Met Museum Presents Jordi Savall's ORIENT-OCCIDENT: A DIALOGUE OF SOULS Tonight 6/12

Met Museum presents the New York Philharmonic's concert series CONTACT!, Jordi Savall's "Orient-Occident: A Dialogue of Souls," and New York ensemble Cirène's interpretation of a classic love story of the Middle East with music, dance and painting, all in June 2012. See details below.

For tickets, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets or call 212-570-3949. Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Tuesday-Saturday 10-5:00 and Sunday noon-5:00. Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance.

30 & Under Rush: $15 tickets for ticket buyers 30 years and younger, with proof of age, the day of the event (subject to availability). For more information, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets, call 212-570-3949, or visit the box office.

Bring the Kids!: $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket (subject to availability). For more information, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets, call 212-570-3949, or visit the box office.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012, at 7:00 p.m.
Jordi Savall –“Orient-Occident: A Dialogue of Souls”

Jordi Savall returns to the Metropolitan Museum with “Orient-Occident: A Dialogue of Souls,” a program of Ottoman, Armenian, Arabo-Andalusian, Sephardic and Christian music from medieval Spain and around the Mediterranean. Jordi Savall plays the rebec, bowed lyre, and rebab; Dimitri Psonis plays the santur and Moorish guitar; and David Mayoral plays percussion.

According to the program’s introductory note, “As [Lebanese-born French author] Amin Maalouf says, ‘If we are to restore some hope to our disoriented humanity, we must go beyond a mere dialogue of cultures and beliefs towards a dialogue of souls … The diverse does not have to be a prelude to the adversarial; our cultures are not enclosed behind impenetrable barriers; our world is not doomed to interminable rifts; it can still be saved... After all, hasn’t that, since the dawn of the human adventure, been the overriding purpose of art?’”

This program is presented in conjunction with the opening of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia on November 1, 2011.

One of the most multifariously gifted musicians of his generation, Jordi Savall, as concert performer, teacher, researcher, and creator of new projects musical and cultural, is one of the principal architects of the current revaluation of historical music. For more than 30 years he has been devoted to the rediscovery and performance of neglected musical treasures as a soloist and director of his three ensembles—Hespèrion XXI, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and Le Concert des Nations, all founded together with his late wife, the singer Montserrat Figueras. He has brought recognition to the viola da gamba and restored an essential repertoire of music from here and elsewhere that had fallen into oblivion, all of which has earned him a place as one of the foremost champions of early music.

Tickets: $55. Bring the Kids! $1 tickets available for children (ages 7-16) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket. Available by phone 212-570-3949 or at the box office.

Saturday, June 16, 2012, at 3:00 p.m.
Cirène – “Layla and Majnun”

Cirène, an ensemble made up of some of the best young artists in New York, reimagines timeless tales from around the world as presentations of dance, music, live painting, and animation in which magical images are projected behind the performers and spring to life in unexpected ways. For this event inspired by the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia, Cirène tells the story of Layla and Majnun, the classic love story of the Middle East, which the 12th century Persian poet Nezami crafted into the tragic tale of star-crossed lovers that is often compared to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Cirène’s interpretation will feature music by Colin Jacobsen, Giovanni Sollima, Henry Purcell, and Vartabed Komitas, and will also include arrangements of traditional Armenian and Persian melodies. The performers include Maile Okamura and John Heginbotham, dancers; Kevork Mourad, visual artist; Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violins; Nicholas Cords, viola; and Eric Jacobsen and Edward Arron, cellos.

Tickets: $15