Hundreds of artists from the worlds of dance, music and theater will appear on Zellerbach Hall stage to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Cal Performances on May 12 at 7:30 p.m.

The Centennial Celebration & Gala will be co-chaired by Ann Getty and Ambassador Kathryn Hall and will feature Mark Morris and the Mark Morris Dance Group, John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas, Lisa Vroman, Alarm Will Sound, and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, plus more than 200 vocalists from the University Chorus, UC Alumni Chorus and the Ensemble of the Piedmont Children's Choirs, under the baton of Cal Performances' Director Robert Cole. Culinary impresario Alice Waters and premier party planner Stanlee Gatti will create pre-and post-performance delights worthy of 100 years of the best performing arts the world has to offer.

"Cal Performances' vitality and enormous legacy of excellence since 1906 have benefited the entire Bay Area and influenced the arts nationwide," said Robert Cole, who celebrates his 20th year of leadership in 2006. "It's an honor for us all -- artists, staff, board of trustees, and audiences -- to be associated with this institution and present for this significant milestone. We will toast all that's gone before us and herald the beginning of the next century of artistic achievement in Berkeley."

No other artist has performed more often at or received more commissions from Cal Performances than the choreographer and creative force known as Mark Morris. First performing in Berkeley in 1987, the Mark Morris Dance Group's frequent visits often include world premieres, beginning with "World Power," set to music by Lou Harrison, in 1995.

Mark Morris and more

Mark Morris Dance Group, celebrating its own 25th anniversary this year, opens the May 12 Centennial Celebration & Gala performance with two works: First, Lauren Grant, John Heginbotham and Mark Morris will perform "From Old Seville" of 2001, set to music by Manuel Requiebros -- a work about which London's Telegraph wrote "there's nothing for it but to grin with glee;" -- and a reprise of Morris's 2001 opus "V," hailed "one of the few great works that modern dance has produced in a decade" (the New York Times), set to Schumann's Quintet in E-flat for piano and strings.

Excerpts from John Adams' "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky," will follow the Mark Morris Dance Group on the May 12 program. Commissioned by Cal Performances, the songplay received its world premiere in 1995 in Berkeley before embarking on an international tour.

One of America's most admired and frequently performed composers, Adams is a musician of enormous range, producing both operatic and symphonic works. Adams taught for 10 years at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music before serving as composer in residence at the San Francisco Symphony from 1982 to 1985. Collaborations with poet Alice Goodman and Peter Sellars resulted in two operas, "Nixon in China" and "The Death of Klinghoffer." His newest opera, "Dr. Atomic," again a collaboration with Sellars, premiered at the San Francisco Opera in fall 2005.

Adams has been the subject of three documentary films and the recipient of numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize for "On the Transmigration of Souls," commemorating the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. A resident of Berkeley, Adams maintains an active conducting schedule, leading some of the greatest orchestras in the world.

Alarm Will Sound, a 20-member ensemble committed to innovative performances and recordings of today's music, will perform excerpts from "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky." The group has established a reputation for performing demanding music with energetic virtuosity, "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance and virtuosity" (London Financial Times).

In addition, Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony since 1995, will joins soprano Lisa Vroman, star of the San Francisco and Broadway productions of "Phantom of the Opera," at the piano. As conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, Thomas' participation in the Centennial Celebration & Gala is particularly meaningful: The symphony's relationship with the university and Cal Performances began in 1912 when the orchestra first performed at the Hearst Greek Theatre. The San Francisco Symphony returned regularly until 1980.

Lisa Vroman has appeared on Broadway in "Aspects of Love" and "Les Miserables." She performed in Stephen Sondheim's Emmy Award-winning "Sweeney Todd in Concert," with Patti Lupone and George Hearn and made her Hollywood Bowl debut singing and dancing opposite Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Drawing on a repertoire from Stravinsky to Weill, she has sung with orchestras across North America. She has performed with Tilson Thomas at the piano and on the podium, including the celebration to honor his 60th birthday at Davies Symphony Hall.

The May 12 Centennial Celebration performance will conclude with Cal Performances' Director Robert Cole conducting the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and the combined vocal forces of the University Chorus, UC Alumni Chorus and the Ensemble of the Piedmont Children's Choirs in excerpts from Richard Wagner's "Der Meistersinger von Nurnberg" and Arrigo Boito's Prologue to "Mefistofele."

Movers and shakers

Cal Performances' origin is marked by the May 17, 1906 appearance of celebrated French stage star Sarah Bernhardt in Racine's "Phedre" at the University of California's Hearst Greek Theatre, a benefit for the victims of the massive earthquake in April of that year. Putnam's Monthly called Bernhardt's performance "one of the great events in world dramatic history." Ever since that landmark event, Berkeley has witnessed a parade of stage luminaries and artistic triumphs. Variety has always been at the heart of performing arts presentation at Berkeley, and over the past century the assorted incarnations of committees that would become Cal Performances have overseen production of a great range of attractions. Appearances by such renowned performers as Luisa Tetrazzini, Margaret Anglin, Maude Adams, Ruth St. Denis, George Gershwin, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Dave Brubeck, Glenn Gould, Marcel Marceau, the Berliner Ensemble and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater demonstrate that Berkeley has sufficiently lived up to its reputation as "The Athens of the West."

In the past 20 years, the exceptional growth in arts presentation under the direction of Robert Cole has established Cal Performances as a leader in the international arts scene, and the kind of place where careers are made. European, Russian, Asian and South American artists vie for a coveted place on the season, and the public routinely enjoys the likes of the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballets and Orchestras, the Grand Kabuki Theater of Japan, the Gate Theater of Dublin, Mark Morris Dance Group and such stars as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Cecilia Bartoli, Maxim Vengerov and Yo-Yo Ma.

Tickets for Cal Performances' Centennial Celebration performance only on May 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Zellerbach Hall are priced at $48, $68, and $90. Performance tickets are available through the Cal Performances Ticket Office at Zellerbach Hall; at (510) 642-9988 to charge by phone; at www.calperfs.berkeley.edu; and at the door. Half-price tickets are available for purchase by UC Berkeley students. UC faculty and staff, senior citizens and other students receive a $2 discount, and UC Alumni Association members receive a $3 discount. Tickets for the Centennial Celebration & Gala performance plus pre and post-performance events are $500 to $1,000 and are available through Cal Performances' Development Office at (510) 643-8783.