"2012 will mark the 600th anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc. To pay tribute to this unique historic figure, our season will celebrate outstanding women throughout history, with special emphasis on Joan of Arc through the presentation of a major oratorio for nearly 200 performers by Swiss composer Arthur Honneger, presented both here and at Carnegie Hall," says BSO Music Director Marin Alsop. “Our regional celebration will also include the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Theodor Dreyer with live accompaniment by the BSO, and a tribute to fearless leader Harriet Tubman through a newly written work by James Lee III. We are uniquely positioned to celebrate the contributions of extraordinary women and their legacy provides an indelible example of heroism that affects us all — male and female.

The Orchestra will travel to the West Coast to perform at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts (Costa Mesa, Ca.) and the Silva Concert Hall of the Hult Center for the Performing Arts (Eugene, Or.) and give a three‐day education and performance residency at the Zellerbach Hall presented by CalPerformances of the University of California, Berkeley.

The Persian Quarter by Kathleen Cahill  was originally produced at the  Salt Lake Acting Company, Salt Lake City, UT earlier this year. It will open the season at the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, MA. It is scheduled for September 15 – October 9, 2011

The Theater Communications Group describes  Kathleen Cahill’s The Persian Quarter, as "a diplomatic crisis and a chance encounter trigger revelations of a shared past. The play unfolds on the final day of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980 Tehran with Anne, an American hostage and Shirin, an Iranian revolutionary student who is one of her captors. Thirty years later in New York City, their daughters, Emily and Azadeh, meet accidentally in an empty classroom at Columbia University during the visit of Iranian President Ahmadinejad."

"The Persian Quarter presses the question: given the countless fault lines of belief, culture, gender, generation, language, politics, history ...  how do we even begin to understand each other? The play explores how our identities — by nature or nurture, accident, fate, or will — shape our involvement in our world. We witness not only the confrontation of the women at the play’s core, but also the synchronicity of their hopes for and visions of their respective countries. Through the characters of The Persian Quarter, we experience Iran and America, countries with a troubled, interconnected history, leading us to question what we know of our own history, what we’ve forgotten, and the legacy of personal and political decisions."

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