2025 Program Guide | Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

50 CABRILLO FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC 2025 BECOMING PROGRAM NOTES Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra (1959) Lou Harrison (1917-2003) FestivalCo-founderLouHarrison’sConcerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra is also entitled  Koncerto por la violono kun percuta orkestra , which is in Esperanto. Esperanto, which roughly translates to ‘one who hopes,’ is a constructed international language and was created to foster world peace and global understanding—a world- view inherent not just in this work, but of Harrison’s oeuvre at large.  The work is inscribed as 1959-1940. This unusual method of dating suggests that the work and his interest in world music and percussion were conceived early on but completed later after Harrison had turned away from twelve-tone serialism and revived those earlier interests. It was first performed in New York’s Town Hall in 1959 by the violinist Anahid Ajemian, to whom it is dedicated. Percussion, found objects, and an interest in global music ultimately led to what Harrison would dub the “American Gamelan,” which is central to his artistic output. His profound knowledge of non- Western idioms, particularly Indonesian gamelan, made him a masterful musical practitioner of cultural fusion. The work is scored for a solo violinist and five percussionists using a wide instrumentation of non-traditional instruments including: twelve brake drums, six flowerpots, plumbers pipe, damped plumbers pipe, wind chimes (glass and metal), two sistra, temple blocks, dustbins, spring coils, cymbals, congas, gongs, double bass laid on its back and struck with sticks, snare drum, tom toms, maracas, two triangles, tin cans. Other previous percussion ensemble works include Canticle No. 1 in 1939, Canticle No. 3 in 1941, and Suite for Percussion in 1942, as well as collaborations with John Cage, who was also similarly fascinated with the medium of percussion ensemble and non-western music. Through these explorations and their revolutionary focus on an expanded palette of the percussion family, Harrison and Cage firmly set the stage for the development of the American avant-garde in themid-to-late 20th century. Sometimes, the percussive work is rhythmic and incisive, but often, it is delicately and colorfully scored, in the manner of a gamelan. Against this textured wall of sound, the violin stands out in high relief as intensely melodic—although it is often rhythmic and coloristic as well. Harrison’s earlier percussion ensemble works used similar instrumentations, so this concerto represents decades of honing and exploration—the result is that Harrison’s Violin Concerto is one of the most distinctive and memorable by an American composer.   —D. Riley Nicholson Sources include program notes by Eric Salzman, Fred Cohen, and the PostClassical Ensemble. CATAMORPHOSIS (2021) Anna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977) [West Coast Premiere] The core inspiration behind CATAMORPHOSIS is the fragile relationship we have to our planet. The aura of the piece is characterized by the orbiting vortex of emotions and the intensity that comes with the fact that if things do not change, it is going to be too late, risking utter destruction—catastrophe. The core of the work revolves around a distinct sense of urgency, driven by the shift and pull between various polar forces—power and fragility, hope and despair, preservation and destruction. The relationship between inspiration and the pure musical feeling and methods, for me, tends to shift at a certain point in the creative process of every work. The core inspiration provides the initial energy and structural elements to a piece, and then the music starts to breathe on its own and expand. In CATAMORPHOSIS this point in the process became more apparent and tangible as it aligned with an event that has had such dramatic impact on our lives and reality. The notion of emergency was already integrated into the music, and to counterbalance that a sense of hope and belief. The meditative state of being needed to gain focus in order to sustain and maintain the globally important elements in life also became increasingly important and provided another layer to the inspiration. CATAMORPHOSIS is quite a dramatic piece, but it is also full of hope—perhaps somewhere between the natural and the unnatural, between utopia and dystopia, we can gain perspective and find balance within and with the world around us. —Anna Thorvaldsdottir Flowercloud (2025) Darian Donovan Thomas (b. 1993) [World Premiere | Festival Commission] Commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with generous support from Tom Ellison & Larry Friedman, Ralph Alpert, G Schulz, Sunshine Gibbs, and Patrick Teverbaugh. “Partly adream I think, he daily walks the world as in a flowercloud of thought  & sight.” — Lou Harrison Flowercloud is a symphony in four movements. The piece starts with solos, simple breaths amidst wind chimes, until finally a voice—The Elder sings “There used to be so many…” The first movement is  Hyacinth Memory , a sound world of waking and frustration from loss. I was thinking about the loss of queerness resulting from the AIDS crisis, and how long it has taken us to get back to a place of queer prominence in culture. The joy and parties and brightness that must have been before the epidemic make up the origin of the second movement:  Marigold Joy . There’s joy— and in thinking about the happiness of generations past and lost, I can start to hear the hum of our queer ancestors. There’s peace—and we lean into it finally in the third movement , Sunflower Sky . Finally, less cryptic messages are coming from the Elder—with texts I’ve made, and some found in Lou Harrison’s work, this speaker for the orchestra remembers lovers returning with flowers, and helps the orchestra find their voice.