Jacaranda has a remarkable history with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s music dating back to the LA premieres of the Little Match Girl Passion in 2011; Press Release, Table of Contents and Darkerin 2015; as well as the world premiere co-commission with the LA Phil of Sleeper’s Prayer at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2016. In this 60-minute chamber opera, note to a friend, commissioned by the Japan Society, Lang reimagines three texts by Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. The result is a haunting monodrama that addresses our human fascinations with death, love, family, and suicide. Lang has a distinctive, one could say unique, ability to animate the chamber opera form with searing humanity and deep perception.

I have sat in Dorothy Chandler Pavilion enthralled each time the LA Opera has presented this production of Akhnaten—with the riveting Anthony Roth Costanzo in the lead role. Each time I had to return for a second or third performance. This is the role of a lifetime for a countertenor. I am very eager to hear John Holiday as Akhnaten, determined to lead Egypt into a new age even as his plan to abandon the old gods puts his kingdom and his own life in peril. The brilliant director Phelim McDermott revives his visually arresting production, with soaring acrobats, riveting jugglers, towering sets, and astonishing lighting. Finland’s super-talented Dalia Stasevska makes her LA Opera debut conducting this dramatic tribute to one of the most transformative chapters in Egyptian history. Before I actually saw Akhnaten on stage, the music for the Act I “Funeral of Amenhotep III” struck me as the most original yet from the Aquarian genius Philip Glass. Fully staged the scene is a landmark in operatic history. I can say with absolute conviction Akhnaten is not to be missed!



I met Alonzo King as a super-talented student at Cal Arts. He is now one of America’s most decorated choreographers, and his San Francisco-based company has stood at the forefront of contemporary dance for more than four decades. King has been captivated by the jazz legend Alice Coltrane for much of his life. In 2024, he chose Coltrane’s 1971 album, Journey in Satchidananda for this recent celebration. King is drawn to Coltrane’s fusion of East and West in her music, teaching, and approach to life. With an innovative light installation by Jim Campbell, the evening opens at the stunning Soraya with The Collective Agreement, a dance which investigates delicate balances between the individual and community.

Virtuosic young artists from Colburn Conservatory of Music and Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium share the intimate Thayer stage for an afternoon of powerful French chamber works. This thoughtful program places Gabriel Fauré’s elegant and tonally ambiguous Piano Quintet No. 1, with its intricately genial final movement, alongside Olivier Messiaen’s heroic Quartet for the End of Time. Written for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, this unique quartet was premiered for 500 inmates, January 15, 1941, in subzero weather during Messiaen’s incarceration in Stalag VIII A, a German prisoner-of-war camp. This otherworldly music has become an enduring testament to the composer’s faith and a profound technical landmark in chamber music. Finding a companion for it is always a special challenge. The two composers, with their shared church music education and very different but complementary contributions to French aesthetics, promise to provide an illuminating experience side-by-side. Joining these talented young musicians in works of such substance is the celebrated cellist and Queen Elisabeth master-in-residence Gary Hoffman.