May 20, 6:00 pm
Barnum Hall Santa Monica

Lou Harrison
  Suite for Violin with String Orchestra (1996)
Terry Riley
  Olson III (1967) US Premiere
    
                                               
Alyssa Park, violin
Jacaranda Strings
Jacaranda Festival Orchestra & Chorus
Mark Alan Hilt, conductor

When California maverick composer Lou Harrison found the bulkiness of the American gamelan was limiting performances of his ravishingly persuasive Suite for Violin, he trimmed a few sections and made an all-strings version. This immanently portable adaptation should enter the standard concerto repertory of 21st century orchestras. The seductive siren call of Terry Riley's music gained him a major commission in Sweden, but like the mythic Greek sailors lured to shipwreck, the premiere — broadcast live on Swedish radio — was as calamitous as any in music history. Overshadowed by his landmark phenomenon In C, Riley's astonishing conductor-less Olsen III asks a large ensemble of instrumentalists and singers to listen as they have never listened before.