2024 Program Guide | Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

CABRILLO FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC 35 This performance is made possible through support from THE ALICE M. DITSON FUND at Columbia University You’ll find yourself at the very center of contemporary music-making with a special free concert featuring new works by three young composers—conducted by six emerging conductors. All are studying in the prestigious Conductors/Composers Workshop. TUE JUL 30 7PM SANTA CRUZ CIVIC AUDITORIUM IN THE WORKS COMPOSERS IN THE WORKS DAIXUAN AI (b. 1998) Born in Hunan, China, Daixuan Ai’s music combines tradition with modernism and connects Eastern and Western cultures. She is a composer, pianist, and teacher who is dedicated to learning and understanding the musical legacy from the past and opening her ears and heart to absorbing and creating music of today’s world. Her compositions are well-crafted, formally precise, and deeply thoughtful. Daixuan’s music has been performed by ensembles and performers including Chicago Civic Orchestra, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Baldwin Wallace Symphonic Orchestra & Symphonic Wind Ensemble, CityMusic Cleveland, Hub New Music, 5th House Ensemble, and Cleveland Orchestra Trumpeter Jack Sutte. Her teachers include Han Lash, David Dzubay, Katherine Balch, Don Freund, Clint Needham, Philip Lasser, and Emile Naoumoff. Daixuan received her bachelor’s degree in composition from Baldwin Wallace Conservatory andmaster’sdegree fromIndiana University. She is an assistant instructor coordinator for IU’s music theory department and faculty for Jacobs Composition Academy. Daixuan was also composition fellow at 2022 Aspen Music Festival and 2023 National Orchestral Institute. NICK BENTZ (b. 1994) Nick Bentz is a composer, violinist, and multimedia artist whose work is drawn to remote fringes and recesses of experience. In his work he seeks to render intimately personal spaces imbued with an individual sense of storytelling and narrative. His art centers around the blurring, juxtaposition, and amalgamation of stylistic idioms into singular sonic statements. Nick’s music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Sandbox Percussion, HOCKET, yMusic, and Ensemble Dal Niente, and featured at Lincoln Center, Kimmel Center, Copland House, and the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. His first opera, Having Guests for Dinner ,wascommissionedby/kor/productions, and has been performed by Hillman Opera, Hartford Opera Theater, and New Opera West. Current projects include co-commissions from Ensemble Intercontemporain and Wigmore Hall, a piece for percussionist David Moliner to be premiered at the Musikverein, and multimedia collaborations with visual artist Allyson Packer and vocalist Anika Kildegaard. Nick is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University, pursuing a doctorate in Music and Multimedia Composition. He holds BMs in composition and violin and an M.M. in violin from the Peabody Institute, and an M.M. in composition from the University of Southern California. His mentors include Anthony Cheung, Wang Lu, Eric Nathan, Nina Young, Donald Crockett, Ted Hearne, Andrew Norman, Felipe Lara, and Kevin Puts. ELLA KAALE (b. 2003) The music of Ella Kaale [Kah-lee] is perpetually chasing cathartic release, characterized by collagism, abstraction, and polarity. Her music has been performed by the UCLA Philharmonia (cond. Neal Stulberg), the USC Thornton Symphony (cond. Donald Crockett), TAK Ensemble, CORVUS, Hub New Music, Pacific Chamber Orchestra, Bergamot Quartet, and Schroeder Umansky Duo. Kaale is an alumnaoftheNationalYouthOrchestraoftheUnited States of America’s Composer Apprenticeship, Hear Now Music Festival, Composing in the Wilderness, New Music on the Point, and most recently, the Norfolk New Music Workshop. Her honors include a feature on Score Follower, Semi-Finalist for the American Composers Orchestra EarShot Readings with ROCO, Most Valuable Player for the USC CompositionDepartment, a YoungArtsMerit Award, and a Luna Composition Lab Honorable Mention. Additionally, Kaale is a composition Teaching Artist Assistant with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) Meet theMusic initiative. She is entering her senior year in the B.M. Composition program at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where her pedagogues have included Christopher Trapani, Ted Hearne, and Andrew Norman. She is the Co-Founder and President of Thornton Composers Ensemble (TCE), a student organization providing performance opportunities and curating concerts of newmusic.