“In 1997, Anthony Davis was in the audience when the Lyric Opera of Chicago gave the world premiere of Amistad, his ambitious opera based on the 1839 Amistad Rebellion onboard a Spanish slave ship,” writes George Varga in Sunday’s (2/1) San Diego Union-Tribune. “Next Saturday and Sunday, Davis will be in the audience at UCSD’s Mandeville Auditorium when the La Jolla Symphony performs the world premiere of his genre-leaping Amistad Symphony, a 30-minute suite that draws from—and expands upon—the music in his award-winning opera. ‘I’ve had pieces of the opera done separately by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, but I never put it completely together as a suite,’ said Davis, an internationally acclaimed composer and pianist who has taught at UCSD since 1998. … Amistad Symphony will be performed Saturday at 8 p.m. and next Sunday at 3 p.m. at Mandeville Auditorium. Both concerts by the La Jolla Symphony will also feature Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait (which will be narrated by recently retired UCSD provost Cecil Lytle), Rick Snow’s Darwin Portrait and Ottorino Resphigi’s The Pines of Rome. The concerts are designed to celebrate the 200th birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.”
