UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Olivier Messiaen’s HARAWI produced in collaboration with Ojai Music Festival on Friday, Oct. 4, at 8 p.m. at Campbell Hall. 

HARAWI, an American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) production, realizes Olivier Messiaen’s deeply-affecting song cycle for voice and piano in a newly physicalized and dramatized version directed by Zack Winokur that features acclaimed soprano Julia Bullock; pianist Conor Hanick; and dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber. 

Over the course of a dozen interconnected love songs in HARAWI – the first installment in a series of song cycles known as the composer’s Tristan trilogy – dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber bring Messiaen’s romantic surrealism to life through their original choreography. All four artists – Smith and Schraiber, plus pianist Conor Hanick and soprano Julia Bullock – are contributing members of AMOC, an adventurous, enterprising collective of artists that has been called “blindingly impressive” and “preternaturally talented” by The New York Times. By incorporating dance, this unique production of HARAWI opens up Messiaen’s song cycle, adding a new dimension and greater intensity to its portrayal of love and loss.

Ojai Music Festival Artistic and Executive Director Ara Guzelimian is happy to see this project, which was originally scheduled to take place during the 2022 Festival, now taking place at UCSB. In a message to friends of the Ojai Festival dated Sept. 9, Guzelimian wrote: “Messiaen’s HARAWI is a deeply passionate hour-long song cycle of love and longing, inspired by sources as wide-ranging as the myth of Tristan and Isolde as well as imagery drawing from Peruvian folklore. In AMOC’s brilliant re-imagining of the work, two dancers double the singer and pianist, connecting movement to music in a deeply affecting work of love and longing.”

Arrive early for a pre-concert talk by Senior Arts Writer Charles Donelan. The pre-concert presentation on HARAWI and its context begins at 6:30 p.m. in 1010 Henley Hall at UCSB. Henley Hall is across the parking lot from Campbell Hall, and next door to the Mosher Alumni House.

Following the performance, Julia Bullock will participate in a post-concert talkback in Campbell Hall.

Tickets & Info: www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu or (805) 893-3535.

$32.50 – $77.50 / $15 UCSB students (current student ID required).