Rodríguez in Residency with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, America’s longest-running festival of new orchestral music, announces its 63rd season, July 29 – August 11, 2024.
Every summer, Cabrillo Festival offers composers a haven to experiment and realize their visions for the music of today. The Festival fosters a community of artists and audiences as they come together to participate in the creative process. Under the leadership of Grammy Award-winning Music Director and Conductor Cristian Măcelaru, this year’s festival, themed “Music as Movement,” boasts 14 composers in residence, alongside four world premieres and eight West Coast premieres.
“This season will resoundingly demonstrate living music as movement – as our music, our stories, are never static,” says Măcelaru. “Each piece is a powerful testament to music as movement in many forms. We’ll present music that pushes the boundaries of orchestral sound, music that connects distant times and places, and music that powerfully represents physical, cultural, and social movements – the ever-changing stories that bind us all.”
UNBOUND – SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 7PM
Maestro Măcelaru leads the Festival Orchestra in works by composers Daniel Kellogg, Nathaniel Heyder, Lembit Beecher, and Iván Enrique Rodríguez.
Daniel Kellogg West Coast premiere, The Golden Spike commemorates the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad and explores the prolific economic, cultural, and genocidal changes brought about by its creation.
The Festival presents unbound: Phase 1, a world premiere by the rising composer Nathaniel Heyder, whose piece embodies a pivotal moment in Heyder’s life, a period marked by a sense of artistic and spiritual freedom.
Lembit Beecher West Coast premiere of Tell Me Again, delves into narratives of immigration and heritage. It was composed for the virtuosic cellist Karen Ouzounian, whose grandmother immigrated from Armenia to Canada during the Lebanese Civil War.
Human movement through migration and immigration will also be powerfully portrayed by a new orchestral work by Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez in the world premiere of Casting the Dice for narrator and orchestra, commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival. Narrated live by Rodríguez himself, using texts sourced from individuals around the world, his new work will explore the lived experiences of those displaced, delving into the connections of immigrants and refugees with their homelands, and their personal journeys as they navigate new territories.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 7PM – UNBOUND
Daniel Kellogg: The Golden Spike (West Coast Premiere)
Nathaniel Heyder: unbound: Phase 1 (World Premiere | Festival Commission)
Lembit Beecher: Tell Me Again (Karen Ouzounian, amplified cello) (West Coast Premiere)
Iván Enrique Rodríguez: Casting the Dice (World Premiere | Festival Commission)
TICKETS
Festival tickets range from $30-$82 for individual concerts and $295-360 for full subscriptions. Many events are free and open to the public. The public may access information on the Festival website at www.cabrillomusic.org or call (831) 426-6966; and are encouraged to join the mailing list to receive updates.
Full Subscriptions may be ordered online, by phone (831-420-5260 x5) or in person at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium Box Office, 307 Church Street beginning April 30; Single Tickets may be purchased beginning June 4. The Box Office is open Tuesday through Friday, 12 to 4pm, and during events.
