Santa Barbara Fest Spotlights Mexican Works

Now 5 years old, the UC Santa Barbara New Music Festival continues to work small wonders. For all its modesty--spare groupings, an unfortunate lack of program notes--the six-concert festival, which concluded Sunday, was an event of some importance.

This year, the focus was on the rich and often untapped resource of Mexican concert music. Guest composers from Mexico displayed a impressive range of interests. Mario Lavista’s works accent eloquent atmospherics, as in “Canto de Alba,” played with flair by flutist Jill Felber, and “Reflejos de la Noche (Reflections of the Night),” built entirely from ethereal harmonics and performed with customary sensitivity by the Anacapa String Quartet.

Francisco Nun~ez keenly meshes folkloric and chamber music ideas, from the Michoacan-based, Ives-ian splendor of “Pirekuas,” to the romantic-meets-modern “Bosquejos,” neatly played by guitarists Chris Robertson and Claire Bower. Other highlights included Eduardo Soto Millan’s jazzily evocative “Tzatzi,” played by pianist Robert Bowen and percussionist Tina Curtis, and the venerable Leonardo Velazquez’s “Abalorios”--serial music with a sensuous spirit, realized by the Anacapa.

Music of the late Carlos Chavez, an icon among Mexican composers, served as a touchstone throughout, beginning with the Aztec-influenced opener “Xochipilli,” and including the Stravinsky-esque “Energia” as well as the amiable percussion orgy of “Toccata.”

A hero of the festival was the virtuosic recorder player Horacio Franco, whose two appearances left audiences agog. Aside from a staggering technique--playing two recorders at once, for example--Franco exuded charisma on an instrument deserving wider recognition. Percussionist Ricardo Gallardo, the festival’s other guest performer, also dazzled in a recital featuring works for percussion and tape. He deftly manned bongos, marimbas, steel pans and, on Javier Alvarez’s audaciously fine “Temazcal,” maracas.

The festival founder and official director, percussionist-composer William Kraft, offered his Concerto for Percussion and Chamber Ensemble, drawing the festival to a cerebral yet feverish close Sunday night at the Lobero Theater, with percussionist Jon Nathan rising to a formidable challenge.