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Artist: Joyce DiDonato
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Joyce DiDonato:

Eden

From prison reform, the plight of refugees, the need for music education for all, to the industry-defining In War and Peace, opera superstar Joyce DiDonato has long been an artist who has dedicated herself to creating and initiating projects that challenge and galvanise the public, transcending the physical confines of the concert hall.

EDEN is DiDonato’s latest multi-faceted initiative, one that she will dedicate much of her time over the next four years to, uniting music, drama, and education to confront questions of our individual connection to Nature. Comprised of a tour of over 45 venues across five continents between 2022-24, an Erato album, ground-breaking education programme, and multiple partnerships, EDEN’s long-term impact and legacy will be far reaching.

DiDonato’s passionate belief, and the driving force behind EDEN, is that a collective return to our “best selves” is needed to not only address our current climate crisis, but the crisis of heart, as well. By examining our relationship to the natural world and our unique place within it, EDEN invites the listener to explore and search for answers about belonging, purpose, and healing. 

“With each passing day,” writes DiDonato, “I trust more and more in the perfect balance, astonishing mystery and guiding force of the natural world around us, how much Mother Nature has to teach us. EDEN is an invitation to return to our roots and to explore whether or not we are connecting as profoundly as we can to the pure essence of our being, to create a new EDEN from within and plant seeds of hope for the future.”

Alongside her long-standing orchestral partners, Il Pomo d’Oro and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev DiDonato will collaborate with stage director Marie Lambert and Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman, combining music from different genres with a stage setting designed to connect the audience with the very heart of the natural world around us.

Joyce DiDonato:

Songplay

Joyce DiDonato with Craig Terry, Charlie Porter, Chuck Israels, Jimmy Madison & Lautaro Greco

With her album Songplay, Joyce DiDonato takes a new and creative angle on vocal music from the Baroque and Classical periods, as well as from the 20th century. The 14 tracks on Songplay succeed in being simultaneously familiar and unexpected. The album serves up music by Vivaldi in both its customary Baroque purity and swinging to the heady rhythm of a samba. It brings a tango sizzle to an aria by Vivaldi's contemporary Marcello, and it plays with the voice of Bach in George Shearing's ‘Lullaby of Birdland'.   

"Songplay, as a title, suggests exactly what this album is," says the pianist Craig Terry, who developed the concept for the album along with Joyce DiDonato.