Musical Milestone

Words and institutional kudos poured freely at the Mission on Sunday night. Refined sounds came from the acclaimed male a cappella group Chanticleer in an unusually diverse program, mixed with gestures of thanks from festival president Mike McGuire and even an exhortation to recycle from the hosting Harrison family.

But who could complain, considering the occasion? This was, after all, the climactic evening of the 10-day fifth annual Ventura Chamber Music Festival. Celebration and end credits were in order.

Making it to festival No. 5 amounts to the event’s first bona fide milestone. Getting there with so much initiative, gumption and hope for the future says something more: This festival has become the pride and joy of Ventura County’s cultural scene, an inspiring example of how the marriage of musical and commercial interests can result in a successful venture, full of good music, good eats and goodwill.

Moreover, the festival has staked its claim as an important West Coast music event, with increasing responsibility to uphold standards and push forward.

The highlights this year were many:

* Violinist Corey Cerovsek returned for a weeklong residency, performing in orchestral settings and, as he did last year, in a duet with his pianist sister, Katja.

* Pianist Christopher O’Riley repeatedly won attention and hearts.

* Two quartets, the Muir the Shanghai, offered riveting reminders of the richness and sensual appeal of even standard string quartet repertoire.

* In a surprise, the Romero Guitar Duet turned into the Romero Quartet before our eyes and ears, as the duo invited their visiting fathers onstage.

The bad-news part of the equation had to do with this program’s noticeable retreat from much in the way of engaged modern musical thinking.

You’d expect more to be made of this century’s music in its twilight year.

Little attention was paid to the 20th century’s more intellectual notions (Vaughan Williams doesn’t count), apart from a breeze of a Berg piece Sunday morning and the fascinating performance of Messiaen’s spiritual howl, “Quartet for the End of Time,” tucked away on Saturday morning, but clearly one of the most moving moments of the festival.

This oversight wouldn’t be so noticeable if the festival hadn’t set new music precedents in the past, with separate concerts devoted to new ideas.

One was presented by the California EAR Unit (in the rotating restaurant of the Holiday Inn, a nice kitschy touch), and there was a memorable new music concert by Miya Masaoka and Pamela Z.

What was in good supply this time was Impressionism, that accessible precursor to expressionism. (By some aesthetic accounts, it’s fair to say that the 20th century really began in 1913, with Stravinsky’s expressionist anthem, “Rite of Spring.”)

In musical accord with the Monet painting on the program and flier, we heard music of Debussy and Ravel, in refreshing contrast to the ladling out of the famous Bs--Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

On the home front, Miguel del Aguila’s fine new piece, “Return to Homeland,” falls into a camp of his own devising. It is a poignant and slightly prankish piece about the wistful pain of revisiting the turf of one’s childhood.

It has tinges of neoimpressionism, quasi-romanticism (especially in the sweetly pining tunes played by violin soloist Cerovsek), and a certain rebel’s swagger.

In a sense, Del Aguila, who has been involved in most of the festival programs, is an ideal home-team composer for this event.

He knows how to pen pretty tunes, but also is happy to dismantle them with a postmodern flair and manipulate our emotional responses in ways that are both comforting and perplexing. That, in a nutshell, is what a good festival does. And this one has succeeded, again.

Violinist-at-Large: Anyone tuned in to the general music scene in Santa Barbara most likely knows something about impish wunderkind Gilles Apap.

He is a violinist who could be a fiddler, and could be a violin soloist of wider international renown if he weren’t so stubbornly insistent on playing things his own way.

The French emigre was a favorite of the late Yehudi Menuhin, as well as the subject of a European documentary and an artist signed to Sony Classical.

Then he got fed up with the politics involved and decided to make a happy home in the area, first in Santa Barbara, now in Arroyo Grande.

Several times a year, you can find Apap as concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Symphony. He plays in Europe and in a favorite global stop, India, the Carnatic style of which has left its mark on Apap’s playing.

But you also can find Apap elsewhere, playing with bluegrass bands, with his gypsy-fied band, the Transylvania Mountain Boys, or sitting in with jazz and pop groups. No high culture snob, this guy loves music, in the broadest sense.

Two months ago, Apap stepped out in front of the Santa Barbara Symphony as soloist on the fiendishly marvelous maze of Bartok’s 2nd Violin Concerto.

Not only did Apap navigate the lustrous modernism of Bartok’s score with uncanny ease and grace, he returned to do an encore--to the apparent irritation of conductor Giselle Ben-Dor--that included Mozartea, bluegrass, hot jazz, Carnatic swoops and even a goofy bit of Franco-Delta blues.

It was one of the season’s thrilling free-for-alls, and the crowd, standing in ovation, roared approval.

This Saturday, catch Apap in a rare recital appearance at the Lobero Theater. Expect good things, and unpredictable stylistic turns.

* Gilles Apap, Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Lobero Theater, 33 Canon Perdido St. in Santa Barbara. Tickets are $22.50 for adults; $18.50 for students and seniors. 963-0761.