GABRIELA ORTIZ

Latin Grammy–nominated Gabriela Ortiz is one of the foremost composers in Mexico today.

She has composed three operas, in all of which interdisciplinary collaboration has been a vital experience. Notably, these operas are framed by political contexts of great complexity, such as the drug war in Only the Truth, illegal migration between Mexico and the United States in Ana and her Shadow, and the violation of university autonomy during the student movement of 1968 in Firefly

Ortiz’s music has been commissioned and performed all over the world by prestigious ensembles, soloists, and orchestras. Recent premieres include Yanga and Téenek, both pieces commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel; Luciérnaga (Firefly, her third opera), commissioned and produced by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; and Únicamente la Verdad (Only the Truth, her first opera), with Long Beach Opera and Opera de Bellas Artes in Mexico.

She has been honored with the National Prize for Arts and Literature and has been inducted into the Mexican Academy of the Arts. Born in Mexico City, her parents were musicians in the renowned folk music ensemble Los Folkloristas. She trained with the eminent composer Mario Lavista at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música and with Federico Ibarra at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She teaches composition at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and as a visiting professor at Indiana University. Her music is published by Schott, Ediciones Mexicanas de Música, Saxiana Presto, and Tre Fontane.

They play the Andante from Haydn’s last completed work in the medium, composed in 1799 and deemed by the composer himself as his “most beautiful string quartet.” Beginning with an almost folklike duet for just violin and cello, Haydn varies the main idea in profoundly surprising ways.

Zakir Hussain composed Pallavi in 2017 as part of Kronos Quartet’s 50 for the Future project to create repertory for a new generation of music lovers; Reena Esmail prepared this arrangement. The composer has provided this commentary: “Pallavi is the ancient Carnatic word for ‘composition.’ Each raga would have at least 100 traditional compositions of this type. The piece as written follows the prescribed format of the ancient Pallavi in which there is first Pallavi, then Anu Pallavi followed by Charnam.... Unlike the traditional Pallavi based in one raga, I have used four different ragas and tried to find a way to give each instrument its own personality with a raga assigned just for it. By doing so I hoped to address the Western system, which employs counterpoint and harmony, through the multi-tonal play of the four ragas working in tandem in certain passages. There is also interplay between different rhythm cycles (Tala) using 4, 6, 9, and 16 beats, each assigned to an instrument in the quartet.”

As with the Haydn piece, economy of means is at the fore in Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 3. It derives from his score for Paul Schrader’s biographical film about the Japanese writer Mishima (1985). The Attaccas recorded the work on their 2021 album Of All Joys, which juxtaposes music of the Renaissance with the Minimalist aesthetic.

Beloved, Do Not Let Me Be Discouraged began as a collaboration between Kayhan Kalhor and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. Working on a production with the Silkroad Ensemble, the violinist Colin Jacobsen had become fascinated by Layla and Majnun, the story of star-crossed lovers immensely popular in the Middle East (whose Western counterpart is often said to be Romeo and Juliet). Knowledge of the rich tradition of Persian music is no prerequisite to being swept away by Kalhor’s depiction of the state of lovemadness central to the telling of the story, with its anticipation of medieval European troubadours.

To embark on their collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens at the 2023 Ojai Music Festival, the musicians have chosen two especially characteristic songs: Last Kind Words, which Giddens covers on her debut solo album from 2015 (Tomorrow Is My Turn), was written and recorded by Geeshie Wiley in 1930 and condenses an evocative drama into the country blues idiom. Giddens’s Lullaby, from her 2017 album Folk Songs with the Kronos Quartet, only hints at the underlying situation, endured by countless enslaved women, that makes it so heartbreaking: “such a shame now, little baby, that you are not my own.”

In memory of the late David Crosby, who died at his ranch in nearby Santa Ynez in January, the Attacca Quartet performs a piece that violist Nathan Schram wrote with the legendary songwriter called Where We Are Not. Schram transformed the song I’d

Here from Crosby’s debut solo album of 1970 (If I Could Only Remember My Name) into a haunting new composition on his solo record Nearsided, which he arranged for Attacca. “It’s about people we had both lost in the past but now has taken on a new meaning,” says Schram.

The Attaccas also pay tribute to their close collaboration with composer Caroline Shaw, offering selections from their most recent recording, which won a Grammy Award this year. Shaw’s quartet writing is often inspired by gardens and trees — as is the case with The Evergreen, a fourmovement work she has described as “an offering” to a tree in a coniferous forest on one of the islands in the Salish Sea separating Canada and the U.S. Shaw’s vivid, gestural writing for the strings reclaims the Romantic aspiration toward “organically” inspired art for our climateanxious time.

A decade ago, on their Fellow Traveler album devoted to the string quartet music John Adams had written up to that point, Attacca Quartet put their own stamp on his 1994 collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, John’s Book of Alleged Dances They play two of the 10 dances — whose “general tone is dry, droll, sardonic,” according to the composer — that call for a pre-recorded percussion track played by prepared piano.

One of the Attacca Quartet’s most experimental projects to date in crossing borders is their 2021 album Real Life, which gave them a platform to repaint the musical canvases of leading artists and producers in electronica and avant hip-hop, including Squarepusher. Their blending of the string quartet — historically, a benchmark of acoustic intimacy — with the contemporary dance floor’s amplified reverberations can sound by turns thrillingly chaotic and serenely surreal.

This concert is approximately 115 minutes.

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Don Pattison

The Ojai residency of the Iranian Female Composers Association is made possible, in part, by the gracious support of the Farhang Foundation

There is no intermission during the concert

Friday, June 9, 2023 | 8:00am

Emi Ferguson flute | Ross Karre percussion | Tara Khozein soprano | Niloufar Shiri kamancheh

Aida Shirazi electronics | Steven Schick percussion | red fish blue fish percussion

Golfam KHAYAM Lost Wind

Emi Ferguson flute | Ross Karre percussion

Aida SHIRAZI

Yearning, Every Dawn World Premiere

Commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival

Niloufar Shiri kamancheh | Aida Shirazi electronics

Tara Khozein soprano (recorded)

Edgard VARÈSE

Density 21.5

Emi Ferguson flute

CHOU Wen-Chung

Echoes from the Gorge prelude (exploring the modes) raindrops on bamboo leaves echoes from the gorge autumn pond clear moon shadows in the ravine old tree by the cold spring droplets down the rocks drifting clouds rolling pearls peaks and cascades falling rocks and flying spray red fish blue fish, Steven Schick percussion

Golfam

Edgard VARÈSE (1883-1965)

Density 21.5 (1936)

CHOU Wen-Chung (1923-2019)

Echoes from the Gorge (1989)