'As a festival dedicated solely to doing new orchestral music we're unique," Executive director Ellen Primack says of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Entering its 42nd year, the festival continues to break new musical ground. "This is a composers' festival," Primack states.
"They are here and the interaction between the conductor, the composer and the orchestra influences both the audience and the music making." Not only will Steve Reich and John Adams put in appearances, but Marin Alsop, fresh off her Brit Award win for Female Artist of the Year, will return to the rostrum to lead the very talented Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. "There are players from all over the country," Primack says, "The community hosts all of them.
We have about 75 families who open their homes. We even have some musicians that come year after year and stay with the same family. They really become integrated into the community.
" Even rehearsals are free and open to the public. Thanks to the open ears of Alsop, this festival will feature a surfeit of new music including the West Coast premiere of Stewart Wallace's Skvera, which is a concerto for electric guitar and orchestra featuring Marc Ribot. Like everything else in the festival, it has never been heard around these parts, and promises to be both compelling and interesting.
With the discovery of a brand new Bach work last week in Leipzig, Germany, Johann Sebastian has managed to make the headlines once again, despite shuffling off to the great oratorio in the sky 255 years ago. His as-yet-not Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis-ed "ritornello aria" for soprano, strings and bass continuo was written in 1713 for Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxony-Weimar and was discovered in the Anna-Amalia Library by a researcher interested in 18th-century paper. The tune will soon make its concert debut under the baton of John Eliot Gardiner.
It will probably be a few seasons until it makes its appearance at the Carmel Bach Festival, but no doubt that day will come. One of the leading venues for the interpretation and preservation of the music of the Baroque, the festival is entering into its 70th season, and it remains in the capable and deft hands of conductor Bruno Weil. Featuring 22 days of Baroque-based love played in intimate, unamplified spaces, the festival is noted for its excellent programming, commitment to historical performance practice and incredible acoustics.
This year's festivities include performance of Papa Johann's Mass in B Minor and all six of his inimitable Brandenburg Concertos. But the classical virtuosity isn't just limited to the work of Bach and his contemporaries. In fact, this year, Ludwig van puts in an appearance with the performance of his Symphony no.
9. There is even a program dedicated to the lute family. Who can say no to a theorbo?
Everything comes in cycles. Whether the 12 bars of the blues or the phases of the moon, everything comes around again. This year, the cyclical Tao of the universe strikes the Monterey Jazz Festival.
The Friday, Sept. 16, concert will feature none other than Sonny Rollins on the stage. Called "the quintessential jazz improviser" by Tim Jackson, the festival's organizer and artistic director, Rollins was there at the first MJF 47 years ago.
Of Rollins' longevity, Jackson says he "is still carrying the torch for jazz tenor players and remains vital and creative to this day." Carla Bley, the artist awarded this year's commissioned piece, is also making a return to the Monterey Peninsula. In fact, her opus is all about her first trip to the area.
"She grew up in Oakland and when in the mid-'50s, at 17 years old, she got a job in a bar in Monterey playing solo piano," Jackson says, "she lived in Pacific Grove and drove back and forth to Monterey in an old Model A." Both the club she played at and the piece share a name: "Black Orchid." The entire weekend of the festival is crammed with talent, both inside and outside the Arena, from the finest in high school players assembled in the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra to the soulful chops of Artist in Residence Branford Marsalis.
It's one ritual whose annual cycle is a joy to behold.
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