Blast Off Into Space with the Utah Symphony at the Deer Valley® Music Festival on July 26

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (July 16, 2019) – Take a trip to outer space with the Utah Symphony to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of NASA’s moon landing. Soprano Melissa Heath will sing and Deer Valley® Music Festival Principal Conductor Conner Gray Covington will conduct the performance, which will pay homage to decades’ worth of imagery and music about space, with rare visual footage provided by the Clark Planetarium. The concert will be at the Deer Valley® Snow Park Outdoor Amphitheater on Friday, July 26 at 7:30 PM. Tickets to the space celebration start at $36 and are on sale now.

Melissa Heath has been praised as a “soaring, sparkling soprano” with “vivacious stage presence,” and has a multi-faceted career in opera, concert and recital work. Her past roles include Amy in Mark Adamo’s “Little Women,” La Ciesca in “Gianni Schicchi,” Gretel in “Hansel and Gretel,” and First Lady in “The Magic Flute.” With the Utah Symphony she has previously performed in Handel’s “Messiah” and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3.

Conner Gray Covington is in his second season with the Utah Symphony as Associate Conductor, and has assumed the role of the Deer Valley® Music Festival’s Principal Conductor for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. He has conducted over 80 performances across the state of Utah. Before his residency in Utah he was the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and has worked with the symphonies of St. Louis, Virginia, and Monterey (California) as a guest conductor. Covington graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in violin performance and has earned awards such as the Walter Hagan Conducting Prize and the Career Assistance Awards from the Solti Foundation U.S. in 2014, 2017 and 2019.

The Clark Planetarium will generously provide NASA video footage to accompany the Utah Symphony’s performances of Holst’s “Mars” and “Jupiter” from “The Planets.”  It will also provide NASA footage of the Apollo 11, Saturn V rocket launch from July 16, 1969.

Utah Symphony | Utah Opera’s 16^th season of the Deer Valley® Music Festival comprises 19 performances over 7 weeks with performances in a variety of venues featuring a wide array of music styles, including bluegrass, musical theater, folk, country, and more. The 16^th year of the festival will focus on celebrating the local community, donors, and supporters through a variety of pop-up ensemble performances at existing summer events and venues throughout the community.

RELATED EVENTS
Throughout the 2019 festival, Utah Symphony and Utah Opera musicians and guest artists will collaborate with other community groups to offer several community events—many of them free. Musicians from the Utah Symphony will perform for all to enjoy on scenic Main Street at Miner’s Park in Park City on Saturday, July 27 at 5:15 PM.