OF THE many things violinist Matt Albert is looking forward to when he returns for his eighth year in the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra—his host family, running on West Cliff, tomato season at the farmers market—one of the most thrilling is the chance to play again with musical director Marin Alsop.
“One, her rehearsal technique is really fantastic,” says Albert, who leads the second violin section. “She can take a piece from unfamiliarity to familiarity for the orchestra within 45 minutes or an hour of rehearsal. And then in performance she really steps it up a notch and makes sure you’re paying attention.”
For this year’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (Aug. 1–15), Albert—along with fellow orchestra members Michael Maccaferri (clarinet), flautist Tim Munro and cellist Nicholas Photinos—will get to interact with Alsop and the orchestra in an entirely new way: as members, with pianist Lisa Kaplan and percussionist Michael Duvall, of the Grammy-winning chamber ensemble eighth blackbird.
It’s the consciously lower-cased group’s first appearance at the Cabrillo festival since its founding in 1996, and not only is eighth blackbird enjoying a starring role in the Aug. 6 West Coast premiere of On a Wire by composer Jennifer Higdon, the group will also be sharing a stage (on Aug. 8), for the first time, with another famously innovative ensemble, the Kronos Quartet.
“We’re really thrilled to be playing half of a recital where the other half is Kronos,” Albert says. “When we were forming, they were one of the examples of music groups that made it on their own and blazed a trail.”
Eighth blackbird, which takes its name from the Wallace Stevens poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” is known for its physically dynamic performances, with players standing up, moving around and reconfiguring as they play.
One piece in the Aug. 8 recital, Thomas Ades’ Catch (which refers to the British version of the kids’ game Keep Away), makes the most of this physical penchant, with the clarinetist moving onstage and offstage while playing.
On a Wire, too, capitalizes on eighth blackbird’s physical flair. The piece opens with the six of them walking over to an open piano and bowing the strings; before long, they’re taking mallets and picks to the project as the full orchestra chimes in.
Even more exciting for the members are the six distinct solos written for them by the Pulitzer Prize–winning Higdon, a friend of the group.
“The solos are very different in character, and I think that might be informed by what she knows about each of us as individuals,” says Albert. “I feel very fortunate to be able to do something like that.”
The festival, which takes place at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium and Mission San Juan Bautista, gets under way Aug. 1–3 with open rehearsals. The introductory free concert on Aug. 5 at 5:15pm, “In the Works,” features selections by young composers Robert Honstein, Andrew McPherson and Roger Zare.
The festival opens in earnest on Aug. 6 with the premiere of On a Wire. Other highlights of the season include the Food & Wine Festival, Aug. 7–8, all day; the evening program on Aug. 7 with the West Coast premieres of Anna Clyne’s electro-acoustic work > and two offerings by Mark-Anthony Turnage: Chicago Remains and Drowned Out; the world premiere, on Aug. 14, of Sean Hickey’s Dalliance and the regional debut of Michael Shapiro’s Roller Coaster. The festival concludes on Aug. 15 in San Juan Bautista with two concerts (4:30 and 8pm) featuring the U.S. premiere of Elena Kats-Chenin’s Heaven Is Closed and the West Coast premiere of George Walker’s Foils for Orchestra (Hommage à Saint George) plus a cello concerto by Philip Glass.
Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
Aug. 1–15
