual horror series highlighting Spanish classics (March); films