Music Features

Every year around this time, something remarkable happens in Santa Cruz: The annual Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music convenes, and this sunny beach town best known for its boardwalk becomes a thriving new-music laboratory. Under Music Director Marin Alsop, the two-week festival attracts an impressive array of top composers, musicians, and aficionados eager for a total immersion in the music of our time.

A heavy air of reverence fills the theater space as audience members quietly take their seats — the viewing ritual of a centuries-old art form. The lights dim and people are afforded the luxury of whispered anonymity: “It’s based on a true story, you know.” David Gockley, San Francisco Opera’s sixth general director, greets the audience with an introduction to Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The orchestra tunes. Silence descends before the curtain rises.

Three centuries ago, Antonio Vivaldi was able to find musical magic in all four of the Mantuan seasons. Our own summer gifts kids with more time to to pursue the classical muse: They're temporarily freed from the classroom, evening homework, and the need to go early to bed. It’s high time, then, to take a look at a panoply of kid-and-parent-friendly and mostly free-of-charge musical activities around the Bay Area.

Festivals, unlike single concerts, are full-immersion events with lots of possibilities to explore all at once. In an effort to bring the festival experience closer to our readers, SFCV sent two writers to “blog” for a full day (last Saturday) at the Berkeley Festival. One master class, two concerts, and one exhibition later, enervated by the day’s oppressive heat, they filed this report.