If there is any man who wants you to participate in Thomas Jefferson's "true secret, the grand recipe for felicity," it must be Charles Amirkhanian, the executive and artistic director of the Other Minds Festival. That secret is "A mind always employed is always happy," and Amirkhanin keeps his noggin-occupier very busy in planning and inspiring his festival, and hopes many will partake of the grand recipe themselves by experiencing the program first-hand at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center March 5-7. 
What Amirkhanian does is put together a new-music gallimaufry. He scours the planet for "other" musical minds of widely divergent stripes. He cajoles them into coming to the Bay Area to be kidnapped off to the Djerassi retreat above Woodside, where they are encouraged to mind-meld or otherwise mutually exchange their intimate experiences in the musical arts. He brings them back to San Francisco to batten off the fruits of these employments in the three-day festival, and then watches as the excitement rubs off on attendees. As he puts it,
A lot of the composers are chosen because of their ability to speak about their music and their openness to other people that they might not have met and maybe have never heard of. I've found that, in going to music festivals all over the world, there's a lot of competition and a lot of difficulty that arises in fighting over rehearsal time and all sorts of jockeying that goes on, and I think that what we've been able to do — with the private residence where these people essentially arrive at San Francisco Airport and are thrust onto this 700-acre island of mountains and sculptures — is get people to bond together and feel like a team.When they go into the city and do the performances, everybody's pulling for everybody else, and there's a great feeling in the panel discussions. People who have been talking [together] all week can tell little anecdotes about each other that inform the audience in a way that you can't do just cold.
Stimulating Variety
Among the unusual "finds" that attendees can expect, according to Amirkhanian, are:- Pieces of eight: Music for eight — count 'em! — cellos by Arvo Pärt and Maruicio Kagel. Amirkhanian says they have "a kind of spiritual impact and solidity to them that is just riveting."
- Potboiler whistlings: Cambodian composer Chinary Ung's threnody to the victims of Pol Pot's genocidal policies makes the Del Sol Quartet literally whistle while they work at the music. Ung received his first musical experiences from the sounds of banana leaves, so there's no telling what experiences he may plant in the ears of concertgoers.
- Exotic gems: Dobromiła Jaskot's pieces — "Just a jewel of a composition," says Amirkhanian about one of them by the 27-year-old Polish composer. "It's completely unknown in the United States, and so is she."
- "Wrong" songs: For voice and guitar, by another unfamiliar composer, Brazilian Chico Mello (pronounced "MELL-you"). "They sound like mellow, Brazilian jazz songs," Amirkhanian explains. "But there's something wrong with each one of them, and it's so funny to hear how he moves from something that's very tame to something that just doesn't sound quite right, and he does it with real tongue-in-cheek. I think he's going to be a surprise hit."
- Page-turner workouts: "Michael Harrison is kind of a cross between LaMont Young and Terry Riley. His piece uses arpeggios on [a specially tuned and dampened] piano running up and down, up and down, in different tempi, different meters, while a string quartet is playing chorale figures behind him. There are more notes per page than in John Adams. In rehearsal, we just died laughing because we couldn't turn pages fast enough!"
- World premieres: By "microtonal legend" Ben Johnston, by the "enigmatic and intimately expressive" Catherine Lamb, by the "tension, yearning, and sadness"–evoking Linda Catlin Smith, and by arpeggio fanatic Harrison.