Cal Performances bio

Cal Performances is the largest performing arts presenter in Northern California. During the 2010/11 season, over 160 performances and events will be presented to an audience of more than 250,000. Cal Performances, located on the campus of UC Berkeley, is in its 105th season and under the leadership of Matías Tarnopolsky, presents events in multiple disciplines, including dance, theater, chamber, orchestral, vocal, and early music, jazz, world and new music and lectures with artists representing over 50 countries. Recent seasons have included presentations by the Vienna Philharmonic, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Yo-Yo Ma, the Gate Theatre of Dublin, Laurie Anderson, Wynton Marsalis, Pina Bausch, Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra, Philip Glass, Bryn Terfel and Cecilia Bartoli. Zellerbach Hall, the most widely utilized of Cal Performances’ five venues, has hosted the greatest dance companies of the world, with annual appearances by Mark Morris Dance Group and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater plus performances by the Bolshoi, Kirov, Frankfurt and Lyon ballet companies, American Ballet Theater, Lyon Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, William Forsythe Company and Merce Cunningham Dance, among others. Each season offers world, West Coast and American premieres. The 2010/11season began with the inaugural Fall Free for All, a full day of free performances, including the Kronos Quartet, Mark Morris Dance Group, members of the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows and the John Santos sextet, among many others. This season also kicks off Cal Performances Ojai North!,a new multi-year partnership with the celebrated Ojai Music Festival.

Cal Performances’ arts education programs for schoolchildren have been recognized nationally as model programs, and the organization is considered a leader in community outreach programming. AileyCamp, a summer dance education program for underserved adolescents, is part of an education season that includes daytime performances for over 20,000 K-12 school children each season, arts education workshops for teachers, pre-concert lectures, extended artist residencies, master classes by some of the world’s most talented performers, symposia and international academic conferences on the UC Berkeley campus.