Praise for world premiere of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg work at 2019 Cabrillo Festival

Kristin Kuster’s work based on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was premiered at the 2019 Cabrillo Festival (Photo Credit: RR Jones)

Kristin Kuster’s work based on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was premiered at the 2019 Cabrillo Festival (Photo Credit: RR Jones)

Review: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is celebrated in song at Cabrillo Festival
By Joshua Kosman
San Francisco Chronicle
August 5, 2019

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is known to be a classical music and opera buff, so music would seem to be the obvious vehicle for a tribute to the associate Supreme Court justice. But When There Are Nine, which had its exciting world premiere on Friday, Aug. 2, at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, is more than just a celebration of the judge known as “Notorious R.B.G.”

It is also, as composer Kristin Kuster made explicit in her program note, a protest piece.

When There Are Nine, a 45-minute orchestral song cycle with chorus, presents a surge of principled outrage — by turns lyrical and ferocious, resolute and tender — against the inequities of the American legal and political system. It’s part biography, part anthem and entirely compelling.

Librettist Megan Levad cannily seizes on snippets of Ginsburg’s interviews and writing and presses them into service as vivid, imposing poetry. (The piece’s title comes from Ginsburg’s reply to the question “When will there be enough women on the court?”) There are, naturally, nine movements, each of them exploring some different aspect of Ginsburg’s life and career, and Kuster ensures that each one gets its own distinctive musical profile.

In the first movement, a set of wide-spaced choral harmonies, stoic but fragrant, introduces the idea of judicial writing as a form of literary criticism; the chugging, heroic rhythms of the final “A Push-Up is a Push-Up is a Push-Up” point the way toward a future, perhaps never-ending struggle toward righteousness. There are charming biographical interludes — a buoyant hymn to Ginsburg’s devotion to opera, and an infectious pop ditty celebrating her long and happy marriage.

But the great, overwhelming heart of the piece comes in the sixth movement, “On Dissent.” Here Levad lays out Ginsburg’s commitment to principled resistance to injustice, with reference to the long, gradual march of moral progress, and Kuster rises to the occasion with music of slowly arching grandeur.

Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, for whom the piece was written, gave a splendid performance, at once personable and probing, and the members of the virtuoso vocal octet Roomful of Teeth deployed their gifts to the fullest. The Festival Orchestra, led by Music Director Cristian Macelaru, played with eloquence and grace.

When There Are Nine — which was introduced by a videotaped greeting from Ginsburg herself — seemed a particularly apt centerpiece for an opening weekend in which the music of female composers was the predominant fare.

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Barbara Rose Shuler of The Monterey Herald exclaimed: “Between the alpha and omega of Ginsberg and Marsalis, the music cascaded through works of passion, tenderness, remembrance, and the grace and trials of the human journey, spiced with humor and heart.  Măcelaru program compositions that weave a story throughout the concerts he conducts each festival…Măcelaru is a patron saint for composers. By his admission he says “Yes!” to requests to look at new scores.  He says if composers pour their creative skills into a fresh work for an orchestra, they deserve to be considered.  His warm and generous personality invites his audiences into the thrill of this “yes.” It extends to the intimacy of hearing from the composers who introduce their creations before the orchestra performs them.

Christina Waters of Good Times Santa Cruz highlighted: “From the opening salvo honoring Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to a sustained series of premieres by women composers and performers from across the globe, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music [explores] the leading edge of new music, weaving words and lives through experimental musical forms.”

Scott MacClelland of Performing Arts Monterey Bay praised: “When There Are Nine, a world premiere and festival commission lasting 45 minutes, divided Levad’s text into nine sections and between Jamie Barton, the excellent mezzo, and Roomful of Teeth, the vocal octet. It was preceded by a big-screen video of Justice Ginsburg acknowledging the event and its participants. At times the orchestra murmured a background to the words, as in the opening movement, Innumerable Drafts, that paraphrased what the Court does was inspired by Ginsburg’s assertion that law is “an art as well as a craft.” The audience reaction ranged from sobriety to giggles and even one guffaw. That and a hearty standing ovation.”

To learn more about the 2019 Cabrillo Festival season, click here and here.

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