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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > May > 06 > Entry
UT PAC announces 2009-2010 season; New director looks forward to new horizons
Famed tenor Jose Carreras, Mexican techno band Nortec Collective and jazz great Charles Lloyd are just a few of acts that will come to Austin as part of the University of Texas’ Performing Arts Center 2009-2010 season which will be announced today.
Also coming up is is the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, all male New Zealand dance troupe Black Grace and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
And seven-time Grammy winning Brazilian songwriter — and the former Brazilian minister of culture — Gilberto Gil will give solo acoustic concert.
See the full season at www.utpac.org.
Other events to look forward to include DJ Spooky’s ‘Terra Nova: Antarctic Suite,’ a multi-media performance which has Spooky — artist Paul Miller —weaving the sounds of melting ice he recorded in Antarctica into his trademark DJ’ing along with live music and video.
Though she’s just been on the job part-time for a few months, new PAC director Kathy Panoff has already had a hand in adding to the PAC’s next season. Thanks to Panoff, we’ll see some very progressive and worldly acts such as Black Grace and a concert featuring world music greats Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain.
“Austin is brimming with so much stuff to do that UT’s efforts really need to be distinguishing itself,” said Panoff in a recent phone interview. “We need to push envelope more. The academy has the intellectual responsibility to support new work.”
For her part, Panoff is pushing the envelope by booking events like a rare evening that will find comic book creative legends Art Spiegelman, Robert Crumb and Francoise Mouly. “I think it’s a great fit for Austin,” said Panoff. “We need to have more boundary blurring when we think about what a performing arts center can offer.”
Panoff joins UT after years as the first director of the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond which opened in 1995. Prior to working at the Modlen, Panoff worked at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, WGUC-FM, classical public radio from the University of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the Bank Boston Celebrity Series. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music.
A devoted supporter of new music, Panoff points with pride to the recent news that composer Steve Reich received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his piece Double Sextet. The piece was co-commissioned by the Modlin Center under Panoff’s directorship and premiered there in 2008.
Panoff’s goals for the PAC include planning events that are “more intentionally integrated with the academic mission of the College of Fine Arts” and that involve students more.
“A lot of the programming should be done in consultation with the arts faculty,” she said. “We should be a reflection of the research interests of our faculty. And if you involve faculty, then you involve students.”
Photo by Ivori Zvorsky.
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