CALIFORNIA DREAMING: FROM BAROQUE TO ROCK

Friday, August 2
Porto Montenegro Auditorium, 9 p.m.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING: FROM BAROQUE TO ROCK

Festival Orchestra
Gilles Apap, violin
Nir Kabaretti, conductor

PROGRAM

Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962)
Praeludium and Allegro*

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
Summer – 3rd movement, Presto from the cycle of Concerts for violin and orchestra The Four Seasons

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Violin Concerto in E major – 2nd movement, Adagio, BWV 1041

Manuel de Falla (1876–1946)
Spanish Dance from the opera La vida breve*

Edward Elgar (1875 – 1934)
Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20

The Beatles, arrangement: Robert Longfield (1947)
Yesterday

Nina Perović (1985)
Gousle, for string orchestra

Dracula Breakdown, Balkan traditional music*

Béla Bartók (1881–1945)
An Evening in the Village*

Bulgar Thing*

Jo Privat (1919–1996)
Java manouche*

Irish Polka (medley)*

George Gershwin (1898–1937)
Prelude No. 3*

Jeff Austin (1974–2019) / John Scott Sherrill (1950) / Shawn Camp (1966)
Fiddlin’ around*

Bill Monroe (1911–1996)
Old Dangerfield*                        

Hangman, traditional song*

* arrangements: Gilles Apap

Partners of the program:

Gilles Apap, violinist recognized on the international scene for his virtuosity, nurtures a unique approach to musical interpretation. By blending standard classical repertoire with jazz and folk music from all around the world, he breaks down boundaries among musical styles. Gilles Apap began learning music in early childhood, initiating his studies in his native France before continuing in the United States at the Curtis Institute of Music. After participating in an international competition in 1985, he established a lifelong collaboration with the renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin. As a soloist, Gilles Apap has performed with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Vancouver, and Hamburg, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston, Israeli, and Russian National Philharmonics. The music he performs with The Colors of Invention quartet represents a fusion of classical works by Vivaldi, Ravel, and Bartók on the one hand, and traditional folk melodies on the other. With the Meduoteran ethno-jazz band, Gilles Apap performs at numerous jazz and ethno festivals across Europe. He has also served as the leader of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra. He is the founder of the crossover music ensemble The Transylvanian Mountain Boys, with whom he has recorded three compact discs for the Sony Classical record label.

Nir Kabaretti, conductor and artistic director of the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra in California, has garnered an impressive reputation worldwide for his work conducting symphonic, operatic, and ballet repertoire. He has collaborated with some of the most sought-after musicians, leading opera houses, and renowned orchestras, including Lang Lang, Plácido Domingo, Joyce DiDonato, Itzhak Perlman, Vadim Repin, Hélène Grimaud, philharmonic orchestras from Israel, Tokyo, Chicago, Belgrade, Zagreb, and Bogotá, the Orchestra of the Rome Opera, and the Arturo Toscanini Philharmonic Orchestra. Additionaly, Nir Kabaretti has worked with chamber orchestras from Philadelphia, Vienna, and Lausanne, and with symphony orchestras from Jerusalem, Taiwan, and Milan. For the Deutsche Grammophon label, he has recorded five compact discs of contemporary piano concertos for young pianists, a DVD interpretation of Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and a CD with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and pianist Roberto Prosseda. Nir Kabaretti graduated in Conducting from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In his early career, he was appointed Chorus Master of the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, and later served as the Music Director of the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra and the Israeli Sinfonietta Beer Sheva orchestra.