Tributes: Part 1: Cabrillo Festival Orchestra

Bay Area-based composer Gabriela Lena Frank finds inspiration in South American folk songs, Bela Bartók and other varied musical and literary sources. Tonight’s concert opens with her lively and evocative work, Three Latin American Dances for Orchestra. Frank describes the introductory scherzo as “an unabashed tribute to the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein before turning to harmonies and rhythms derived from various pan-Amazonian dance forms.” To commemorate the centenary of the great composer and Cabrillo Festival paragon, Lou Harrison, the Festival commissioned a new work by David T. Little. “Though we had never met, [Lou’s] death marked the first time I had mourned the passing of a composer as an elder within a community,” explains Little. “His Threnody for Carlos Chávez had changed my life—so moving, deep, and full of humanity—and it pained me that I would never get to tell him…I am grateful to have the chance to honor and thank him with this new work, The Conjured Life.” James Stephenson joins us for the West Coast premiere of his heralded Concerto for Violin, featuring Jennifer Frautschi, for whom it was written. Tributes, says the composer, “is a conscious nod to all of the people who have contributed to the creation of this work: composers and soloists—past and present—who have written/performed timeless and inspiring violin concertos.” The Minnesota Star Tribune wrote, “Frautschi was everything Stephenson could have wished, her playing full of fire and nuance, her cadenza a marvel.” The Houston Chronicle called Cindy McTee’s music “a charging, churning celebration of the musical and cultural energy of modern-day America;” and tonight you’ll hear her Double Play, a piece in two continuous movements. The Washington Post noted, “The first part is an homage to Ives, while the second is a mash-up of big-band licks á la Leonard Bernstein and scurrying, frenetic urban passages;” and The Detroit News said, “What makes McTee’s work so compelling is the sheer magic of her orchestral writing. The orchestra is her canvas and she paints on it with the confidence of a master colorist.”