2026 Program Guide | Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

CABRILLO MUSIC.ORG 27 CABRILLO FESTIVAL'S NEXT CREATIVE LAB: HONORING CRISTIAN MĂCELARU In 2027, we will celebrate Cristi’s remarkable tenure, his 10th Anniversary with the Cabrillo Festival! The Creative Lab is Cristi’s brainchild, a flagship program that he has brought to life. As such, the 2027 Creative Lab will honor his visionary creative spirit. But that’s all we’re ready to share; stay tuned for more details to be announced about the 2027 Creative Lab, marking a significant milestone for our orchestra and for Cristi. EMERGING BLACK COMPOSERS PROJECT PRIZE Launched in 2020, Emerging Black Composers Project (EBCP) is a ten-year commitment to spotlight early-career Black American composers under age 35. The Cabrillo Festival remains committed to EBCP—investing in the next generation and the future of our field, recognizing orchestral music's urgent need to proactively celebrate composers of color. In 2027, we will have two EBCP world premieres! Jackson A. Waters, 2025 EBCP Cabrillo Prize winner, will unveil a new work written for our orchestra, and we will also premiere a new work by the 2026 EBCP Cabrillo Prize winner, to be announced. Cabrillo Festival's commissioning prize, and the San Francisco Symphony's Michael Morgan Prize, are both made possible through the generosity of Michèle and Laurence Corash. CELLO CONCERTO BY MALIKA KISHINO We are proud to announce that Malika Kishino has received the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation commission for her new cello concerto, receiving its world premiere at the Cabrillo Festival with cellist Oren Shevlin. Once complete, the work will join the Koussevitzky Collection in the Library of Congress, which contains iconic scores like the hand-written manuscripts of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Britten’s Peter Grimes , Rorem’s Paris Journal , andSchoenberg’s ASurvivor fromWarsaw , andmany othermusical treasures. This piece proves music history is made here at the Cabrillo Festival, and it is an extraordinary honor to co-commission Malika Kishino alongside the Koussevitsky Music Foundation. NEW WORK BY SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER Recently deemed “one of new music’s leading names” ( Gramophone ), one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” ( The Washington Post ), and “a rising star on the American compositional scene” ( The Wall Street Journal) , Sarah Kirkland Snider will write a new short work for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. Cabrillo Festival audiences will remember her gorgeous and evocative work Forward into Light , programmed in 2023, and we look forward to collaborating with her again through this Festival commission. CABRILLO FESTIVAL CONTINUES TO ADVANCE ITS NEW WORKS INITIATIVE, SUPPORTING COMPOSERS AND BRINGING NEW MUSIC TO LIFE In our 64th season we are proud to have commissioned more than sixty new works throughout our history. More than fifty of those were created in just the last fifteen years! And there is more to come… There is something uniquely rewarding about supporting a composer in their creative process and experiencing the realization of a new work from the extraordinary vantage point of a commissioner. We welcome donors to explore the possibilities with us. Before we can dream about commissions, we must ensure the health and wellbeing of the Festival itself; hence, all commissioning gifts must be above and beyond an annual general operating gift that supports the core activities of the Cabrillo Festival. NewWorks in theWorks MALIKA KISHINO