On a Crescendo

Guitarist Christopher Parkening ended his Ventura Theatre recital last Sunday, a tribute to his mentor Andres Segovia, with an exotic second encore, “Koyunbaba.” The piece, which is full of textural delight and mysterious cultural detours, is by Italian-Turkish composer Carlo Domeniconi, and was the very same piece that stole the show a year ago when Parkening played at the Ventura Mission. This year’s performance proved to be a suitable finale for the fourth annual Ventura Chamber Music Festival, which had begun 11 days earlier and laid siege in a gentle cultural way to Ventura, with its bounty of fine music, center stage, and food, to the side.

Here is a festival that has literally built on strengths. Specifically, in Parkening and pianist Santiago Rodriguez, the festival had formidable returnees from last year, providing a comfortable thread of continuity. But there was growth, as well, namely in the “residency” of the impressive string quartet Cuarteto Latinoamericano.

Artistic Director Burns Taft and Executive Director Karyl Lynn Burns--ever ready with logistical aid--are to be commended for another smashing festival, leaving, in its wake, plenty of hope for the future.

Over the course of its several appearances, Cuarteto Latinoamericano left a bold impression without ever riding a warhorse. The group’s commitment to new and unusual repertoire began on opening night at the Mission. There wasn’t a single garden-variety composer on the program--not even the Latin American staples--but impressive works by Reza Vali, Erica Muhl and Mexican composer Arturo Marquez filled the ear with the pleasant tingle of discovery.

On Tuesday afternoon, to a full house, the quartet read through four works by gifted USC students, supporting the group’s mission to nurture young composers. And on Saturday morning, the ensemble closed with an intelligent flourish, in a program that framed works by young, living composers--the Uruguayan-born Miguel del Aguila and Mexican-born Bernardo Feldman--with vivid quartet repertoire by Villa-Lobos and Ginastera.

One of the musical questions this year: Why put one of the keynote concerts of the festival at 10 a.m. on a Saturday? The eagerly awaited premiere of Del Aguila’s piano quintet “Clocks” was clearly 8 p.m. fare, a sly new invention from Oxnard’s compositional king.

Reflecting on the nature and rhythm of time and on mechanistic musical devices, he wills the strings to rely on generous pizzicato, high harmonics--sounding like those digital watch beeps that drive persnickety classical audiences, and composers, batty--and another Del Aguila trademark, primal singing. It’s another Del Aguila piece with wit and wisdom worn on its sleeve.

Feldman’s “embers” wields its post-serial language gracefully, investing it with wistfulness and a flowing emotional logic.

The dazzling young violinist Corey Cerovsek showed up in recital with his pianist sister, Katja, on the first weekend and then returned for an orchestra concert.

Rodriguez returned to the mystical and slightly kitschy splendor of the Church of Religious Science for a recital last Thursday. As was the case last year, this compellingly gifted pianist was steeped in romantic literature, the area of his expertise. He played a full, if fragmentary, selection of works by Chopin, Brahms and Rachmaninoff, as well as Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, with poise and passion.

The downside of his recital had to do with the chatter factor. He deigned to talk, with considerable charm and erudition, but at distracting length. He also encouraged the audience to clap between movements and generally pooh-poohed stodgy classical recital traditions of respecting silence and “sitting on your hands.”

Really, though, is dumbing-down of concert protocol the way to encourage audience growth? To many, all this clapping between movements is cause for alarm. Some of us find the excess of between-music banter and misplaced applause an intrusion on the reverie and quiet marvel of great music. It’s like paying the check between each course of a fine meal.

Rodriguez returned, in fine form again, to play Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto at the Orchestra concert Saturday night at the Ventura Theatre. That program opened with another festival highlight: Composer Michael Torke, whose piece a year ago also impressed with its sparkle and integrity, was represented by “Ash,” which cleverly puts its loopy Beethoven-esque materials through a postmodern prism. Also on the program, Samuel Barber’s touching ode to lost innocence, “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” had a rich reading by soprano Cynthia Coleman.

As the festival carries on its upward path, one of the evident problems, as Taft has pointed out, is that of finding appropriate venues. The venerable Ventura Theatre has its funky charms but is hardly an ideal setting for classical music. Is it time to work toward building a new hall in Ventura?

This festival is, without a doubt, the most exciting evolving phenomenon on the cultural scene in Ventura. At a time when the New West Symphony--a toddler of roughly the same age--faces fiscal turbulence and an uncertain fate, the Chamber Music Festival seems to be thriving.

Here we have a locally grown, locally nurtured organism, which proudly includes its regional identity in its name and is tapping into the revitalization energies underway in downtown Ventura but has its sites set on bringing music of a world-class caliber. A cultural-civic pact was made, and the fund-raising energies appear to be married to Taft’s nicely balanced aesthetic perspective on what a chamber music series ought to include. Carry on. Please.

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NEW WEST FINALE: “Odes to Joy” is the apt handle of the final concert in the New West Symphony season, this weekend in Oxnard and Thousand Oaks. The program pairs Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms.” The Ventura County Master Chorale joins the symphony.

* New West Symphony, “Odes to Joy,” Friday at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center 800 Hobson Road; Saturday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd. in Thousand Oaks. For tickets, call 449-ARTS (449-2787).

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DEL AGUILA DEPT.: The irrepressible Del Aguila returns to the scene this Friday with an intriguing-sounding new piece, a chamber opera called “Composer Missing.” The Ojai Camerata, for which Del Aguila has been the official director this season, will perform his new opera. According to the composer, the work poses existential and creative questions, such as: Why does the composer accrue less glory than those on stage?

* Miguel del Aguila’s chamber opera “Composer Missing,” by the Ojai Camerata, 8 p.m. Friday at Ventura City Hall, 500 Poli St. Tickets are $12 for general admission, $9 for students and seniors; 289-4890. It will be repeated May 23 at the Ojai Presbyterian Church.