Cristian Măcelaru leads the 60th Anniversary Cabrillo Festival Season

Cristian Măcelaru kicks off his 6th season as Music Director and Artistic Director of the Cabrillo Festival on July 24, 2022.

Cabrillo Festival Returns with Collection of Works that Touch on Social, Political issues
By Joshua Kosman
San Francisco Chronicle
July 19, 2022

Like every other arts organization in America, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music had to rethink its operations drastically during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. Not one but two full seasons of musical activities, in 2020 and 2021, had to be recast in online form.

Now, the 60-year-old festival, long a centerpiece of the Bay Area’s new music world, is finally gearing up for a return to live performances — and it’s doing it with a characteristically vibrant blend of works that touch on social, political and environmental issues.

Over the course of two weeks’ worth of orchestral concerts at Santa Cruz’s Civic Auditorium, Music Director Cristian Măcelaru promises to engage audiences on the subject of wildfires and climate crisis. There will be music touching on women’s suffrage, the history of the Declaration of Independence and the legacy of the Holocaust.

There will even be some music in a purely abstract vein, if only for balance.

“It’s been Cristi’s artistic vision from the start of his tenure in 2017 to reflect the world we live in,” said Ellen Primack, the festival’s longtime and visionary executive director. “He wants to use music as a way to engage people in meaningful conversation about social topics that we think about or are concerned about. I would say we’ve been ahead of the curve in that regard.”

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