2019: A Pivotal Year in San Diego’s Classical Music Scene
Every season has its high points and low points, but 2019 became a truly remarkable year for classical music in San Diego. In the four decades I have been covering this beat, 2019 strikes me as pivotal, and three events have set in motion this sea change.
The first was April’s opening of the La Jolla Music Society’s Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in the heart of La Jolla; the second, Inon Barnatan’s inaugural season as Music Director of La Jolla SummerFest in August, and the third, Rafael Payare’s reshaping this fall of the San Diego Symphony as its new Music Director.
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Zach Smithey in The JAI with Callisto Quartet [photo (c.) SanDiegoStory]
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Daniil Trifonov [photo (c) Alexander Ivanov]
The new facilities adroitly accommodated Inon Barnatan’s expanded vision of SummerFest. On two consecutive evenings, the Mark Morris Dance Group took over Baker-Baum, accompanied by a dozen SummerFest musicians tucked neatly in front of the stage. The company’s exciting, creative program included the world premiere of Morris’s “Arrows.Eros.” On another program, painter Zach Smithey commandeered the center of The JAI and created with large, bold strokes a massive painting to the music of Biber, Ravel, Bach and Janáček performed by SummerFest musicians on The JAI’s stage. Patrons stood several rows deep to watch Smithey’s painting take shape to the music.
Barnatan invited composer David Lang to curate two different concerts at The JAI of new music by young composers; Timo Andres’ Piano Trio with the composer at the keyboard stood out among these varied offerings. And the contemporary music was not fenced off in its own program, as has so often been the earlier SummerFest practice. The centerpiece of one concert in Baker-Baum, for example, was George Crumb’s “Vox Balaenae” (“Voice of the Whale”) surrounded by pieces by Debussy and Ravel. The festival’s concluding chamber orchestra program included works by Ellen Taafe Zwillich and Andrew Norman interspersed among the usual Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi.
Having just assumed his role as Music Director of the San Diego Symphony in October, Rafael Payare has already turned its cautious programming around and has harnessed the
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Rafael Payare [photo (c.) Bjorne Bertheussen]
Although I cannot summon much enthusiasm for San Diego Opera’s 2019 MainStage productions of predictable standard repertory, it was a great year to experience stellar sopranos: Michelle Bradley as Aïda and Alisa Jordheim as Gilda in Rigoletto. But neither of them came close to the fiery soprano Ailyn Pérez in her duo recital “One Amazing Night” with tenor Joshua Guerrero, who proved just as vocally and emotionally resplendent in their rousing performance at the Balboa Theatre earlier this month.
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Matthew Aucoin [photo (c.) Steven Laxton]
A year from now we will see if these pivotal changes continue to flourish or wither on the vine.
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Ken Herman, a classically trained pianist and organist, has covered music for the San Diego Union, the Los Angeles Times’ San Diego Edition, and for sandiego.com. He has won numerous awards, including first place for Live Performance and Opera Reviews in the 2017, the 2018, and the 2019 Excellence in Journalism Awards competition held by the San Diego Press Club. A Chicago native, he came to San Diego to pursue a graduate degree and stayed.Read more…