Masterworks: An Evening with Tobias Picker
Masterworks II: An Evening with Tobias Picker
Monday, November 17 at 7pm
Troy University’s Davis Theatre for Performing Arts
Join the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra for an evening celebrating the music of renowned American composer Tobias Picker. The program features his expressive and dynamic Cello Concerto, performed by internationally acclaimed cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia. Don’t miss this captivating concert highlighting Picker’s bold, lyrical voice and a stunning solo performance.
Picker – The Encantadas
Picker – And Suddenly It’s Evening
Picker – Cello Concerto (U.S. Premiere)
Santiago Cañón-Valencia, cello
Meet Tobias Picker
Tobias Picker is an American composer whose music has been described as “displaying a distinctively soulful style that is one of the glories of the current musical scene” and “one of the most consistently interesting among the present generation of US theatre composers” (BBC Music Magazine), “a genuine creator with a fertile unforced vein of invention” (The New Yorker), and “our finest composer for the lyric stage” (Wall Street Journal).
He was the recipient of the 2020 Grammy Award for “Best Opera Recording” for his family opera, Fantastic Mr. Fox (BMOP Sound). Picker’s operas have been commissioned by Theater St. Gallen (Lili Elbe), Santa Fe Opera (Emmeline), LA Opera (Fantastic Mr. Fox), Dallas Opera (Thérèse Raquin), The Metropolitan Opera (An American Tragedy), San Francisco Opera (Dolores Claiborne), and Opera Theatre Saint Louis (Awakenings). The chamber version of Thérèse Raquin was premiered at The Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theater. His orchestral music has been performed by major American orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as the Munich Philharmonic, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, and at the BBC Proms. Picker served as Artistic Director of Tulsa Opera from 2016-2022, during which time he cast Lucia Lucas as Don Giovanni, the first transgender opera singer in a leading role on the American stage, as well as producing Greenwood Overcomes, a concert featuring works by 23 Black composers in observance of the 2021 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial. He and his partner of 44 years, novelist and neuroradiologist Aryeh Lev Stollman, were married by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. His music is published exclusively by Schott.
Learn more about Tobias Picker here.
Watch Tobia Picker discuss The Encantadas.
Meet Santiago Cañón-Valencia
Colombian cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia is a prolific soloist, composer, commissioner, recording artist, painter and photographer described as “technically flawless… totally under the skin of the composers’ idioms” (The Strad). Named a BBC Next Generation Artist in 2022, Cañón-Valencia was born in Bogotá in 1995 and made his orchestral debut as a soloist when he was six years old with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, blossoming into an accomplished musician praised as “an artist from whom sound and texture flow with ease and authenticity” (The Whole Note) and “one of the most promising young cellists” (Forbes Colombia).
After a summer of recitals in the U.K., Germany, Italy, and Spain, Cañón-Valencia launches his 2024-2025 season with the Camerata Pacifica on a California tour with Paul Huang and Gilles Vonsattel. He performs as a featured soloist across Europe, including concerts with the Sinfonica de Galicia led by Jose Miguel Perez Sierra and the Niederbayerische Philharmonic conducted by Ektoras Tartanis in Germany. In North America, he joins the Phoenix Symphony with conductor Julian Rachlin and the Augusta Symphony with Dirk Meyer. He also makes his debut in a recital presented by The Phillips Collection with pianist Victor Asunción in Washington, D.C.
Cañón-Valencia’s 2023-2024 season highlights included his debut at London’s Wigmore Hall and Seoul Philharmonic, a St. George’s Bristol recital with pianist Naoko Sonoda, and a debut with the Belgrade Philharmonic. He appeared at New Generation Artist Showcase concerts and broadcasts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Ulster Orchestra. In the U.S., he performed at the International Cello Institute, San Diego’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, Massachusetts’s Shalin Liu Performance Center, and the Alabama Symphony. He featured at the Mostly Cello Festival in South Korea before returning to Colombia for concerts celebrating his album, Ascenso, and a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia. In the summer of 2024, he celebrated the 100th birthday of Janos Starker in LOTTE Concert Hall with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in South Korea and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan.
Learn more about Santiago Cañón-Valencia here.
Watch Santiago Cañón-Valencia perform Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor with Orquesta Solistas de América.