San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
‘SELF AND SOUND’
This year’s Summerfest focuses on how we find ourselves reflected in music
Championing musical diversity is a key impetus for acclaimed Israeli-american pianist Inon Barnatan, who hopes his upcoming second season as the music director for the La Jolla Music Society’s annual Summerfest will raise the bar. ■ That goal is amplified by the theme and title for the 18 concerts, “Self and Sound,” which runs from July 31 to Aug. 21 at the $82 million, 11-month-old Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. ■ “The idea of ‘Self and Sound’ — and of how a composer writes themselves into their music and how we are reflected in music — is something I find fascinating,” said Barnatan, who will perform on piano at eight of the Summerfest concerts.
“There can also be pitfalls to that approach, because you don’t want to be too literal. And, sometimes, we all tend to be literal trying to read things into music that are (extraneous) to the music . ... But some composers do write pieces that express their story, nationality or identity. In some cases, other people or personalities were the inspiration for composers and their music. So, all of these are ways of looking at identity and self, and how we are reflected in music.”
The eclectic array of composers whose works will be featured ranges from Mozart, Brahms and Stravinsky to Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz giant Wynton Marsalis, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Mary Lou Williams. The Aug. 16 and 18 “Takeover at The JAI” concerts are being curated by Latin Grammy Award winner and Guggenheim Fellow Gabriela Lena Frank, who has chosen works written by South Indian violinist Anjna Swaminathan, Iranian-american composer Iman Habibi and New England cellist and dancer Akshaya Avril Tucker, among others.
The lineup of 88 performers includes such luminaries as cellist Alisa Weilerstein, violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist/composer Conrad Tao. Jazz piano wiz Aaron Diehl, who appeared at last year’s Summerfest with Barnatan and Grammy Award-winning singer Cecile Mclorin Salvant, will this year perform with his trio at the Aug. 9 American Perspectives III: “Rhapsodies in Blues” concert.
For the Aug. 20 Synergy II: “Mirrors” concert, percussion marvel (and UC San Diego professor) Steven Schick will team with composer Tamar Muskal and her husband, interactive visual artist Daniel Rozin, who is creating a special kinetic mirror sculpture that will also serve as a percussion instrument triggered by Schick’s body movements.
This year’s Summerfest will feature several other firsts. They include: two early-evening happy hour concerts on Aug. 5 and Aug. 19; an Aug. 16 concert devoted to the music of American film composers; and, on Aug. 13, Marc Neikrug’s 2018 “A Song by Mahler,” the first chamber opera to be presented in Summerfest’s 31⁄2-decade history.
“I was very excited when Inon came up with the ‘Self and Sound’
theme,” said La Jolla Music Society director of programming Leah Rosenthal, who works closely with Barnatan to help him realize his vision. (“Leah is one of the best in the business,” he said.)
“Listeners will get to explore how the composers whose music we are featuring grew up,” Rosenthal continued, “and how the life challenges they faced and their nationalities, genders and all the parts of their identities really shaped the way they listen to and experience music, as well as how they compose.”
Musical and personal bridges
The most moving music can feel simultaneously universal and intensely personal. It can underscore and blur different styles and cultures to create bridges that connect listeners, regardless of whether they speak the same language or share the same cultural background as each other or the composers and performers they are hearing.
Celebrating such differences while illuminating underlying commonalities is another goal for Barnatan with this year’s Summerfest. It is the 35th annual edition in the society’s 51-year history.
“I look around and see how many barriers there are between people,” Barnatan said.
“That seems to be growing, the sense of division between people and how being different can be seen as a negative thing. And, in music, the differences between people are the most wonderful and compelling things — the differences between them and what makes them what they are. In some ways, the more individual they are, the more universal the message and the more people connect to it. So, that’s something I wanted to explore.”
Four of this year’s Summerfest concerts will be presented under the banner American Perspectives. That title is both all-encompassing and a bit of a misdirection. It is designed to expand the audience’s perspective about what it means to be an American musician, whether native-born or an immigrant from another country.
To cite one example, the Aug. 1 American Perspectives: “Goin’ Home” concert will juxtapose two string quartets by African-american composers — Florence Price’s “Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint” (1951) and Wynton
Marsalis’ “At the Octoroon Balls” (1999) — with two pieces by Anton Dvorák.
The famed Czech composer became the director of New York’s National Conservatory of Music in 1892 and traveled to Iowa and back during his three-year American residency. It was during his stay here that Dvorák composed his Symphony No. 9 (From the New World). “Goin Home” is based on the symphony’s “Largo” theme, played with the English horn. The concert, which will feature Atlanta’s Trey Mclaughlin and his Sounds of Zamar gospel choir, will also include Dvorák’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 97 “American.”
“We have ideas that ‘this’ or ‘that’ sounds American. And, many times, it’s a combination of a lot of different things that came from different places,” Barnatan noted.
“When Dvorák came to America, he was quoted in an interview saying he didn’t understand why American composers were writing music (that sounded) like Brahms and Strauss when they have their own folk traditions they could draw from. And he drew greatly from his own folk music traditions in Czechoslovakia.
“Dvorák also said that American composers should draw from their own culture, especially African-american music — including plantation songs and spirituals — which he came to know while living here. He could not understand why that wasn’t part of the American vernacular for composers here. When we hear ‘Goin’ Home,’ many people assume it’s a spiritual. But it’s by Dvorák even though it sounds American. He drew from his experience here, and composers like Florence Rice and Wynton Marsalis draw from their experience. So our American Perspectives concerts will be an exploration of all these fascinating things.”
Barnatan, 40, can address themes of cultural diversity, influence and assimilation directly from his own experiences.
Born and raised in Tel Aviv, he moved to London in his teens to further pursue his musical studies, then to Manhattan, where in 2014 he became the New York Philharmonic’s first-ever “artist in association.” Much in demand as a pianist with the world’s top orchestras and chamber ensembles, he became a naturalized American citizen several years ago.
“To a certain extent, I’m kind of a citizen of the world,” Barnatan said, speaking by phone from New York recently, where he was preparing for the release of his latest album of Beethoven piano cycles.
“I grew up in Israel, lived for 10 years in London, and have been living here in New York now for the past 14 to 15 years. I felt very much at home when I came to the United States, partly because I felt this it is a country that accepts and celebrates people from everywhere. One of the reasons I decided, after so many years of living here, to become a U.S. citizen is because I felt a certain decline.
“I wanted to be able to vote, and it became more and more important to me to become part of that equation, if that makes sense. And that also was an important reason why this particular ‘Self and Sound’ theme for Summerfest came about . ... I really hope what we did in our first year at Summerfest in 2019 can continue, because people came on a journey and were open to things they weren’t expecting or used to.”
La Jolla Music Society Summerfest 2020
All concerts are at 8 p.m. and take place at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla, unless otherwise indicated.
July 31: Opening Night: “When We Were Young,” Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, De Falla
Aug. 1: “Synergy I: American Sound,” Price, Wynton Marsalis, Libby Larsen, Dvorák
Aug. 2: “The Artist as Muse” (3 p.m.), Debussy, Britten, Stravinsky, Mozart
Aug. 5: Happy Hour Concert: “Notes on Freedom” (6:30 p.m.), Brahms, Andrew Norman
Aug. 7: “Life Story,” Sibelius, Shostakovich, Schubert, Smetana
Aug. 8: American Perspectives I: “Idealized Landscapes,” Ives, Barber, Caroline Shaw, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, John Williams, Copland
Aug. 9: American Perspectives II: “Rhapsodies in Blues,” (3 p.m.), Ravel, Schuller, Milhaud, Mary Lou Williams, Bernstein, Gershwin
Aug. 9: Jazz @ The JAI with The Aaron Diehl Trio (7 p.m.)
Aug. 11: “Tribalism,” Enescu, Berio, Stravinsky, Chopin
Aug. 13: “A Song by Mahler, An Evening at the Opera,” Kelly O’connor, Kelly Markgraf, David Shifrin, Flux Quartet, Doug Fitch, Marc Neikrug
Aug. 14: “Grand Duos,” Bottesini, Mozart
Aug. 15: Summerfest Gala
Aug. 16: American Perspectives III: “Inside the Cinematic Score” (3 p.m.), Barber, Jonny Greenwood, Herrmann, John Corigliano, Korngold
Aug. 16: “Takeover at The Jai,” curated by Gabriela Lena Frank: Act I (7 p.m.)
Aug. 18: “Takeover at The Jai,” curated by Gabriela Lena Frank: Act II (7 p.m.)
Aug. 19: Happy Hour Concert: “Intimate Letters” (6:30 p.m.), Janácek, Franck
Aug. 20: Synergy II: “Mirrors,” with Daniel Rozin, Tamar Muskal, Steven Schick
Aug. 21: Finale: “A Love Composed,” Wagner, Bacewicz, Brahms, Schumann
Tickets: Summerfest 2020 season ticket packages go on sale April 6. Solstice subscription ticket packages are priced from $629 to $929 for 12 concerts. Endless Summer season ticket packages are priced from $676 to $1,043 for 14 concerts. Non-subscription events at The JAI are $37 and $49 per ticket, and Synergy concert add-ons range from $43 to $64. Subscription renewals run through March 31. Single concert tickets go on sale April 6.
Phone: (858) 459-3728
Online: ljms.org