I interrupted my Menlo Festival vigil on Friday for a visit to the opening night of another festival, Cabrillo, for an SFCV review. Much unlike Menlo, Cabrillo specializes in new, or newish, music for orchestra. It's also in Santa Cruz, which is a 30-minute drive over twisty mountain roads on the rare occasions when there's no traffic, but more usually an hour or more. So I had to leave early. Fortunately I received a final dismissal from a week's on-call for jury duty at noon on Friday, because if I'd had to go in during the afternoon it would have been tough.
The music was all new to me, though two of the three composers were familiar, but I listened to it all on YouTube beforehand. I got a definite sense of the particular performance at the concert, but packed all I had to say about that in the last paragraph. Most of my review attempts to describe the music, about half of which I'd thought up from the recordings.
But how much my preparations have changed since my early days. One of the very first pieces I ever reviewed was a concert adaptation of John Corigliano's music for the movie The Red Violin. I prepared for that by seeking, with some trouble, for a library VCR copy of the movie (that'll tell you how long ago this was) and watching it, to set the music in context.
This time, one of two pieces by Corigliano was a concert adaptation of his music for the movie Altered States (which is actually much earlier than The Red Violin). I did not watch the movie. I had no time for it, and Wikipedia informed me it was a horror movie, which crossed it off my list to see under any circumstances for any purpose.
Instead, in the review I made a virtue of my ignorance. Having noted that the concert work gives the "impression that it's trying to tell bits of a story," I described its contents: "Wind instruments honking in the style of Arab street music, French horns blatting like kazoos, or an out-of-tune offstage piano playing 'Rock of Ages' may communicate messages to listeners who've seen the movie." Implication that, if you haven't, they don't communicate anything, left unspoken.
I did not attempt to describe Jennifer Koh's hair (see photo with the review). I figured there'd be a photo, and feared that my vocabulary was not up to describing what color that was. (I'm very bad with colors.)
I managed to sneak into the review a brief description of the pre-concert event. Attendees were invited to arrive 90 minutes early and dine at tables set out in the street outside, and then listen to an interview with the conductor and concertmaster. (My editors added "the evening's" to "concertmaster"; actually he's been there for years.) You could bring your own food or buy meals from food trucks on site, or from nearby restaurants, some of which offered discounts. I got lamb ossobuco (neck meat, challenging to eat) from an Italian place a block away, brought it over, and sat down in one of the few available shady spots next to a group of locals.
One of them was a staff member for a local youth orchestra. She told the story of their attempt to find a new rehearsal venue, the church they'd been using having acquired new management which decided that hosting such rehearsals was not in their mission. So the orchestra located a private school which was willing, but there was a hitch. The school required the orchestra to have a $2 million liability insurance policy, but the orchestra's policy covered only $1 million. So they went to their agent and got an additional $1 million rider. This is where the story got really interesting, because that was not accepted by the school. So my interlocutor had to explain to them - to a school - that 1 + 1 = 2.
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