(El Universal) - "To mark its 40th year, the Schola Cantorum of Venezuela, under the direction of Alberto Grau (Founder), Maria Guinand and Ana Maria Raga (Directors) are preparing to take on important international projects.

August 10th & 12th July 2007 they will perform at the Barbican Centre in London , the Opera of John Adams, A Flowering Tree, presented by this same group last October in Vienna. In this opportunity, the composer will direct again together with the London Symphony orchestra.

Subsequently, The Schola will travel to the city of New York , where they will perform at the famous 'Mostly Mozart Festival'. Here, the choir will offer four concerts in the prestigious Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. The two first presentations will be the 18th & 19th August in the Rose Theatre.

The programme for these concerts will be 'The Passion according to Saint Marcus' of the Argentinean composer Osvaldo Golijov, under the direction of Robert Spano, which was presented by the Venezuelan Collective in the year 2000 in Stuttgart.

Golijov describes the piece as 'a ritual based on action, not on meditation' and as a 'story of violence and faith'. In this piece the Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza and the Soprano Jessica Rivera took part".

http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=4250