Getting Wet with the Festival Orchestra
SANTA CRUZ, CA—“Astonish us!” That was the clarion call from Serge Diaghilev, the great impresario of a century ago, to his creative team of composers, choreographers and designers. It could also be the motto of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and its fans, focusing on assimilating new music for its long-established orchestral concerts on this bucolic seaside site some 75 miles south of San Francisco. The astonishing piece Aug. 10 was the overachieving Tan Dun’s Chinese opus. His commission…