Camerata Pacifica's March Performances to Include Penderecki, Saariaho, Somie & Bruce

Camerata Pacifica continues its 28th season with an eclectic March program of today's greatest living composers, featuring musicians Jason Uyeyama (violin), Molly Morkoski (piano), Kristin Lee (violin), Martin Owen (horn), Jose Franch-Ballester (clarinet), Ani Aznavoorian (cello), and Richard Yongjae O'Neill (viola) performing works by Krystof Penderecki, Kaija Saariaho, Somei Satoh and David Bruce.

The program opens Penderecki's robust and weighty Sextet for Clarinet, Horn, String Trio and Piano, redolent of his Eastern European heritage. Saariaho's Petals follows, offering an unusual and intense exploration of texture and rhythm for solo cello and electronics. The second half of the program visits the minimalist, beautiful simplicity of Satoh's Birds in Warped Time 2, a work best summarized in Satoh's comment, "In the Shinto religion, there is the term 'imanaka' which is not just the present moment which lies between the stretch of past eternity and future immortality, but also the manifestation of the moment of all time which is multi-layered and multi-dimensional."

The program concludes with Gumboots by composer David Bruce, one of Camerata Pacifica's close collaborators. Gumboot dancing was born out of the brutal labor conditions in the mines of apartheid South Africa. However Bruce's quintet for clarinet and strings is not a political commentary; he says, "this for me is a striking example of how something beautiful and life-enhancing can come out of something far more negative ... 'Gumboots' is in two parts of roughly equal length, the first is tender and slow moving, at times 'yearning'; at times seemingly expressing a kind of tranquility and inner peace. The second is a complete contrast, consisting of five, ever-more-lively 'gumboot dances', often joyful and always vital."

Performances take place Tuesday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m. at The Huntington Library in San Marino; Thursday, March 8 at 8 p.m. at Colburn School's Zipper Hall in Los Angeles; Friday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Hahn Hall in Santa Barbara, and Sunday, March 11 at 3 p.m. at the Martin V. and Martha K. Smith Pavilion at the Museum of Ventura County in Ventura.

Subscriptions ($125 - $403) and single tickets ($50 - $56) can be ordered online at http://cameratapacifica.org/season-tickets/order-tickets or by calling 805-884-8410.