Peter Sellars to Join Alex Ross in Conversation at The Wallis

Contemporary theatre director Peter Sellars will accompany The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross for an 'Arts & Ideas' conversation at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills this May.

Sellars, also an arts professor at UCLA, was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2014 for his contributions to music and theatre. Named as this summer's director of the Ojai Music Festival, the innovative opera director is revered for his unique plays and socially conscious attitude.

As noted in a press released from The Wallis, reported by Broadway World, Sellars' acclaim spans multiple categories of the arts, including theatre, music and dance:

"Sellars, Music Director of the 2016 Ojai Music Festival in June, has gained international renown for his transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces such as John Adams' Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, as well as for his distinctive collaborations with an extraordinary range of artists including Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, dance pioneer Reggie Gray and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison."

Joining Mr. Sellars in conversation will be New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, a best-selling author and former contributor to the New York Times. Ross' book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2007.

Sellars has been a pioneer in the world of theatre for many years. In 2006, he staged a showing of Mozart's unfinished opera Zaide. Others may remember his production of Shakespeare's Othello in 2009, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as Iago.

In an interview with blog Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity, Sellars spoke of his excitement for current artists establishing an expressive and influential vehicle for change in the world:

"I think this is the best time for artists to exist in the history of the world, because, for one thing, you have, unlike any previous time in history, this exhilarating diversity and exhilarating possibility of rich and amazing conversations that we've never had before. At the same time, because everything is so dire, the arts move from a decorative role to what is actually a leadership role."

Don't miss An Evening with Peter Sellars and Alex Ross on Monday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at The Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills. Tickets are available now from The Wallis box office.