2024 Program Guide | Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

Lost Coast (2023) Gabriella Smith (b. 1991) Lost Coast  is inspired by a five-day solo backpacking trip I took on the Lost Coast Trail, a surprisingly remote section of the Northern California coastline. It’s a wild, dramatic landscape of jagged precipices and stomach-turning drops overlooking ferocious, pounding surf. The area is so rugged that the Pacific Coast Highway had to be diverted 100 miles inland because the land was too riddled with cliffs to build on. Trail conditions were dubious, with washouts and sections so overgrown I had to fight my way through the coastal scrub. Some sections were so steep I had to grab hold of the coyote bush to pull myself up short slopes. In five days, I only encountered two other people on the trail.  With the climate crisis becoming an increasing part of our daily lives and little to no progress slowing the emissions of greenhouse gasses, the title Lost Coast has taken on a secondary meaning for me. The piece is a raw emotional expression of the grief, loss, rage, and fear experienced as a result of climate change—as well as the joy, beauty, and wonder I have felt in the world’s last wild places and the joy and hope in getting to work on climate solutions. −Gabriella Smith Trumpet Concerto (2023) Wynton Marsalis (b.1961) [West Coast Premiere] When Michael Sachs approached me with the idea of writing a trumpet concerto for him and the orchestra, I was honored. We are of the same generation and share many common experiences. At 26, he became principal of this revered orchestra. His appointment was inspirational for all of us, showing that it was possible for an important new voice to emerge and extend the legacy of American orchestral trumpet playing at the highest level.  Through the process writing this piece,Michael and I have gone off subject to converse for hours with unforced enthusiasm about all the great teachers we’ve had, the august masters we love, the fantastic younger players we encounter, and ultimately, about what we continue to learn from our instrument. I want this concerto to enable Michael to convey the broad depth of feeling and joy of defying technical limitations that define our legacy as trumpeters. The first movement begins with the blaring trumpeting of an elephant and a couple of big footsteps in response. A brash heroic fanfare and its echo ride the tension between triple and duple rhythms and loud and soft tones. The trumpet is partnered with timpani CABRILLO FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC 54 CREATIVE COAST: PROGRAM NOTES as it is in so many classical symphonies. A lyrical minor 7th phrase and its repeated triplet response provides a contrasting counter theme. We are soon introduced to some magical elements, like alternate fingerings and flutters and growls that give added flavor to our palette of expression. These elements will be developed throughout the piece.  The second movement is about a love feeling. In this ballad, trumpet is partnered with oboe. The arpeggiated minor 7th lyrical phrase from the first movement is expanded into a fully developed strain and the fanfare triplets are transformed through higher registration and intention to evoke the youthful romanticism of doo wop. We continue in unabashed, openly romantic style of instrumental singing gifted to the world by Louis Armstrong and subsequently developed by many great trumpeters of all styles. The solitary yet razor-sharp attack of the Spanish-inflected trumpet is a definitive aspect of the international trumpet sound. Movement three addresses the music of the Afro-Hispanic diaspora and begins with a recasting of the first movement main theme. It is developed through many different virtuosic variations in an alternating 2-3 feel. We proceed into a Spanish Bolero with plucked, bowed, and bounced strings over and under which trumpet and bassoon converse. Woodwind calls and responses lead us into a modern Habanera in 5/4, and the trumpet sings with an accompanying retinue of French Horn counterlines. In the end, those Horns chant “Aum” as trumpet incants a prayer-cadenza that connects us to our ceremonial role as ambassadors to the afterlife (still signified by buglers’ solemn playing of Taps at the passing of soldiers). The fourth movement is blues. Call and response is the principal mode of blues communication as it is also the very definition of concerto. We begin with the introspection of a single note drone and woodwinds weaving pentatonic-based melodies through the various registers. The subject is once again that lyrical minor 7th secondary theme of the first movement split between trumpet, clarinet and bass clarinet, soon to be trumpet and English horn. A middle section features church evocations and the tension between secular and sacred that the blues always brings. In this iteration, the trombones and French horns preach a serious sermon, while the trumpet is that jokester always playing around during service. Trumpet answers the seriousness of preaching trombones and French Horns with playful vocalisms over the two-beat dance groove of a country string band. The preaching becomes more serious while the trumpeter triples down on irreverence. In the end, the transcendence of seriousness is acknowledged with an open brass chorale. We return to the lonesome blues with an impassive introspection that walks the pentatonic road connecting East to West and ends with a solitary violin drone with woodwinds and muted trombone weaving dispassionate colors. The fifth movement is a brief lyrical waltz inspired by the legacy of French trumpet playing. Our generation of American trumpet players was heavily influenced by the great MauriceAndréand beloved Pierre Thibaud. We grew up practicing out of the Arban and Charlier books, we played characteristic French concert pieces by Tomasi and Jolivet and all types of test pieces from the Paris Conservatory library. This is a quirky, rubato three-way conversation with contrapuntal voices weaving in and out of tempo, register, timbre and key to create an impressionistic tapestry.  The sixth movement focuses on the magical ‘joker/trickster’ element that has been an undertone of the entire piece. Virtuosity itself has the conjuring power of making the impossible seem easy, like the rule-defying, cunning insights of Master Juba, Anansi, Br’er Rabbit, Pulcinella, the Coyote, or any of the many tricksters that inhabit universal myth. Trumpet players like todefyauthority.We like to play games and pranks. This movement opens the percussion toolbox to create mayhem and barely controlled chaos whilst the trumpet dances through it all. It develops themes from the other movements and is rooted in a circle dance groove from the Jewish tradition of Eastern Europe. Things build up and break down and build up again and again, but when all is said and done, we end up back in the jungle where that old elephant breaks loose. There they go, making all kinds of noise. And with that final fanfare, the elephant saunters away, and we realize that it all began when she first broke loose. —Wynton Marsalis PARHELION (2024) Bora Yoon (b. 1980) [World Premiere | Festival Creative Lab Commission] Commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with generous support from Robert and Carolyn Levering. PARHELION is a symphonic multimedia work that traverses through many atmospheric worlds—split into five movements to create a ring cycle of atmosphere and weather: I. Lux (Light)  II. Ventus (Wind)