Embracing Music, Musicians

The Bitran brothers and their friend were getting hugged all over town.

The brothers--Saul, Aron and Alvaro--and Javier Montiel, members of Quarteto Latinoamericano, were the official artists in residence of this year’s Ventura Chamber Music Festival, which ended Sunday.

Over the 10 days and five performances that they lived, ate and traveled among us, the quartet, and other musicians and composers, were continually bombarded by unbridled, uninhibited enthusiasm.

“The people, they all hug us,” a slightly baffled but not unhappy Saul said on the second or third day of his visit. By then, he and the other members of the quartet had been embraced by audience members, by festival organizers, by volunteers, even by seventh-grade teachers after an educational outreach program at De Anza Middle School.

For outsiders, whose vision of Ventura is of a culture based on thrift stores, beaches and bikers, it might come as a surprise to learn that many locals can hum the refrain to something other than “Born to Be Wild.”

But Ventura residents know the truth. They are in a community that has a vital and fluid arts scene, including a chamber music festival that, at the mere toddler age of 4, has already put itself on the cultural map. It attracts world-class musicians and offers inspired programming, which deftly blends accessible music with more challenging fare and works by young composers.

All of which is impressive enough. But what distinguishes this festival from many others is the convergence of challenging programming, virtuosic musicianship and unabashed hospitality.

Ventura residents, it seems, can express their appreciation for Purcell and Barber (or for a young Latin American composer) with big, wet, sloppy kisses and great bear hugs.

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“The community ownership of the event is what is really so incredibly wonderful about it,” said Karyl Lynn Burns, the festival’s general manager.

Much of that ownership, of course, can be quantified.

“The accounting hasn’t all been done, but when it has, there will be a minimum of $180,000 of in-kind support that came in the form of donated services or goods, such as hotel rooms, restaurants that provided free receptions at intermissions, [and] graphic designers who donated their time for the programs,” Burns said.

While the fiscal viability of the event is dependent on the kindness of both friends and strangers, the true spirit of the festival comes from a generosity that is less formal and more, well, neighborly.

“After the first concert on Friday night, one local couple invited the Bitrans and Montiel and their families--which meant 12 people--to go sailing,” Burns said. “And everyone went! Later on, the neighbors invited them all to dinner. Everyone ate, then one of the members of the quartet--I think it was Saul--played the piano, and the neighbor played the castanets.”

The young virtuosic violinist Corey Cerovsek stayed with a local family, and would wake in the morning to find his laundry washed and folded.

“He had been on the road for days and days,” Burns said, “and he really appreciated being able to stay in someone’s home.”

Virginia Mendoza O’Neil, a founding member of the Ventura Chamber Music Festival, is now co-chairwoman of the Educational Outreach Program and an unrepentant hugger herself.

“The festival was exciting in the beginning. Four years later it is still exciting to be saturated in such high quality music for an extended period of time,” she said.

And that excitement infects everyone involved and explains why some of the musicians who performed last year were eager to return, O’Neil said.

“When the pianist Santiago Rodriguez performed last year, he came out from backstage, and before he even played the first note, he received a warm welcome from the audience. And boy did he play,” O’Neil said.

“Ventura was ready to receive these musicians, and the musicians, in turn, appreciated the reception.”

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It would certainly seem so. At the brunch that followed the Saturday morning premiere of Miguel del Aguila’s new work, “Clock,” this writer was introduced to Saul Bitran as he was moving toward his Caesar salad.

“How do you do?” he asked.

I reached out my hand. “Don’t worry, I promise not to hug you,” I reassured him.

“You’re not?,” he asked. “But that’s the best part!”

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Wendy Miller is the Weekend Calendar editor for the Ventura County and Valley editions of The Times.