I've received a few press releases explaining a new endeavor entitled California Festival. The festival comprises 95 organizations performing pieces of music that have been composed in the last five years. Each organization has independently curated the new-music programs being announced today under the California Festival umbrella, ensuring that the performances are meaningful to their communities while expressing the inclusive, diverse creativity of California through multiple voices.

The range of musicians participating in the event is impressive, with professional arts organizations as well as 14 youth orchestras, and composers representing some 24 nationalities and spanning generations with ages ranging from 27 to 97. Written by emerging, mid-career, and world-famous composers, the selected works encompass multiple genres of music.

The compositions included in California Festival address subjects of keen concern, ranging from the natural environment and the challenge of climate change, the search for sanctuary and healing in the wilderness after the pandemic, the omnipresent influence and experience of water, to the dynamics of history such as the multiethnic, multinational workforce that built the western railroads, the lives of figures such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and protest movements in Latin America. The festival seeks to meld the sounds of far-flung cultures—including a program designed as a tapestry of music submitted by women from around the world—and works that create utterly contemporary soundscapes.

The idea that these works create utterly contemporary soundscapes sounds like a room in hell. Soundscapes are the strip malls of classical music. They serve a function but they are boring, unimaginative, and don’t have enough parking spaces.

Of the compositions mentioned in the press releases, I find the one about finding healing in nature after COVID to be existentially interesting. Having just returned from Crater Lake, Southern Oregon, and the California Redwoods, I’m all about finding healing in nature. It’s legit.

Come November, I hope to be surprised by at least one masterpiece. Having heard none in the past 13 years makes me suspicious. 

What do I mean by a masterpiece? I mean something like Dimitri Shostakovich’s *Symphony No. 10*. It premiered in December 1953. By 1955 it had been recorded thrice by big-time orchestras and had been performed by orchestras proud and modest around the world. It has stayed in the standard symphonic repertoire ever since.

Harry Partch is featured on the California Festival website. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.