SFCV: At Cabrillo, Contemporary Composers Have Something to Say
“The season opened on July 31 with the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass's Symphony No. 15, "Lincoln," and Vivian Fung's America the Beautiful? — a title that ends, pointedly, in a question mark. But composers are talking to audiences throughout the festival, and the trend reaches twin peaks in the closing weekend: Clarice Assad's orchestra-theater piece Kontrol and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove's closing reflection, in which she recites original poetry honoring the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. alongside Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.”
“Fung — a dual Canadian and American citizen of Chinese descent — meanwhile wrote her five-minute Festival commission for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. “When Riley [Nicholson] proposed it, I was like, ‘And you’re choosing me for this? Why?’ But I think, on reflection, it’s a really good choice because they want to show that America is not a one-size-fits-all [idea].”
Her piece, she said, grows out of the urgency of the present moment. “I have the responsibility of portraying the message and storytelling that we need. Other people are not taking the responsibility and that void needs to be filled. It’s an important time to be an artist — I see the necessity of it. And there’s a lot of messages across [my work] — not all of it is meant to be political. It’s a message about humanity and the age we live in. At times it can become political. But it’s up to us to tell these stories.””
“The differences between Assad and Fung are a microcosm of the variety of American music and musicians that Cabrillo is highlighting this year. Assad is the daughter of famed Brazilian guitarist Sérgio Assad and her aunt is the singer-songwriter Badi Assad. She has said that her home is “The Americas.” She comes out of the Brazilian popular-music tradition.
Fung is the daughter of Chinese immigrants to Canada who made sacrifices to send her to the Juilliard School for composition, where she launched her career. Like Assad's, her work spans an enormous range — neither composer can be pinned to an ethnicity or a performance tradition...”