Concerts: Fearful Symmetries

Saturday, August 4 8:00 p.m.
Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium

John Adams:	Fearful Symmetries
Jennifer Higdon:	Fanfare Ritmico
Christopher Rouse:	Violin Concerto
	Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin

Featuring the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop

It's a big Saturday night out on the town when the Festival becomes ground zero for new music in America, and the award-winning Festival Orchestra becomes the unequivocal star of the show. "This whole concert is a study in pulse — in three extremely different ways — all extremely valid and exciting," says Conductor Marin Alsop.

As Marin salutes the giants of American music, in tonight's program she also introduces a new talent. This evening she welcomes composer Jennifer Higdon to Cabrillo Festival audiences for the first time. Higdon's Fanfare Ritmico celebrates the rhythm and speed of life and comments on its quickening pace. "As we move along day to day, rhythm plays an integral part in our lives, from the individual heartbeat to the lightning speed of our computers. This fanfare celebrates that rhythmic motion, of man and machine, and the energy which permeates every moment of our being in the new century," says Higdon. Marin introduces this new work, commissioned by the Women's Philharmonic, in hopes that the Festival will love Higdon's music as much as she does.

John Adams, a favorite and familiar presence at the Cabrillo Music Festival and one of the most frequently performed living American composers, defies categorization. Harnessing the rhythmic energy of Minimalism and orchestral harmonies of late-Romanticism, Fearful Symmetries combines passion with precision into a huge dynamo. With touches of Stravinsky, Honegger and big-band swing music, Adams creates an insistent chugging pulse. It is a seriously aerobic piece, a boogie with a thrusting, grinding beat, which has made it one of his most choreographed works including versions by the Royal Ballet and New York City Ballet. The composer says what appeals to him most about Fearful Symmetries is that "it mixes the weight and bravura of a big band with the glittering sheen of techno pop and the facility and finesse of a symphony orchestra."

"Christopher Rouse's Violin Concerto comes close to being the best violin concerto composed in the last 25 years," says Ron Emery of the Albany Times Union. Organized around the violin in ingenious and colorful ways, the quick tempi require enormous virtuosity of the orchestra and soloist Yumi Hwang-Williams, CMF Concertmaster since 1998. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Christopher Rouse is a perennial favorite at the Festival and will be joining once again for tonight's performance. His music explodes with passion and unequalled emotional intensity. "Chris is driven — his motivation is rhythmic, so that even if there's an absence of it, rhythm is related to it," says Marin, "conducting his work gets the adrenaline flowing." Reflecting on his reputation for composing music that is vigorous, visceral and profoundly emotional, Rouse says, "Art has to be truthful, not just inspiring. It should always make you sit on the edge of your seat, make you want to live a little more vibrantly."

Sit tight for Cabrillo Music Festival's presentation of Higdon's Fanfare Ritmico, John Adams' Fearful Symmetries and Rouse's Violin Concerto. And after the concert, Marin invites you to stay and engage in conversation with the composers, soloist and members of the orchestra at a post-concert TalkBack Session.

Read more:

John Adams Fearful Symmetries program notes

Jennifer Higdon's Fanfare Ritmico

Christopher Rouse's Violin Concerto

Tickets: $15-25

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