Four composers will join you in the audience for our second night as Maestro Măcelaru leads the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra in the West Coast premiere of Iván Enrique Rodríguez’ A Metaphor for Power—reflecting on our ideals of equality in America, as seen through the lens of the composer’s Latinx experience.

Iván Enrique Rodríguez: A Metaphor for Power (WCP)
Stacy Garrop: The Battle for the Ballot (WCP | Festival Commission)
(Texts from seven suffragists; Valerie Joi, narrator)
Paola Prestini: Let Me See the Sun (Lara Downes, piano)
John Harbison: The Great Gatsby Suite (WCP)

Stacy Garrop’s The Battle for the Ballot was commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival in 2020 to commemorate the centenary of women’s suffrage in America and incorporates the words of seven prominent Black and white suffragists, read by narrator Valerie Joi. It receives its West Coast premiere performance tonight, after a spectacular virtual premiere in 2020.

A second work celebrates voting rights and the passage of the 19th Amendment: Paola Prestini’s piano concerto Let Me See the Sun, which features trailblazing pianist Lara Downes. Prestini is hailed by the New York Times as an “imaginative composer,” as Let Me See the Sun demonstrates with an infusion of folk music, virtuosity, dissonance, and vocal simplicity. The concerto is about the human impulse to remain hopeful, structured as a dialogue between piano and orchestra, at times contentious and at times unified.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison is an 84-year old American master who has yet to be featured at Cabrillo Festival—until now. Harbison’s music is “rich with lyrical outpourings” (New York Times) that are filtered through his “rigorously crafted language” (Strings Magazine). The Great Gatsby Suite—adapted from his opera, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald—abounds in cakewalks, ragtime and jazz, and includes saxophones and banjo. Composed in 2007, the work receives its West Coast premiere tonight.

Covid-19 public health and safety guidelines will be followed, including requiring proof of full vaccination for all audiences, staff, and artists. Masking will be required indoors at all times. Read our full Covid Policy here.

Concert sponsored by The Humanities Institute.