PASSAGE – Grand Finale
Clarice Assad: Baião N’ Blues (West Coast Premiere)
Errollyn Wallen: Violin Concerto (Philippe Quint, violin) (West Coast Premiere)
Pierre Jalbert: Passage (West Coast Premiere)
Juan Pablo Contreras: Mariachitlán
The Cabrillo Festival concludes with a symphonic journey featuring works by composers Clarice Assad, Erollyn Wallen, Pierre Jalbert, and Juan Pablo Contreras.
A powerful communicator renowned for her musical scope and versatility, Brazilian-American Clarice Assad is a significant artistic voice in the classical, world music, pop, and jazz genres. Her work, Baião N’ Blues is inspired by Brazilian music’s lively rhythms and infused with American blues’ soulful essence. In its West Coast premiere, Baião N’ Blues showcases the power of music to transcend cultural boundaries and connect people through the traditional rhythm and dance of the Brazilian Baião with the Blues.
Prior to this piece, we will open the concert with a special traditional Baião drum and dance performance led by Dandha Da Hora, joined by Santa Cruz/Bay Area performers and special guest appearances from our very own Cabrillo Festival percussion section.
Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen‘s West Coast premiere Violin Concerto, a years-long collaborative effort between the composer and violinist Philippe Quint, encapsulates Quint’s childhood memories and technical prowess. Born in Belize and based in the UK, Wallen melds styles and musical thoughts, drawing inspiration from Quint’s recollections of church bells and a lullaby. This concerto showcases Quint’s spellbinding playing and personal narrative woven into the music.
“The American composer Pierre Jalbert writes music of considerable elegance,” wrote Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle. In its West Coast premiere, Jalbert’s Passage pays homage to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. Transforming Beethoven’s musical passages, Jalbert’s composition unfolds in three contrasting movements, moving us between centuries and grounding us in the present.
Mexican composer Juan Pablo Contreras combines Western classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape. A fitting end to the season, Mariachitlán transports listeners to the vibrant streets of Jalisco, Mexico, where the spirit of mariachi music thrives. Inspired by the region’s landscapes and traditions, Contreras transforms the orchestra into a firework display of mariachi color, traveling to an imaginary place called Mariachitlán (Mariachi-land).
Featured Artists
Dandha DaHora, Dance
Born and raised in Salvador, Bahia, Dandha Da Hora has been a member of Ilê Aiyê, one of Brazil’s most important musical and cultural institutions, since she was 6 years old. A master dancer, as well as vocalist and percussionist, Dandha invokes the incredible spirit of Ilê Aiyê and Salvador, Bahia, each time she steps onstage.
As a lead dancer with Ilê Aiyê, Dandha toured internationally and has shared the stage with many of Brazil’s most renowned artists such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Daniela Mercury. In addition to performing with Ilê Aiyê and SambaDá, Dandha has performed with Casa Samba (New Orleans, LA), SambaDendê and Bateria Alegria (Boulder, CO), Banda Remelexo and Bahia Soul (Bay Area, CA).
Alongside a full touring schedule, Dandha also is a master dance teacher and teaches ongoing dance classes in Santa Cruz and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as giving special workshops across the country. Whether she is teaching, dancing, singing, or playing an instrument, Dandha’s art always reflects her passion for sharing Afro-Brazilian culture, and she brings a message of hope, love, equality and freedom every time she performs.
Philippe Quint, Violin
Hailed by the UK’s Daily Telegraph for his “searingly poetic lyricism”, Philippe Quint has established himself as one of America’s preeminent violinists, enchanting audiences through his performances that seamlessly blend consummate musicianship with “breadth of tone and passion” (The New York Times).
With multiple Grammy Award nominations to his name, Quint is celebrated for his distinctive approach to classical core repertoire, advocacy for contemporary music, rekindling of neglected repertoire, and pioneering of an original ‘music in context’ multimedia format.
Quint has soloed with some of the world’s finest orchestras across the globe including the London Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Royal Scottish National Orchestras under the batons of such renowned conductors as the late Kurt Masur, Marin Alsop, Edo De Waart, Andrew Litton, Tugan Sokhiev, Ludovic Morlot, James Gaffigan, Carl St. Clair, Michael Stern, Vladimir Spivakov, Cristian Macelaru, Kristian Jarvi, JoAnn Falletta, Krzysztof Urbanski, Jorge Mester, Jahja Ling, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Steven Sloane and Bramwell Tovey.
Quint’s unwavering dedication to contemporary music has resulted in numerous premieres of works by some of the most exceptional composers of today including Lera Auerbach, James Lee III, Alyssa Weinberg and Jakub Ciupinsky while continuing to highlight eminent American composers William Bolcom, Lukas Foss, John Corigliano, Leonard Bernstein, Henry Cowell and Ned Rorem.
The co-commissioned premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Violin Concerto, will include Quint’s returns to the Calgary Philharmonic with Rune Bergmann, the Kansas City Symphony with Matthias Pintscher, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Juana Carneiro, the North Carolina Symphony with Carlos Miguel Prieto, the Magdeburg Philharmonic with Anna Skryleva, at the Brevard Festival and a West Coast premiere at the Cabrillo Festival with Cristian Macelaru.
He earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. His distinguished pedagogues and mentors included Dorothy DeLay, Cho-Liang Lin, Masao Kawasaki, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Arnold Steinhardt and Felix Galimir. Philippe Quint plays the magnificent 1708 “Ruby” Antonio Stradivari violin on loan to him through the generous efforts of the The Stradivari Society.
Composers
Clarice Assad
A powerful communicator renowned for her musical scope and versatility, Brazilian-American Clarice Assad is a significant artistic voice in the classical, world music, pop, and jazz genres and is acclaimed for her evocative colors, rich textures, and diverse stylistic range. A prolific Grammy Award–nominated composer with more than 70 works to her credit, she has been commissioned by internationally renowned organizations, festivals, and artists and is published in France (Editions Lemoine), Germany (Trekel), Brazil (Criadores do Brasil), and the U.S. (Virtual Artists Collective Publishing). An in-demand performer, she is a celebrated pianist and inventive vocalist who inspires and encourages audiences’ imaginations to break free of often self-imposed constraints. Assad has released seven solo albums and appeared on or had her works performed on another 34. Her music is represented on Cedille Records, SONY Masterworks, Nonesuch, Adventure Music, Edge, Telarc, NSS Music, GHA, and CHANDOS. Her innovative, accessible, and award-winning VOXploration series on music education, creation, songwriting, and improvisation has been presented throughout the world. Sought-after by artists and organizations worldwide, the multi-talented musician continues to attract new audiences both onstage and off.
Errollyn Wallen
Errollyn Wallen CBE is a multi award-winning Belize-born British composer. Her prolific output includes over twenty operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, which are performed and broadcast throughout the world. She has composed for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games 2012, for the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, a specially commissioned song for COP 26, 2021, a re-imagining of Jerusalem for the Last Night of the Proms 2020 and a new work for BBC Proms 2023. BBC Radio 3 featured her music for Composer of the Week, and she has made several radio documentaries including Classical Commonwealth, nominated for the Prix Europa. Errollyn collaborated with artist Sonia Boyce on her installation, Feeling Her Way, for the British Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, which won the Golden Lion prize. Her critically acclaimed opera, Dido’s Ghost (libretto by Wesley Stace) was premiered at the Barbican in 2021 and received its US première in San Francisco in November 2023. Recent premieres include a a Wigmore Hall debut performance of songs from The Errollyn Wallen Songbook, a violin concerto for Philippe Quint, Dances for Orchestra for Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Irish Chamber Orchestra and Night Thoughts, a song cycle for Dame Sarah Connolly and pianist Joseph Middleton.
With Myleene Klass, Errollyn recently co-presented a three-part series, Musical Masterpieces, for SkyArts television. Errollyn Wallen’s book, Becoming a Composer was published by Faber in November 2023 to critical acclaim and will be translated into Spanish. Errollyn is amongst the world’s top twenty most performed living classical composers. Errollyn Wallen composes in a Scottish lighthouse and her recordings have travelled 7.84 million kilometers in space, completing 186 orbits around the Earth on NASA’s STS-115 mission.
Pierre Jalbert
Earning widespread notice for his richly colored and superbly crafted scores, Pierre Jalbert has developed a musical language that is engaging, expressive, and “immediately captures one’s attention with its strong gesture and vitality” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). Among his many honors are the Rome Prize, the BBC Masterprize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Fromm Foundation commission, an Academy award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Stoeger Award, given biennially “in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory.”
Jalbert has drawn inspiration from a variety of sources, from plainchant melodies to the natural world, and performances include those by the Boston Symphony, the National Symphony, the London Symphony, and the Emerson String Quartet. He has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the California Symphony under Barry Jekowsky, and Music in the Loft in Chicago. Hailed as “an acknowledged chamber-music master” by The New Yorker, his chamber music has been commissioned and performed by the Ying, Borromeo, Maia, Enso, Chiara, Del Sol, Jupiter, and Dover Quartets, violinist Midori, and the Music from Copland House ensemble, among others. Recent album releases include his Violin Concerto (2019), String Theory (2021), Air in Motion (2022), and most recently, Terra Incognita (String Quartet No. 5) (2023), which features the Escher String Quartet.
Jalbert is Professor of Composition at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, where he has taught since 1996. He is co-founder of Musiqa, a Houston-based new music collective, and his music is published by Schott Music.
Juan Pablo Contreras
Juan Pablo Contreras (b. 1987, Guadalajara, Mexico) is a two-time Latin GRAMMY-nominated composer who combines Western classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape. His works have been performed by 50 major orchestras around the world including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra (USA), the Extremadura Orchestra (Spain), the Jalisco Philharmonic (Mexico), the Córdoba Symphony (Argentina), the Medellín Philharmonic (Colombia), and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. He is the winner of the 2023 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Music and is celebrated as the first Mexican-born composer to sign a record deal with Universal Music, serve as Sound Investment Composer with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and win the BMI William Schuman Prize.
Contreras has received commissions from Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, California Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Tucson Symphony, ROCO, and Richmond Symphony. He has won awards including the Presser Music Award, the Jalisco Orchestral Composition Prize, the Brian Israel Prize, the Pi Kappa Lambda Award, the Arturo Márquez Composition Contest, the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the Dutch Harp Composition Contest, the Nicolas Flagello Award, and the Young Artist Fellowship of Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and the Arts. Contreras has also served as Composer-in-Residence with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the soundON Festival of Modern Music in San Diego, the Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio, and at the Turtle Bay Music School and Concerts on the Slope in New York.
He holds degrees in composition from the University of Southern California (DMA), the Manhattan School of Music (MM), and the California Institute of the Arts (BFA). His most influential teachers include Richard Danielpour, Daniel Catán, Nils Vigeland, Andrew Norman, and Donald Crockett. Contreras’ music has been recorded on Universal Music Mexico, EMI, Albany Records, Epsa Music, and Urtext Digital Classics. Contreras serves on the Board of Directors of New Music USA. He lives in Los Angeles, and currently teaches orchestration and music theory at the USC Thornton School of Music.
Program Notes
Baião N’ Blues (2023)
Clarice Assad (b. 1978)
[West Coast Premiere]
Commissioned by KMFA, Classical 89.5 in Austin, Texas, for its 2023 Draylen Mason Composer-in-Residence initiative. Dedicated to Lou Ann and Bill Lasher, and the memory of Draylen Mason (2000-2018).
“Baião N’ Blues” is an orchestral composition celebrating the vibrant fusion of two diverse musical worlds. Inspired by Brazilian music’s lively rhythms and infused with American blues’ soulful essence, the piece explores cross-cultural musical influences. Juxtaposing Brazilian themes with bluesy inflections, the composition presents a seamless and delightful blend of harmonious colors. Throughout the orchestral journey, a sense of lightness and humor permeates the musical landscape, inviting the audience to engage in a spirited dialogue. Commissioned by KMFA for the University of Texas Orchestra under conductor Douglas Kinney Frost, “Baião N’ Blues” showcases the power of music to transcend cultural boundaries and connect people through the art of listening.
— Clarice Assad
Violin Concerto (2024)
Errollyn Wallen (b. 1958)
[West Coast Premiere]
It has been a fascinating journey creating my first violin concerto.
When one composes for a virtuoso such as Philippe Quint, a world of possibilities opens up when the combination of expressivity, character and technical prowess is in one musician’s hands and available to explore. This has been a great inspiration to my musical thinking in this work.
A notable feature of the violin concerto is the inclusion of material which is biographical.
The listener will hear in the first movement music which triggered the memory of the sound of church bells heard by Philippe as a child in the Soviet Union and, in the second movement, a lullaby, ‘Shlof Mayn Fegele’ sung to the young Philippe by his grandfather. The final movement is playful and optimistic — evoking the welcome of a new life in America.
The concerto is in three movements.
I take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to Philippe Quint for discovering and championing my music and for the opportunity to collaborate with him and with all the orchestras involved in this commission in such a fruitful and enjoyable way.
– Errollyn Wallen
Passage (2018)
Pierre Jalbert (b. 1967)
[West Coast Premiere]
In my work, the title refers to the many meanings of the word ‘passage’: the journey from one place to another (many of my recent works have explored the idea of migration, a journey filled with trials and tribulations), the passage of time, and musical passages. The piece was originally commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as part of their Beethoven 250th anniversary commissioning project. There are references and transformations of musical passages from Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony throughout the piece. Many of these passages were simply starting points and evolved into new and unique musical material. The idea of the passage of time and transforming older music into a modern musical language also played a part in the work. The piece is in three contrasting movements, with each movement responding to a different aspect of Beethoven’s score. Ultimately, the work stands on its own terms to form something of our own time – a journey from one place to another.
– Pierre Jalbert
Mariachitlán (2016)
Juan Pablo Contreras (b. 1987)
Mariachitlán (Mariachiland) is an orchestral homage to my birthplace, the Mexican state of Jalisco, where mariachi music originated. The work recounts my experience visiting the Plaza de los Mariachis in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco, a place where mariachis play their songs in every corner and interrupt each other to win over the crowd.
In Mariachitlán, traditional rhythms such as the canción ranchera (ranchera song) in 2/4 time (choon-tah choon-tah), the vals romántico (romantic waltz) in 3/4 time (choon-tah-tah), and the son jalisciense (Jalisco song) that alternates between 6/8 and 3/4 time, accompany original melodies inspired by the beautiful landscapes of Jalisco. Mariachi instruments such as the trumpet, harp, and violin are featured as soloists in this work. Furthermore, the strings emulate the strumming patterns of vihuleas, while the contrabasses growl like guitarrones.
Near the end of the piece, a policeman blows his whistle in an attempt to stop the party. However, the crowd chants Mariachitlán, gradually increasing in intensity, and is rewarded with more vibrant music that ends the work with great brilliance.
– Juan Pablo Contreras