The Aquarium of the Pacific announced a new series of performing arts productions to take place this spring and summer inside their new Honda Pacific Visions Theater.
Since its opening almost a year ago, the 300-seat theater, located inside the two-story, 29,000-square-foot expansion space, Pacific Visions, has hosted science and climate change-related lectures, forums and panel discussions, but also film screenings and concerts, including the just-passed Blues and Jazz Festival.
But in a widening of focus, the Aquarium has invited some of the city’s leading arts organizations, including the Long Beach Opera, Long Beach Symphony, Long Beach Chorale and the True Brass Choir to grace their stage.
“The arts in all of their modalities are important to our Aquarium,” said Jerry Schubel, Aquarium of the Pacific president and CEO in a press release. “We believe that art can strike emotional chords with people in ways that science alone often cannot. With our new Pacific Visions wing, we are able to take this to the next level by combining the arts and the sciences to inspire people to create a better planet here on Earth.”
Aside from the massive, 130-foot-wide, 32-foot-tall screen that curves in a 180-degree arc, the theater also has a 30-foot-diameter floor projection disc. In addition, the theater features state-of-the-art audio and visual capabilities, able to support large-scale symphony performances, but also multi-sensory technology which adds extra sensory elements such as wind, fog, scents and seat vibrations. It’s reminiscent to Disneyland’s Soarin’ Around the World attraction, minus being suspended in mid-air.
The first of the scheduled performances kicks-off on March 21, with the Long Beach Opera’s performance of Peter Maxwell Davies’ “The Lighthouse,” a ghost story and psychological drama based on the true story of three lighthouse keepers who disappeared mysteriously from a remote Scottish lighthouse in 1900. Three other performances for the show are scheduled March 22, 28 and 29. To purchase tickets, which range from $49 to $150 each, click here.
The Long Beach Symphony is performing an off-shoot of the highly-anticipated performance “Violins of Hope,” a concert where musicians will play restored instruments once played by Jews, many of them in concentration camps, during the Holocaust.
This new intimate version, titled “Stories of Hope” is on April 21. The mixed-media presentation will feature Dr. James Grymes, author of the book “Violins of Hope”, and Israeli Violinist Niv Ashkenazi accompanied by the musicians of the Long Beach Symphony. Tickets for the performance are $100, which you can purchase here.
The Long Beach-based True Brass Choir is performing Ralph Vaughan Williams’ symphony, “Sinfonia Antarctica” and “The Automatic Earth” by Steven Bryant June 5, promising to make special use of the space’s massive projection screen, with accompanying visual media “celebrating planet Earth.” Tickets to the performance range from $30 to $35 and will be made available for purchase from the Aquarium’s website in the near future.
Closing out the season on June 7 will be a program of choral music and solos about nature, entitled “The Trees of Life,” by the Long Beach Chorale.
To keep up with upcoming events at the Honda Pacific Visions Theater, including tickets and showtimes, check out the Aquarium of the Pacific’s website, here.