Eastern and Western Styles Converge at 10th ‘Musics Alive!’

Ten years ago, the mini-festival “Musics Alive!” sprouted in Ventura County, fueled by an intriguing premise--blending new and world music. In this offshoot of the New West Symphony, programming focuses on contemporary classical and non-western “world music.”

Last weekend’s 10th-anniversary festival was host to Chinese composer Bright Sheng, who came to the U.S. in 1982. As a testament to his music’s strength, the audience was left wanting more, beguiled by cultural interweaving of Eastern and Western styles and even bawdy humor in three of his pieces in the program.

Saturday at the San Buenaventura Mission’s Serra Center, the highlight was the West Coast premiere of Tan Dun’s “Crouching Tiger Concerto,” adapted from his Oscar-winning “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” film score. But for its charms and commanding solo work by cellist Mark Tanner, it also has the detached air of music written to serve another master--images on the screen.

More musically captivating was Bright Sheng’s “Flute Moon,” written in 1999 and nicely played by members of the New West Symphony, with soloist Paul Fried on piccolo and flute.

On Sunday, the music continued in the reverberant Ventura City Hall Atrium. Sheng played piano on his captivating “Four Movements for Piano Trio,” joined by skillful string players--cellist Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick and violinist Alan Grunfeld. Based on Chinese folk songs, the work is sweetly melancholic and energetic.

Los Angeles-based composer Joan Huang’s “Remembering South River Land” also creates its tapestry from folk songs. This moving work was played with customary poise by pianist Gloria Cheng, along with Grunfeld and clarinetist Donald Foster.

Ge Gan-Ru’s intense, righteously dissonant “Si” is less idyllic; it’s a programmatic view of the protests and massacre at Tiananmen Square. On lighter turf, Sheng’s pocket-size “opera,” the seven-minute “may I feel, said he,” is based on e.e. cummings’ playfully salacious poem about illicit lovers, a lightheaded finale to the festival.