“At 52, most people start slowing down, stepping back, re-assessing what they put their energy into. Luckily, music festivals aren’t people, and in its 52nd year, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music isn’t showing many signs of slowing down,” writes Wallace Baine in Wednesday’s (7/16) Monterey County Herald (California). “The festival’s long-time musical director and creative leader Marin Alsop returns to Santa Cruz this summer after a one-year absence she missed the 2013 season due to a hand injury … [and] is drawing some of the most prominent composers in the business to come to town as composers-in-residence, including John Adams, Bela Fleck, Clarice Assad, Michael Daugherty, and Jennifer Higdon.” The festival’s opening night will feature “precocious Berkeley-based composer Dylan Mattingly’s Sky Madrigal … inspired by the story of a doomed attempt to climb Mount Everest. The evening also includes Play by Andrew Norman, who is being featured at Cabrillo for the third straight year.” Composers also spotlighted at this year’s festival will include Mark-Anthony Turnage (Speranza), Gabriella Smith (Tumblebird Contrails), Jonathan Sheffer (The Conference of Birds), Brett Dean (Fire Music), and T.J. Cole (Megalopolis). “Alsop will also lead the Cabrillo orchestra in Stacy Garrop’s Thunderwalker and Detlev Glanert’s Three Songs Without Words.”
Posted July 18, 2014
