By Jeff Dunn, San Francisco Classical Voice
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is in its 51st year this August. After the anniversary bash last year, Marin Alsop's festival is returning to its standard series of four evening concerts over two weekends, one late-night club event, and a shorter Sunday afternoon performance of family fare.
There’ll be 10 composers in residence, including long-time regular Christopher Rouse, whose 2011 Symphony No. 3 will receive its first West Coast performance on Aug. 3 in Santa Cruz’s Civic Auditorium.
Another regular composer-in-residence, Kevin Puts, winner of the Pulitzer Prize last year for music composition, will have his new flute concerto premiered the same evening with Adam Walker, a much heralded young soloist from the U.K. making his U.S. debut.
Photo by Jay Blakesberg
Although the composers will not be in residence, music by Brett Dean (Fire Music), Magnus Lindberg (his terrific clarinet concerto), and Philip Glass (Symphony No. 10) will be performed in subsequent concerts, which also feature music by resident composers Thomas Newman, Sean Friar, Andrew Norman, Enrico Chapela, Anna Clyne, and George Walker.
The Kronos Quartet will be celebrating its 40th anniversary (here and everywhere) as part of the festival with "in the blue room" on Aug. 4 to add luster to the festivities.
There’s no concert series anywhere where such a high percentage of the music is written by people still breathing — even walking around in front of you, taking in the mellow sights of a Santa Cruz summer.