SummerFest 'Reimagined' For Online Audience

Speaker 1: 00:00 Each summer for 35 years, classical musicians from around the world have assembled in LA Jolla for a celebration of chamber music. And despite the pandemic social distancing and closed concert halls, the LA Jolla music society Summerfest will not break that tradition. This year's shortened series of concerts is being built as Summerfest re-imagined musicians will perform live onstage at the Conrad previs performing arts center, but their only audience will be online. Joining me to introduce Summerfest re-imagined is the festivals, music director pianist [inaudible]. And in on, welcome back to the show. Thank you. It's great to be back. The festival has gone through several iterations this year before the final version, which streaming audiences will see beginning on Friday. Now, back in may, you were actually going to postpone the summer Fest for a year. Why did you decide to move forward? Speaker 2: 00:57 Well, we kind of decided, I decided to have a two pronged approach. I postponed the festival as it was originally planned to next year because I thought that a watered down version of something is not what I want to do. So actually we are doing the festival as it was originally planned next year, but it occurred to me that you can't really water down something for this, but you can create something new. You can certainly tailor the programs and the musicians, everything to this specific situation, which is what Speaker 1: 01:31 We did well. The festival had originally been planned, uh, for 18 concerts and a dozen musicians. What will this smaller version be? Speaker 2: 01:39 Actually, we had more than 18 musicians coming originally and 18 concerts over three weeks and, and lots and lots of events and, uh, new opera and, uh, resident artists. There was a lot that was going on a lot that will be going on in 2021. But as this pandemic forced us all to isolate also forced us to find new ways to connect. So I thought that intimacy is really the heart and soul of chamber music. And it's the way that we've been able to connect with each other, whether it's through zoom or whether it's through very limited contact with people and in music, sometimes that's an actual advantage. So I assembled a very mighty group of apart from myself, six musicians who are coming and are isolating with each other and playing all these incredible pieces that are the ones that I feel are closest to me, kind of cheering music, boil to its essence in a way Speaker 1: 02:40 All the concerts actually be performed. Speaker 2: 02:42 We are performing them live from the stage here at the Conrad Connor. Previs a performing arts center and this incredible Baker bound concert hall, which has, uh, one of the best acoustics in the country. And thankfully this, this hall has already because it's brand new, it's just opened last year. And it has a whole host of very high Def cameras with automatic zooms and tilts. And we have a director that's coming to direct the whole thing and make it look and sound as best as possibly could. So that you feel when you're watching this from home, that it's about as close as I possibly can get to being in there. Speaker 1: 03:24 What performances are on this year Summerfest program? We have, Speaker 2: 03:28 Uh, six concerts. The first one starts actually, it's the only prerecorded, uh, I've been in the whole festival because I wanted to pay homage to the people that couldn't be with us. All of these musicians that we couldn't invite this year, uh, and positions are struggling. And, and, uh, I wanted to raise awareness for that. And, uh, we start with an amazing piece by Charles Ives called the unanswered question, which is almost a spacial piece where there was three different groups in the musical landscape, all distanced from each other, both musically and physically. Uh, we have a bed of strings and a very, very beautiful uninterrupted, gorgeous sounding chords. And then a group of wind players who consistently try and challenge them and trumpet, which asks what I've said is a perennial question of existence, which to me was a very, very apropos of where, what we're going through this a lot of uncertainty and ultimately these interruptions are not going to derail the beauty of music. So that's, we start with 27 players from around the country and the world who sent in their, their parts. Uh, and we were assembling this, this performance, uh, with the people that are going to be on stage playing where the people that should have been on stage. Speaker 1: 04:55 And you'll be performing a piece with one of your friends, a cello star. Tell us about that Speaker 2: 05:02 Wyler Stein. And I have been playing together for years for maybe what, 12 years now. Uh, we, we love playing with each other and, uh, I've recorded together. And thankfully her husband is a music director of San Diego symphony. So she is here in San Diego and, and, and she'll be part of this mighty group and we're going to play a Beethoven Sonata together, and many other things, uh, Mendelssohn trio and, and just a host of great, great, great pieces and James Enis. Uh, one of my favorite violinists in the world is going to be here. Tessa, Lark, incredible violinist from Kentucky and Michael Thurber, wonderful bass player. And Clive Greensmith is very well known here to pupil a cellist. And you're a Lee as well, violinist and violist, all incredible players that I'm thrilled to have with me. And we're going to divide and conquer. We're going to divide into different groups and form a intimate musical community with all these pieces. Speaker 1: 06:05 Now, we obviously don't have any sound clips from any of those pieces, but we do have from one of your previous performances with Chellis Elisa Weiler Stein, this is Rachmaninoff's Sonata for G major and for piano and cello Opus 19 Speaker 2: 06:45 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 06:45 In order to see the stream Summerfest concerts, people still have to get tickets. Isn't that right? Yeah. Speaker 2: 06:53 First of all, putting in, putting on these constants at this level is not, it's not cheap. We have to invest a lot of money in the, in both an infrastructure and the people and pay the musicians, uh, proper wages. But I also believe that music has value and that these concerts are the best that you can get. Uh, we were charging us a relatively small amount in terms of tickets, uh, uh, it's $15 per ticket, or you can buy the package of all six. And I feel that it's also a way to connect between the musicians and the audience. We were all making an investment to be there. And I'm thrilled that, uh, we've had such a great response so far with people wanting to hear these concerts. Speaker 1: 07:41 This will undoubtedly be a memorable summer Fest if for no other reason than because of the pandemic precautions, but what would you like the audience to take away from Summerfest this year? Speaker 2: 07:53 We're interrupted in so many different ways, but music is always there to connect us and to provide solace and inspiration. And I think we all in this spend them realized the things that we miss most and the things that are most important to us are not always the ones that we think they are. They're not always material things, but rather the things that make us happy to be with ourselves and music is one of those things. So I'm just thrilled to be able to, to both get together with my friends and musicians, make music with each other, but also be able to communicate that Speaker 1: 08:31 Summer Fest begins. This Friday runs through August 29th. Live-streamed concerts will air on the LA Jolla music society, YouTube channel. And I've been speaking with Summerfest music director. [inaudible] good luck. And thank you. Speaker 2: 08:46 Thank you so much. Great to be here.