MUSIC AT THE MISSION: TRANSCENDENCESunday, August 14 4:00pm and 8:00pm Mission San Juan Bautista
Tickets: $35 day $30 evening Dominick Argento: Reflections on a Hymn Tune [West Coast Premiere]
Aaron Jay Kernis: Air (Lee Duckles cellist) [West Coast Premiere]
Magnus Lindberg: Concerto for Orchestra [West Coast Premiere] As we celebrate the freshest voices in music, the splendor of a superb Orchestra, and the magic that is the Cabrillo Festival, you will experience a perfect Finale when Marin Alsop closes her eyes and summons the transformative power of music in the spectacular setting of the Mission at San Juan Bautista.
Once again Marin has programmed the Festival’s Grand Finale performances to transcend our everyday lives and bring us to a resplendent close of the 2005 season. Three West Coast Premieres add to the anticipation of the event. The concert opens with Reflections on a Hymn Tune by composer Dominick Argento, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and the 2004 Grammy Award for “Best Classical Contemporary Composition” (for Frederica von Stade’s recording of Casa Guidi). Argento has based this piece on his favorite hymn tune, Ellacombe. Having meditated on the text and tune, his reflections led to a musical form of one continuous crescendo—a work that builds from dimness to brightness. Next, Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis returns to the Festival and the Mission for Air for Cello and Orchestra. Originally written for violin and piano, Kernis’ expanded version for orchestra now captures the grounded and throaty voice of the cello, and features the Cabrillo Festival’s own principal cellist Lee Duckles as soloist. Songlike and melodic, Air contains many hymn- or chant-like elements. Then, Alsop concludes the season by introducing Festival audiences to Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg. In the composing world, the Finns are experiencing their own renaissance and Lindberg is one of the masters of the movement. His Concerto for Orchestra revels in orchestral color and instrumental virtuosity. “…gorgeously scored….There are wonderful passages, rich and strange…” and everyone is a soloist.
With frescoes surrounding you and candles flickering in the periphery, here history is alive and you are part of the making of it.
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