Discovery August 4, 2012

Chinese composer Huang Ruo's vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from indigenous folk, Western avant-garde, rock, and jazz. In the West Coast premiere of Shattered Steps, Ruo will perform live vocal improvisation. The work is based on a tune he composed during a trip to the mountains in the Guizhou Province in Southwestern China, and the title translates in Chinese as Sui Bu, which has two meanings-broken steps, and small steps in continuous and rapid motion-each reflected musically in the composition.

Next will be the world premiere of Emmy award-winning composer John Wineglass' Someone Else's Child, narrated by Charles Holt. Wineglass' symphonic poem integrates writing by kids in the Santa Cruz juvenile detention center and poignantly describes the life and thoughts of incarcerated youth in America today.

The Festival then salutes an integral figure in its history when Marin Alsop leads the Festival Orchestra in Carlos Chavez's Discovery. Of this work Chavez wrote: "To me, 'discovery' means discovery of sound, discovery of music, inventing of music...," and he seized the opportunity to forge new and unfamiliar ground with the creation of this piece.

The evening concludes with a special anniversary work, Woman of the Apocalypse, by preeminent Scottish composer James MacMillan, commissioned as a centerpiece of the 50th anniversary season. This major new work is a concerto for orchestra inspired by a range of visual artworks depicting the Woman of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation, including those by Drer, Rubens, Dore, Blake, and Marvenko, among others. MacMillan has a long and treasured working relationship with Alsop and the Cabrillo Festival. He is described by The Guardian (UK) as "...a composer so confident of his own musical language that he makes it instantly communicative to his listeners."

A Talkback Session with Marin Alsop and the composers follows the concert.

Official Website: http://cabrillomusic.org/2012-season/performances/discovery.html