Hollywood's Golden Age

Last season's ACF, "Hollywood's Golden Age," celebrated the art of film music, past and present by exploring the differences between composing for concerts and composing for film—and how the two styles have evolved into what we hear today. This festival revisited a unique period in our country when a number of refugee composers fled to the United States from a turbulent Europe and found Hollywood hungry for their work. The period was explored by focusing on a handful of composers, including Miklós Rozsa, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Bernard Herrmann, who were contrasted against modern-day masters James Newton Howard and Paul Chihara.

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The West: Music Inspired by the American Frontier

In 2008, The West: Music Inspired by the American Frontier, examined "the idea of the West" in American music, sketched by Dvorák and clinched by Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and Roy Harris. In a later stage, the idea migrated to the West Coast in the music of such Californians as Lou Harrison, whose "Four Strict Songs" were a revelation—as was the Bowed Piano Ensemble of Stephen Scott. The festival's commissioned composers were Scott and Curt Cacioppo; festival partners included Chapman University, which hosted a multi-media event.

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Los Sonidos de México

In 2007, Los Sonidos de México journeyed south of the border to celebrate the remarkable range and variety of Mexico's musical odyssey, much of which is rarely performed in Mexico or elsewhere. The festival included some two dozen compositions over the course of six concerts and included a commissioned new work by Daniel Catán—one of three participating Mexican composers (also Ana Lara and Enrique Diemecke). A three-hour multi-media Interplay tracked music and visual art from pre-Hispanic times to the present.

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Uncharted Beauty: The Music of Lou Harrison

In 2006, "Uncharted Beauty: The Music of Lou Harrison" honored one of the great American composers of the 20th century, as well as a pioneer in the use of alternate tunings, world music influences and new instruments. It was the last in a three-year sequence exploring the influence of non-Western music on American composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The festival included a variety of intimate chamber programs plus a large-scale concert celebrating the music of Harrison. It also featured film footage from Eva Soltes' documentary "Lou Harrison: A World of Music," courtesy of the Lou Harrison Documentary Project.

Illuminations in Sound

Four seasons ago, "Illuminations in Sound," featuring Colin McPhee, George Crumb and John Adams, was the second of the three-year festival sequence (ending with Lou Harrison) devoted to the influence of non-Western music on American composers. Richard Stoltzman played works by Adams and Steve Reich. Concentrating on the rapturous, the Symphony explored the influence of Indonesian gamelan, featuring little-known works by McPhee and Jose Evangelista. Two rarely heard transcriptions by Percy Grainger of piano works by Debussy and Ravel were performed alongside the original pieces.

Tradewinds from China

Tradewinds from China, the first festival of the trilogy, premiered works in 2004 by Chen Yi, Zhou Long and Joan Huang in the course of sampling the historic contribution of present-day Chinese-American composers. Yo-Yo Ma performed a new cello concerto and Min Xiao-Fen played Theonious Monk on her pipa. A children's chorus sang Chinese folk songs; the Orange County High School for the Arts Chorus performed Chinese revolutionary songs.

An American Odyssey

In 2003, prior to the trilogy, was "An American Odyssey" featuring the West Coast premiere of William Bolcom's monumental setting of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" in the course of exploring the interface between concert and popular styles. Additional festival events included a recreation of Paul Whiteman's 1924 "Experiment in Modern Music," with its premiere of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," a newly scored set of Leonard Bernstein songs, and an evening of Blake settings by Virgil Thomson, Arthur Farwell, Henry Cowell, Alan Ginsberg and other Americans.

Dvořák in America

ACF's "Dvořák in America," in 2002, applied a visual presentation of the "New World" Symphony, a Hiawatha Melodrama, and costumed Native American dancers to an examination of Dvořák's American style in relation to such diverse turn-of-the-century Americans as Scott Joplin, Harry Burleigh, Victor Herbert, George Chadwick and Arthur Farwell. Mstislav Rostopovich performed the Dvořák Cello Concerto.

Sound of the Americas

The first ACF took place in 2000 with Aaron Copland and the "Sound of the Americas," featuring a unique screening of the classic 1939 documentary "The City" with live symphonic accompaniment—the first in a series of Copland film scores that supported his creation of a 20th-century American concert voice. Additional festival events included three films, chamber and keyboard music and special guest William Warfield.