Larmore, Quilico, Ax to Perform at OCPAC’s 10th Anniversary Gala

The Orange County Performing Arts Center has announced performers for a concert Sept. 8 marking its 10th anniversary.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore, baritone Gino Quilico and pianist Emanuel Ax will appear on a program yet to be determined. Also, the center has commissioned a celebratory work for the occasion by Robert Xavier Rodriguez, to be performed by the Pacific Symphony and its music director, Carl St.Clair.

Larmore recently released a recording of Handel and Mozart orchestral arias, “Where Shall I Fly” (Teldec Classics, 1995). A recording of “Carmen” with conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli is forthcoming. Quilico appeared as Ford in “Falstaff” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera this season. Ax won a Grammy Award this year for a recording of trios with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.

Rodriguez’s most recent opera, “Frida,” based on the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, premiered in 1986 and has been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s New Wave Festival and the Houston Grand Opera.

The cost is $500 to attend the concert, a champagne reception and a post-performance dinner in the center’s carriage circle courtyard. Concert-only tickets will go on sale six weeks before the event at a cost to be announced.