Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Santa Cruz, California
If this perennial summer festival lacks the quirkiness and bold risks that characterized it in earlier years, it's made up for it in recent years through consistent execution and a sustained commitment to expanding the contemporary orchestral repertoire under conductor Marin Alsop. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Alsop's steady artistic leadership, and to celebrate the occasion the Festival played host to fifteen composers and at least equal that many west coast, U.S., or world premieres. Composers in residence this year ranged from American composers Mason Bates, Anna Clyne, Michael Daugherty, Tina Davidson, Margaret Brouwer, and Christopher Rouse to the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin, Dutch composer Robin De Raaf, and young Canadian composer Zosha di Castri.
Friday night's program entitled Mysteries of Light featured five works, all west coast premieres, and one world premiere—a brief, characteristic study constructed of expanding ostinato figures in parallel and contrasting motion by Philip Glass entitled "Black and White in Scherzo." Margaret Brouwer's "Pulse" (2003), a short, pleasant, if otherwise unremarkable work with a strong tonal center opened the concert. Mason Bates' recent work "Desert Transport" (2011), a brilliantly orchestrated programmatic meditation inspired by a helicopter flight over the Southwestern desert landscape and structured in four connected movements further confirmed his gift for composing tonally lush and alluring works for orchestra. One wonders how well Bates' work might fare on repeated listenings—in short whether substance might lie beneath the shimmering textures, or vanish mirage-like into the thin desert air. Nevertheless, Alsop coaxed a wonderfully well-balanced performance out of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the quality of which continues to improve with each passing year.
Christopher Rouse's "Odna Zhizn" (2009) was a fifteen-minute work of both substance and depth, constructed out of its own logic evident aurally but not programmatically to the audience—rich sustained textures for strings punctuated with passages for low woodwinds, bursts of brass, and a battery of percussion. The Scottish composer James MacMillan's Piano Concert No. 3, "The Mysteries of Light" (2007-08) with piano soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet concluded the program. Easily the most satisfying work of the evening, "Light" combines contrasting themes and textures for different sections of the orchestra with a piano part comprised of equal part traditional concerto bravado and evocative, Messiaen-like harmonies and shimmering textures played in the extreme upper registers of the piano, while the left hand doubles plaintive interior melodic lines with various members of the orchestra to superb effect.
