Fairy tales and childhood memories from around the world are retold through music in a compelling program featuring mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke in her Da Camera debut and David Lang's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, The Little Match Girl Passion, in its Houston premiere.

Lang brilliantly sets Hans Christian Andersen's fable in the manner of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Musical America's 2013 Composer of the Year and recipient of Carnegie Hall's Debs Composer's Chair for 2013-14, Lang is one of America's most performed composers. A graduate of Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, Cooke caused a sensation in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of John Adams's Doctor Atomic. She was praised in The New Yorker for her "fresh, vital portrayal, bringing a luminous tone, a generously supported musical line, a keen sense of verbal nuance, and a flair for seduction."

The program opens with song settings for voice and piano with childhood scenes from around the world: Selections from Tchaikovsky's Songs for Children, Britten's Charm of Lullabies, Poulenc's We Want a Little Sister and Ravel's Five Greek Melodies.