Sunday 8.10 To the New World
Grand Finale performances:
Sunday, August 10, 4pm & 8pm
Mission San Juan Bautista
Tickets: $35-$40
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Sponsored by
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Chiayu: Feng Nian Ji (Harvest Festival) (World Premiere)
Osvaldo Golijov: Last Round
Alla Borzova: To the New World (U.S. Premiere)
Avner Dorman: Variations Without a Theme (West Coast Premiere)
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Four composers new to the Festival, each with voices rooted in cultures
far from our own, will be honored in the storied setting of the Old Mission sanctuary on a program aptly titled To the New World. Born in Taiwan, Chiayu will join us first for the World Premiere of Feng Nian Ji (Harvest Festival),
which she has written expressly for the Festival. Based on the
traditional harvest festival of Taiwan’s largest aboriginal tribe, her
music follows the progression of this dramatic ceremonial occasion.
Born in Belarus and now a U.S. citizen, Alla Borzova is well suited to articulate the immigrant experience. In To the New World which receives its U.S. Premiere
today, Borzova tells of an imaginary ship that brings immigrants of
various nationalities to the shores of America—Irish, German, Italian,
Jewish, African, Latin American and Chinese—during the waves of
immigration that began in the mid-19th-century. The work reflects the
ethnic musical styles brought by these immigrants to their new world.
MacArthur Fellow and Grammy Award-winning composer Osvaldo Golijov
grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in Argentina,
surrounded by classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer
music, and the new tango of Astor Piazzolla. Last Round for string
orchestra was written in memory of Piazzolla after a stroke killed him
in 1992 at the peak of his creativity. Golijov borrowed the title, Last Round,
from a short story on boxing by Julio Cortázar, and used it as the
metaphor for an imaginary chance for Piazzolla’s spirit to fight one
more time. With its white-hot passion and crisscrossed choreography of
bows, Last Round is a sublimated tango dance. Avner Dorman has quickly risen to become one of Israel’s most successful and renowned composers. His Variations Without a Theme
is described as “sophisticated music that cleverly explores both
Eastern and Western sonic worlds” and “calls to mind the bustle of an
Arab bazaar.” The composer joins audiences for its West Coast Premiere. Maestra Marin Alsop,
the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Chiayu, Borzova, and Dorman, bring the
2008 Festival season to a resounding close in the splendor of Mission
San Juan Bautista. One moment, one chance. Don't miss it!
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| CLICK HERE FOR MUSIC AT THE MISSION PROGRAM NOTES |
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Photo (clockwise beginning L): Mission San Juan Bautista (photo by r.r. jones); Chaiyu, Alla Borzova (photo by Denise Winters), and Avner Dorman.
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