While a rallying cry of  “the cutting edge artistic innovation” is generally received as a warning to traditionally-minded music audiences, the Carlsbad Music Festival has managed to make this premise surprisingly audience friendly. A pair of festival concerts on Saturday (Sept. 22) afternoon—Andy Akiho and Friends and the choral ensemble Sacra/Profana—demonstrated how this festival makes the avant garde accessible. Following Timothy Andres’ impressive solo piano recital at the Carlsbad Village Theatre (which I reviewed separately on SanDiegoStory.com), the audience members strolled a few blocks through old Carlsbad to Magee Park, where composer and virtuoso steel pannist Andy Akiho and his…

Rarely does a formidable program of new music leave the listener eager for more. But Timothy Andres’ Saturday (Sept. 22) afternoon recital at the Carlsbad Music Festival made me want to hear a lot more of this astute 27-year-old pianist and composer. In a cunning juxtaposition of  four substantial, recent piano compositions with four concise selections from Robert Schumann’s “Forest Scenes,” Andres demonstrated the continuity of keyboard invention over two centuries, and at the same time suggested how prescient old Schumann’s explorations were. Of course none of this musicological insight would have unfolded without Andres’ fleet technique, subtle shadings, and…