The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, America’s longest-running festival of new orchestral music, presents its second-ever virtual season over two weekends in Summer 2021: July 31-August 1, and August 7-8.

Cabrillo Festival’s presentation of composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer’s INTONATIONS: Songs from the Violins of Hope is the culmination of an extensive SF Bay Area collaboration begun in 2020 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. “The Violins of Hope” are a collection of violins of the Holocaust, many used in the concentration camps, which have been meticulously restored by Israeli luthiers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein. Inspired by James Grymes’ book “Violins of Hope,” INTONATIONS tells the extraordinary tale of six of these storied instruments. Directed by Elena Park with cinematography by Frazer Bradshaw, this moving work features mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, violinist Benjamin Beilman, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and youth violinist Thais Chernyavski performing the full chamber version of the work. The 45-minute performance interweaves portions of the orchestral version of the music, recorded remotely by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra.

Click here for more information on how to join and the program notes: https://cabrillomusic.org/2021-season/intonations-concert/

Support for this event was provided by the Humanities Institute, the Neufled Levin Chair in Holocaust Studies, and Temple Beth El.