Innovative Theater Productions Presents The WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL

Lincoln Center's upcoming White Light Festival (October 20-November 19, 2011), in its second season, will include two outstanding Theater Productions among the range of works of music, film, dance, art and discussion to be presented. On November 2 and 3, at the Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall, New York-based actress Tina Benko will perform the title role and Malian singer/songwriter Rokia Traoré the role of the nursemaid in the New York premiere of Desdemona, a compelling new work that explores the essential compassion and forgiveness inherent in our capacity to love. The work was created by Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison and eminent theater and opera director Peter Sellars, in collaboration with Traoré. From November 8-November 12, notEd English actor Stephen Dillane will reprise his stunning one-man tour-de-force Four Quartets, directed by Katie Mitchell. The 75-minute-long performance of T.S. Eliot's poem is followed by the Miró Quartet's interpretation of Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op.132, which inspired the poet's work. Mr. Dillane and the Miró Quartet first performed Four Quartets in New York in December 2009 as part of Lincoln Center's New Visions series.

Tickets
Tickets are $40, 55, 70, 85, and 100 for Desdemona and are $65 for Four Quartets. They are available for sale online at www.WhiteLightFestival.org, by calling CenterCharge, 212-721-6500, or at the Avery Fisher or Alice Tully Hall box offices, Broadway and 65th Street. Programs, artists, and ticket prices are subject to change.

The White Light Festival, created by Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director is the annual exploration of music and art's power to reveal the many dimensions of our interior lives. Says Ms. Moss, "There are few forces and experiences left in our lives today that allow us to discover the essence of what it means to be human and to fully inhabit one's self. Musical and artistic expression have an unmatched capacity to directly and immediately penetrate our hearts and reveal the many beautiful rooms-so frequently emptied and shuttered-that lie within it." In addition to performances, the popular White Light Lounges, including those following performances of Desdemona and Four Quartets, will give audience members a chance to linger after the performances and discuss their shared experience with the performers and fellow concert-goers. The White Light Festival will present 58 artists and 11 ensembles from 30 countries in 10 venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus.

Sponsored by Time Warner Inc.

Desdemona
Desdemona is a meditation on male/female relations, violence and the transcendent power of love. It takes as its point of departure an imaginary conversation between the doomed Shakespearean heroine of Othello, who will be portrayed by actress Tina Benko, and her black nursemaid, Barbary, portrayed by acclaimed Malian vocal artist Rokia Traoré. The two women share stories and songs composed and sung by Traoré, who is accompanied by a small ensemble on African instruments. Award-winning American theater/opera director Peter Sellars describes a key scene, late in Act IV, when Desdemona sings her "Willow Song" as an inspiration. Desdemona tells Emilia that she learned the song from her nurse, Barbary, who died of a broken heart singing it. "In Shakespeare's England, ‘Barbary' meant ‘Africa.' Courageous, loving, independently-minded Desdemona was raised by an African woman, growing up with African stories and learning African songs." The evening's texts-Morrison's spoken by Benko, and set to music by Traoré-intertwined with Traoré's songs in her native Bambara and French, move across continents, shared histories, and time.

Tina Benko recently appeared in Ivo van Hove's production of The Little Foxes, and Wallace Shawn's Marie and Bruce. Her other New York theater credits include the Broadway productions of Irena's Vow, Joe Egg, and Top Girls; Helen of Troy in The Age of Iron at CSC; and the NY premieres of Restoration, Dark Yellow, Post-Mortem, Rough Sketch, and Charles Mee's Wintertime. Ms. Benko's T.V. credits include Ugly Betty, Law and Order, Chappelle's Show, and three seasons on Showtime's Brotherhood. Ms. Benko's films include: The Avengers, Puccini For Beginners, Photo Op, Lucky Days, The Hungry Ghost, and The Nanny Diaries. She has appeared in workshops of new plays with Lincoln Center Directors Lab, NY Theatre Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Women's Project, The Flea, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. In addition she has co-written and starred in the plays Gazebo and Crush the Infamous Thing; and directed the solo play Lou based on the memoirs of Lou Andreas' Salomé.

The daughter of a Malian diplomat who was posted to the USA, Europe and the Middle East, Rokia Traoré studied in Brussels and sang in a high-school rap band. In 1996, she appeared on Mali's foremost music TV program with two songs, "Finini" and "Mouineïssa," which became local hits. In 1997, she won the Radio France International prize for African Discovery of the Year before releasing her 1998 debut album Mouineïssa to overwhelming praise. Traoré's second album, Wanita, further raised her critical profile. The album was chosen as the best folk/roots/world release of 2000 in the fRoots magazine critics' poll, and Billboard called it "one of the finest records issued anywhere this year." Wanita also made numerous Best of 2000 lists, including that of The New York Times. In a continuing celebration of an evolving performer and songwriter, the same panel of journalists that awarded Wanita the 2000 award for best folk/roots/world release deemed Bowmboï the No. 1 World Music Album of 2003 in the BBC Critics' Poll. She is perhaps most celebrated for her live shows, which Time Out London says are "arguably the most exciting, most thrilling live African music show around." On Bowmboï, her breakthrough 2003 release, Traoré-who is fluent in several languages-sings exclusively in her native Bamanan. Known for her outspoken lyrics, Traoré covers a variety of topics, including poverty and social justice on her latest recording, Tchamantché, which was awarded France's prestigious Victoires de la Musique for World Music Album in 2009. Peter Sellars commissioned Traoré to create a work for Vienna's New Crowned Hope Festival, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. The result was a triumphant, "quasi-opera," Wati, about the final year of Mozart's life. In Wati, Traoré re-imagines a dying Mozart as a griot in ancient West Africa, heir to a long line of hereditary musicians.

Toni Morrison is the Robert F. Goheen Professor Emerita in the Humanities at Princeton University. Her nine major novels, The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love and A Mercy have received extensive critical acclaim. She received the National Book Critics Award in 1978 for Song of Solomon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Beloved. In 2006 Beloved was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as the best work of American fiction published in the last quarter-century. Ms. Morrison's lyrics Honey and Rue, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Kathleen Battle, with music by André Previn, premiered January 1992; Four Songs with music by Mr. Previn, premiered by Sylvia McNair at Carnegie Hall, November 1994; Sweet Talk written for Jessye Norman with music by Richard Danielpour, premiered April 1997; and Woman.Life.Song commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Jessye Norman with music by Judith Weir, premiered April 2000; the opera Margaret Garner with music by Richard Danielpour, premiered in May 2005. Ms. Morrison received France's Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur, the Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the U.S.'s National Humanities Medal among other honors. In 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

American theater, opera and festival director Peter Sellars, has gained renown worldwide for his transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces and collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative artists across three decades. Sellars' early work crossed genres and travelled in time with powerful contemporary versions of works by Shakespeare, Brecht, Gershwin, Mozart, Handel and Bach. Later, he collaborated with composer John Adams on the operas Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic and The Death of Klinghoffer. Sellars has staged operas at the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Netherlands Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Salzburg Festival, and the San Francisco Opera. In recent years, new operas by Kaija Saariaho and Amin Maalouf, Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang, and Tan Dun, along with new staged productions of works by Messiaen, Ligeti, Hindemith, Kurtág and Stravinsky have joined the list of his innovative body of work. Sellars, who has directed many international festivals, is a resident curator at the Telluride Film Festival and a professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Erasmus Prize, The Sundance Institute Risk-Takers Award, and the Gish Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 7:30
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 7:30
Rose Theater, Time Warner Center (Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center), Broadway at 60th St
Desdemona (New York premiere)
Toni Morrison, text
Peter Sellars, director
Rokia Traoré, music and vocals
Tina Benko, Desdemona
Fatim Kouyaté, vocalist
Kadiatou Sangaré, vocalist
Bintou Soumbounou, vocalist
Mamah Diabaté, ngoni
Mamadyba Camara, kora
James F. Ingalls, lighting design
Tickets: $40/55/70/85/100

A post-performance discussion with Toni Morrison, Rokia Traoré and Peter Sellars, will take place on November 3.

The audience is invited to White Light Lounges on Wednesday, November 2 and Thursday, November 3 following the performances, in at65, in the Grand Foyer of Alice Tully Hall, 65th Street and Broadway.

Co-produced by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Wiener Festwochen, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Cal Performances, spielzeit'europa of the Berliner Festspiele, Barbican, Arts Council London, and London 2012 Festival
Desdemona is made possible in part by endowment support from the American Express Cultural Preservation Fund.
Generous support provided by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc.

Four Quartets
"Rarely have I been more persuaded of the restorative power of great art." -The Daily Telegraph (London)
A "mesmerizing" (The New York Times) performance work devised and directed by Katie Mitchell, Four Quartets returns to Lincoln Center on November 8-12. The evening opens with a performance of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets by Tony Award-winning actor Stephen Dillane, followed by a performance by the Miró Quartet of Beethoven's late String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, the musical work that inspired Eliot's timeless text. The poet had stated that he wanted to get "beyond poetry, as Beethoven in his later works strove to get beyond music." Four Quartets, which originated at the Donmar Warehouse in London in January 2009, had its U.S. premiere in December of that year as part of New Visions, the sub-series of Lincoln Center's Great Performers. The New York Times called Four Quartets an "an arresting, profound, and-despite its modesty-theatrically stunning piece."

Stephen Dillane won a Tony Award in 2000 for his portrayal of Henry in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. He was named Best Actor at the 2009 BAFTA Awards for his work in The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall. His theatrical credits include The Real Thing (West End and Broadway); Macbeth (Almeida, L.A., Sydney and Adelaide Festivals); Angels in America (National Theatre); Hamlet (West End); and three plays directed by Katie Mitchell-Uncle Vanya (RSC), Endgame (Donmar), and One Evening. Television credits include HBO's John Adams, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson. He has a featured role, starting this fall, in HBO's Game of Thrones. His film credits include The Hours, Welcome to Sarajevo, and Spy Game.

Katie Mitchell, whom the Guardian Unlimited (London) called "the radical force beating in the heart of The National Theatre," was named Associate Director of the National in 2004. Her productions there include Strindberg's A Dream Play, Chekov's The Seagull, and Euripides' Women of Troy. Mitchell has worked in opera and on concert stagings, including Bach's St. Matthew Passion for the Glyndebourne Festival. Her revelatory National Theatre staging of Virginia Woolf's novel, Waves, at The Duke on 42nd Street-a highlight of 2008's New Visions: The Literary Muse-was called "a remarkable, genre-defying work...that raises the bar for literary adaptations" by The New York Times. She made her American directing debut at Lincoln Center when she staged The Royal Court Theatre's productions of Harold Pinter's Mountain Language and Ashes to Ashes as part of Lincoln Center Festival 2001's Pinter celebration.

The Miró Quartet enjoys a place at the top of the international chamber music scene garnering praise from audiences and critics alike. Founded in 1995 at the Oberlin Conservatory, the Miró Quartet met with immediate success winning first prizes at the Coleman, Fischoff, and Banff competitions as well as the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award. The Miró Quartet was also a recipient of the Cleveland Quartet Award and was the first ensemble ever to be awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Regularly invited to perform at the world's most celebrated concert halls, the Miró Quartet has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic's Kammermusiksaal, and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw among many others. The Quartet has collaborated with distinguished artists including Leif Ove Andsnes, Joshua Bell, Eliot Fisk, Lynn Harrell, Midori, Jon Kimura Parker, and Pinchas Zukerman. A favorite of summer music festivals, the Quartet has frequently appeared at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. Deeply committed to music education, the Miró Quartet is currently the Faculty String Quartet?in?Residence at the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 7:30 (preview)
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 7:30
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 7:30
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 7:30
Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 3:00 and 7:30
Clark Studio Theater, the Rose Building, 165 W. 65th Street, 7th floor
Four Quartets
Stephen Dillane, actor
Miró Quartet
Katie Mitchell, director
Vicki Mortimer, design
T.S. Eliot, author
Beethoven: String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132
Tickets: $65

White Light Lounges will take place in the Samuels Studio, 7th Floor, The Rose Building following performances on: Tuesday, November 8, Wednesday, November 9, Thursday, November 10, Friday, November 11 and the 7:30 pm performance on Saturday, November 12.

White Light Festival is sponsored by Time Warner Inc.

Additional support provided by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc. and Logicworks.

Endowment support is provided by the American Express Cultural Preservation Fund.

Endowment Support for Symphonic Masters is provided by the Leon Levy Foundation. Endowment support is also provided by UBS.

MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center.

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Movado is an Official Sponsor of Lincoln Center.

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WABC-TV is the Official Broadcast Partner of Lincoln Center.

William Hill Estate Winery is the Official Wine of Lincoln Center.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 5,000 events performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA's series include American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, Tully Scope Festival, White Light Festival, and the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and its 11 other resident organizations. In addition, LCPA is leading a series of major capital projects, now nearly complete, on behalf of the resident organizations across the campus.

Lincoln Center is committed to providing and improving accessibility for people with disabilities. For information, call the Department of Programs and Services for People with Disabilities at (212) 875-5375.

Programs, artists and prices are subject to change.