Kimmel Center to Welcome LA Dance Project, 2/22

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts welcomes organist Renée Anne Louprette as accompanist to the Philadelphia premiere of LA Dance Project'sMoving Parts in Verizon Hall on Sunday, February 22 at 8 p.m. This unique evening showcases the masterful Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ in a trilogy of dance, sound, and visual art, featuring LA Dance Project's Moving Parts with a score by musical wunderkind Nico Mulhy, choreography by Benjamin Millepied (The Black Swan), and visual installations by artist Christopher Wool. Virtuoso organist Louprette rounds out the program with a recital of works by Reger, Duruflé, J.S. Bach, and Wammes, as well as the world premiere of her own organ transcriptions. Joining Louprette on stage are the local talents of Doris Hall-Gulati, principal clarinet in The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and Curtis Institute of Music graduate and violinist Reina Inui.

LA Dance Project's Moving Parts premiered on September 22, 2012 at The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The piece was commissioned by Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. The piece is choreographed by Founding Director, Benjamin Millepied, who also choreographed the Academy Award-Winning film, The Black Swan. In 2012, Millepied moved to Los Angeles, where he conceived of and founded the new dance company LA Dance Project, whose mission is to promote new collaborative work by emerging and established artists, and to revisit influential multidisciplinary dance collaborations from the past. The company creates innovative platforms for contemporary dance and expands the experience of dance and dance education to audiences of all ages. In January 2013 the Paris Opera Ballet announced Mr. Millepied's appointment as its new Director, a role he assumed in the fall of 2014.

Composer Nico Muhly has composed a wide scope of work for ensembles, soloists, and organizations including Carnegie Hall, pianist Emanuel Ax and mezzo-soprano Sofie von Otter, countertenor Iestyn Davies, violinist Pekka Kuusisto, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Paris Opéra Ballet, soprano Jessica Rivera, and designer - illustrator Maira Kalman. Recordings of his music can be heard on a variety of labels including Bedroom Community, an artist-run collective Muhly co-founded with Icelandic musician Valgeir Sigurðsson in 2007.

Renée Anne Louprette has established a formidable international career as organ recitalist, accompanist, conductor, and teacher. Appointed as Interim Organist of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City in 2014, she is the former Director of Music at the Church of Notre Dame, Organist and Associate Director of Music and the Arts at Trinity Wall Street, and Associate Director of Music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, where she was Director of the N.P. Mander Organ Recital Series. Louprette is University Organist and Coordinator of the Organ Department at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Louprette has performed with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Voices of Ascension, Clarion Music Society, American Symphony Orchestra, Piffaro, and more. She has appeared in Carnegie, Zankel, Avery Fisher, Alice Tully and Merkin Halls, as well as Miller Theatre of Columbia University. She has performed throughout the U.K. and Ireland, including Westminster Abbey and the Temple Church in London, among other great cathedrals. Her recording of the Great Eighteen Chorales of J. S. Bach on the Metzler Organ in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge was released on the Acis Productions label in 2014 to international acclaim and named one of the top music recordings of 2014 by The New York Times.

Artist Christopher Wool is best known for his word paintings he began to create in the late 1980s. These large black stenciled letters on white canvases were inspired by graffiti he saw on a brand new white truck. Since his emergence in the 1980s, he has focused his range across mediums and processes, paying attention to the complexities of painting. His exhibition Christopher Wool explores the artist's nuanced engagement with the question of how to make a picture, and is currently on display at the Guggenheim museum.

Tickets are available from $29-$49. Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, at the Kimmel Center box office at Broad & Spruce Streets (open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.).

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