From Guest Artist to Director at La Jolla
by CHO-LIANG LIN

SummerFest La Jolla presented its 16th festival this past August on the beautiful shorelines just north of San Diego. La Jolla is blessed with temperate weather even in the summer, though what one might notice first is the glut of luxury cars on the streets. (The local Mercedes dealership tells me that, for his clientele, the 92038 zip code is the most desirable one south of Beverly Hills.) But enough of weather and wealth...

I became SummerFest’s artistic director in October 2000. Over the years I had been a frequent guest artist and loved it and the place from the first day. The festival has a loyal following and enjoys an unusual rapport with its many supporters. Most of the musicians are hosted in private homes, where lifelong friendships form. Musicians can practice all they want, and the hosts take delight in hearing music at home. One even procured a Steinway concert grand in order to provide the best instrument possible for her guest. New York City should be so nice!

The author and Kyoko Takezawa with a student at a violin master class.

But being the director is quite a different experience from being a guest artist, and presents many new challenges. One is programming. The process of putting together the various works is akin to a giant jigsaw puzzle. I know what kind of programs I want to present, but will the artists I have in mind want to play them? Will they be able to play them well? Then there is the audience. I want to put on new and adventurous works, but they must be balanced not only with standard works, but works that are meaningful and have not been recently performed at the festival. As a first-year director, I have to establish a rapport and trust with the subscribers. Then there is the consideration that rehearsal time might not be aplenty due to the artists’ schedules. A lot to worry about…

Luckily, it all came together nicely. This year, SummerFest (www.ljcms.org) presented nine main subscription concerts; one fundraiser gala; three community outreach concerts (one of which took place in the naval amphibious assault base); one violin master class; and two special events (one of which was author/cellist Mark Salzman giving a hilarious account of how he overcame his writer’s block to finish his book, Lying Awake; the other, a jazz concert featuring Mark O’Connor and Steven Mackey). In addition, there was a series of seven chat-plus-Q&A shows called Encounters, featuring musicians, medical experts, and recording producers; and 30 public coaching sessions of three young string quartets given by festival artists. All this in 19 days!

National Public Radio was there, too, to set up its first West Coast residence for their flagship “Performance Today” program. NPR not only broadcasted the concerts, but carried many of the Encounters and the master class on its Web site (www.npr.com). It was my first experience with webcasting, a great way to transmit music and a wealth of content.

The great joy for me was always the main concerts. To be able to sit down and explore both new and familiar chamber music with colleagues is sheer bliss. (Looking out over the azure ocean from your rehearsal room while knowing that the rest of country is baking in 100-degree-plus heat was comforting too.)

Many well-known works were performed, among them the Brahms B-flat Sextet, Schubert’s “Death and Maiden” Quartet, the Mozart E-flat Piano Quartet, and lots of others. Several new works got to shine alongside these great warhorses. I was fortunate to find three composers to be a part of the festival; all three are also performers, which gave audiences a chance to hear them interpret their own music. Steven Mackey brought his electric guitar and performed in two of his works, Troubadour Songs and Physical Property, scored for electric guitar and string quartet. The effect of these works was fantastic (dare I say electrifying?) and the combination of an electric with acoustic instruments presented a range of colors not normally encountered. The Borromeo Quartet performed Steve’s Ars Moriendi, a powerful quartet about the composer’s father’s dying and death. It’s a poignant work worth hearing many times.

Mark O’Connor and Bruce Adolphe presented more conventional—though no less inventive—music. Mark, a formidable fiddler and a Grammy winner, played his String Quartet and selections from his hit album, Appalachian Journey. I was the second fiddle in the quartet. It was interesting to work with Mark, who comes from a very different tradition. He possesses an uncanny sense of rhythm. While the three classically trained musicians in the quartet are trying to figure out a passage’s complexity, Mark just cruises along as if it were the easiest music in the world. As is his habit, Mark taps his foot when he plays. During the concert, there was a moment of near panic when, in a very fast passage, he stopped tapping. We had our eyes glued to his foot for rhythm and cue. Suddenly it was not there! Thankfully, Mark remembered that we needed his foot and resumed the tapping moments later, so we were saved.

Performing the Quartet by Mark O’Connor are the composer and Cho-Liang Lin, violinists; Felix Fan, cellist; and Paul Neubauer, violist. (Photos by Charles Abbott/Digital Arts Aspen)

Bruce brought with him a song cycle written for Sylvia McNair called A Thousand Years of Love, a beautiful work of depth and humor. He also presided over the California premiere of his Tyrannosaurus Sue—A Cretaceous Concerto, a work written for the unveiling of the famous tyrannosaur which was bought at an auction in 1997 for over eight million dollars. Written for an ensemble of strings, winds, percussion, and a menacing trombone representing Sue the T. Rex, it’s the only work of music I have ever seen mentioned in the National Geographic.

La Jolla presented some unusual works by non-living composers as well. In an all-Spanish program, Sylvia McNair sang De Falla’s Siete Canciones Popular (many Juilliard violinists play the version called Suite Populaire Espagnole), with guitarist Pepe Romero. Hearing the text and the flamenco flavor brought on by the guitar transported me to Seville’s barrios. In the same concert was a rarely heard violin sonata by the late Joaquim Rodrigo. It is called Sonata Pimpante (which, according to the composer’s daughter, means energetic and lively) and I had never heard it. Gil Shaham and Anthony Newman played it for the first time, and their performance brought the house down! I urge violinists to explore this work—it’s the closest we get to playing the famous Concierto de Aranjuez. And it is a far better work than his violin concerto.

All in all, some 39 musicians played in SummerFest this year (not counting three young quartets). And of course Juilliard had to do with many of them. So let’s name drop: Adele Anthony, David Chan, Ilya Gringolts, Mark Kaplan, Gil Shaham, Kyoko Takezawa, Toby Hoffman, Paul Neubauer, Evan Wilson, Carter Brey, Bruce Adolphe, Anthony Newman, Helen Huang, Catherine Ransom, John Bruce Yeh, and Deborah Hoffman. To be in their company was simply fabulous. I think the audience felt it too. Every concert was sold out, even with stage seats.

It’s also worth noting that a group of young Juilliard talent was there as members of the chamber music workshop: The Phaedrus Quartet, with Ilya Gringolts, Yuna Lee, Kyle Armbrust and Evie Koh, took daily quartet lessons, performed in outreach concerts (they are the ones who serenaded the amphibious assault troops), and finally played the Ravel quartet on a main concert. These musicians, along with the other two quartets in the workshop, acquired avid following from the La Jolla audience, who were eager to watch them progress and to see how they react to all the different coaches and interpretations.

Naturally, it’s already time to start worrying about next summer. Many components for the next festival are well in place and, after a vigorous winter season ahead, I will be ready for SummerFest 2002. Everyone’s invited!

Violinist Cho-Liang Lin has been a faculty member since 1991.