2026 Program Guide | Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

Music and poetry have walked together at Cabrillo Festival since the days of Lou Harrison. The Festival has maintained a Poet in Residence tradition since the 1990s, usually drawing from our own community of Santa Cruz poets, including Farnaz Fatemi and Gary Young in recent years. This season we continue that tradition in memory of Joan Zimmerman (more on page 58), our beloved local haiku and tanka master, whose attentive ear and quiet precision shaped how many of us listen to music and to the world. Joan was once asked why she wrote haiku and tanka. "Haiku to savor a moment, tanka to reflect on a lifetime," she said. "Both haiku and tanka to preserve and share this dewdrop world." For years, she brought that same concision to the Festival itself, finding its spirit in small, exact moments: a held note, a missed cue, the season turning just outside the concert hall. joyful jacaranda all the Civic's parking spaces reserved for music (2025) hopscotch first violins warming up (2017) sudden breeze the triangle player misses his cue (2023) deep drum and the brass then the piano's low notes — the pond filled with frogs (2014) violin whispers wash over our bodies crumpling golden light (2014) We carry her name forward this year with gratitude and love. Joan's Festival blog, "Poetry Inspired by the Season," continues in 2026 in her memory, curated by her friend, Santa Cruz poet and musician Ken Weisner, our Poet in Residence this year. This season's poetry brings extraordinary company. Rita Dove will read her poems on Martin Luther King, set to Samuel Barber's music, at the Festival finale on Sunday, August 9 at 7:00 PM. We invite you to be part of this living tradition. Attend an open rehearsal or a concert sometime during the Festival's run, July 26 through August 9, and let it move you to write a haiku, a poem in any form, in response, in homage, in awe, or simply in the spirit of the Festival as you experience it. Then send your poem to 2026 Poet in Residence, KenWeisner, at poet@cabrillomusic.org. New poems will be posted to the Cabrillo Festival Poetry page (at the QR code below) several times throughout the Festival, a real- time chorus of response to the music as it unfolds. JoanZimmerman taught us that asinglesmall poem, well-crafted, canholdanentire season. We hope you'll add your words this summer. THE SEASON IN SMALL WORDS: Joan Zimmerman’s poems printed here first appeared in publications including Daily Haiku, Mariposa, the Cabrillo Festival Facebook page, and the Cabrillo Festival website “Poetry Inspired by the Season.” Reprinted with permission, the J. Zimmerman literary estate. FESTIVAL POETRY IN MEMORY OF JOAN ZIMMERMAN CABRILLO MUSIC.ORG 57