ELEVATION
Saturday, August 12, 8pm Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
Tickets: $22-$34
Sponsored by:
Daniel Brewbaker: Dark Angel (California Premiere)
Mark Grey: Elevation featuring Leila Josefowicz, violin
Michael Gatonska: The Whispering Wind (World Premiere)
Thomas Adès: America––A Prophecy (West Coast Premiere) featuring Gale Fuller, mezzo-soprano
Not yet 30 years old, violinist Leila Josefowicz is one of the most sought after classical performers today and has already accompanied most of the world’s prestigious orchestras. Tonight Josefowicz performs a violin concerto written expressly for her by composer Mark Grey and titled Elevation. Recently dubbed one of classical music’s “Faces to Watch in 2006” by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times, Grey joins audiences this evening along with composers Daniel Brewbaker and Michael Gatonska. Brewbaker’s work Dark Angel represents that brief moment between sleeping and waking, a fleeting connection between the subconscious and conscious mind. And tonight Gatonska's The Whispering Wind receives its World Premiere performance. The work takes its title from a line in the poem “Miracle Hill” by Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell. As Gatonska introduces new ideas, older fragments “whisper” back in. Old American hymns, small musical quotes from Ives, Varese and McDowell are embedded into the streams of textures. Then mezzo-soprano Gale Fuller makes her Festival debut in the West Coast Premiere of Thomas Adès’ America––A Prophecy. Commissioned for the New York Philharmonic’s Millennium celebrations with conductor Kurt Masur, Adès ("Britain's favourite avant-garde superstar") diverged from the “hopeful” directive given for the turn of the century celebrations to a powerful rendering of the Spanish conquest of Mayan civilization. The message of America may be debated as historic or prophetic, but Adès’ music is without question profound. Alex Ross of The New Yorker wrote, "...it is the one work from the Philharmonic's end-of-the-century marathon that is likely to survive the coming years."