Spoleto Festival 2020
January 9, 2020
General Director Nigel Redden announced details of the 44th season of Spoleto Festival USA, taking place May 22 – June 7, 2020, in Charleston, South Carolina. For 17 days and nights, a variety of artists fill the city’s theaters, churches, and outdoor spaces with wide-ranging performances and concerts.
“As Charleston celebrates the 350th anniversary of its founding, the Festival looks to its own place in the city’s rich history,” says Redden. “There’s no doubt that Spoleto, founded in 1977, contributed to Charleston’s flourishing into its current status as a top destination—by bringing in world-class artists, sparking a thriving arts and culture scene, and helping to revitalize performance spaces that can be used year-round.”
Featuring the world premiere of Omar
After undergoing significant backstage and structural renovations, the College of Charleston Sottile Theatre will reopen with Spoleto’s landmark world premiere, Omar, a distinctly Charleston—and American—story.
Spoleto Festival USA’s co-commissioned opera is based on the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, an enslaved Muslim African sold in Charleston in 1807, with music and libretto by MacArthur Fellow Rhiannon Giddens.
Music highlights
The Stations: Westminster Choir presents settings from Gesualdo’s Responsoria against a backdrop of American photographer Tom Keifer’s powerful images from the Southern border
Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran’s Two Wings: The Story of Black America in Migration
Film screening with live orchestra of Get Out, conducted by composer Michael Abels
Anti-apartheid activist and 2019 NEA Jazz Master Abdullah Ibrahim gives special US concert as part of Wells Fargo Jazz series; jazz programming also includes Preservation Hall Jazz Band, a tribute to New Orleans icon Danny Barker (A New Orleans Jazz Celebration), The Cookers, and more
The Planets: Charleston natives Jonathon Heyward (conductor) and Micah McLaurin (piano) appear with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra on a concert featuring the music of Edmund Thornton Jenkins, Franz Liszt, and Gustav Holst
Composer-in-residence Jessica Meyer debuts a world premiere for St. Lawrence String Quartet’s 25th anniversary at Spoleto during Bank of America Chamber Music, directed by Geoff Nuttall; additional featured guest artists include Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Castalian String Quartet, Inon Barnatan, among others
American Public Radio’s Live from Here with Chris Thile broadcasts from the TD Arena at College of Charleston; Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi opens the First Citizens Bank Front Row series at the College of Charleston Cistern Yard
Theater and dance highlights
Director Emma Rice returns to Spoleto with her musical Romantics Anonymous
US premiere of Sea Sick looks at the climate crisis its effect on the global ocean; The Believers Are But Brothers tackles men, politics, and the internet
American Express Woolfe Street Series includes unique performances from cabaret star Meow Meow and illusionist/mentalist Scott Silven
Scottish Ballet returns to Spoleto with The Crucible; Caleb Teicher & Company, Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras join the 2020 dance series
Two physical theater companies present US premieres: Gravity & Other Myths and Machine de Cirque
Just want the lineup? Click here to get the season at a glance, organized by genre.
