2025 Program Guide | Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

CABRILLO MUSIC.ORG 17 Adolphus Hailstork received his doctorate in composition from Michigan State University, where he was a student of H. Owen Reed. He had previously studied at the Manhattan School of Music, under Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond, at the American Institute at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger, and at Howard University with Mark Fax. Dr. Hailstork has written numerous works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, various chamber ensembles, band, orchestra, and opera. Hailstork’s second and third symphonies were recorded by the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra (David Lockington) and were released by Naxos. Another Naxos recording, An American PORT OF CALL (Virginia Symphony Orchestra) was released in spring 2012. His most recent recording is Piano Concerto no. 1 on Naxos Records conducted by JoAnn Falletta. (2023) Hailstork’s new pieces include THE WORLD CALLED (based on Rita Dove’s poem TESTIMONIAL ), a work for soprano, chorus and orchestra commissioned by the Oratorio Society of Virginia (premiered in May 2018) and STILL HOLDING ON (February 2019), an orchestra work commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This last has become the first movement of Symphony no. 4 premiered by the Mannes School of Music on March 8, 2023. Other new works recently receiving notable first performances (2023) are A KNEE ON THE NECK (George Floyd Requiem) BLEST BE THE DAY (a Juneteenth Overture), premiered by the Baltimore Symphony, and Piano Concerto No. 2 commissioned by Lara Downes. In 2023 Dr. Hailstork was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. American composer Jake Heggie is best known for Dead Man Walking , the most widely performed new opera of the last 25 years. With a libretto by Terrence McNally, it has been received by enthusiastic audiences at major theaters in Dresden, Vienna, London, Madrid, Copenhagen, Sydney, Montréal, and Cape Town, in more than 80 international productions. His critically acclaimed operas Moby-Dick , Three Decembers , and It’s a Wonderful Life , with libretti by Gene Scheer, have also established themselves in the classical canon. In addition to 10 full-length operas and numerous one-acts, Heggie has composed more than 300 art songs, as well as concerti, chamber music, choral, and orchestral works. His compositions have been performed on five continents, and he regularly collaborates with some of the world’s most beloved artists as both composer and pianist. Heggie is particularly drawn to the mezzo voice and has longstanding creative partnerships with Frederica von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Sasha Cooke, and Jamie Barton, whose album with Heggie, Unexpected Shadows , earned a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Heggie’s recent nine-city recital tour with Barton showcased What I Miss The Most , a song cycle with new texts by important voices including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sister Helen Prejean, and Patti LuPone. His collaboration with the great Margaret Atwood, Songs for Murdered Sisters , was created in response to the global epidemic of gender-based violence, and earned a Classical Album of the Year nomination at Canada’s Juno Awards. Heggie actively seeks out projects that invite a wide range of perspectives and possibilities. In the 24/25 season, he re-teams with choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Urban Bush Women for the world premiere of  Earth 2.0 , a monodrama commissioned by Fort Worth Symphony, featuring countertenor Key’mon Murrah with Robert Spano conducting. Heggie’s acclaimed collaboration with Margaret Atwood, Songs for Murdered Sisters , appears at Carnegie Hall and Marian Anderson Hall with The Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. A new commission for fast-rising countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen also appears at Carnegie Hall before touring to Houston and Washington, D.C. Following the highly acclaimed Met premiere of Dead Man Walking , the Metropolitan Opera welcomes a stunning Leonard Foglia production of Moby-Dick. ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK JAKE HEGGIE SPONSORED BY LIZA CULICK & GERI MIGIELICZ, BETTE & JOE HIRSCH, AND DEBORAH & JEFFREY PIERCE ☆