Planetarium

With the US premiere of Planetarium, three of today’s most multifaceted music talents–The National’s Bryce Dessner (The Long Count, 2009 Next Wave; Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, 2012 Winter/Spring
Season), composer Nico Muhly, and singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens (The BQE, 2007 Next Wave)– come together to consider the cosmos. For the first half of the evening, a string quartet performs each
artist’s classically informed compositions.

In the latter half, Stevens’ voice anchors a planet-by-planet song cycle that melds the collaborators’ distinct creative contributions–“the National’s honeyed scree,
Muhly’s disjointed pomp and Stevens’ electronics and modernist folk tendencies” (The Guardian)–into
10 a harmonic whole. The cycle unfolds against the backdrop of a giant orb that morphs to reflect the
characteristics of the sphere being celebrated.