The days dwindle down. For April we had only three remaining programs conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and after last night only two programs remain. Last night’s Green Umbrella concert gave us a look forward, plus just a touch of reminiscence. There could well have been a concert of Salonen’s works, but a retrospective of the man as composer (and as engine for the Green Umbrella series) can wait for a future year and a future visit. Instead, the program was a beautifully selected set of four world premieres by composers new to almost every one in the Disney Hall audience. And for the selection, in addition to Salonen we have to honor the inputs of the Phil’s advisor for new music, Steven Stucky, who began his “brief” work with the orchestra over 20 years ago, when Andre Previn was music director. Stucky will be leaving his position with the Phil next season. He has been a pleasure.

The four composers whose works were premiered were born in four different countries: Mexico, Britain, the U.S., and China. All with at least one other country and language in their current lives. One man and three women. Born between 1974 and 1980. All composers whose names we should look for, whose music we should hear.

First up was Enrico Chapela, who gave an interview to Sequenza21 back in January, just before another of his works was performed at BAM. His work Li Po is a composition for 18 musicians (eight winds, eight strings, two percussion) for a prismatic combination of shifting sounds and colors. The work came with a lengthy text of the poem on which the work was apparently based, but Chapela had abstracted the words for the pitches and stress of the sounds, not for the meaning of individual vowels and consonants. The musical structure was complex, crying for a second hearing, but completely fascinating as it evolved. Listening to the work I was unaware of the passage of time. Really interesting.

Within Her Arms by Anna Clyne provided a fascinating change. It is a work for 15 strings, three each of violins I and II, violas, cellos and basses. What could be the melody of a lyrical folk song is taken up by the instruments, sometimes in sections, sometimes individually, repeated, reflected, recombined, and then a return to the original melody. Clyne achieved depth and complexity and interest from her skills with simplicity.

Mouthpiece XI was a showpiece for the composer, Erin Gee, as vocalist. The work is for singer with electronics; Gee ambidextrously switched between two microphones, one for pops and clicks, one for pitched sounds. Sixteen instrumentalists, including three percussionists, provide the instrumental sounds. Gee now lives and works in Austria. The work is from a series of Mouthpiece works that explore the instrumentality of a voice. Reviews linked on her web site indicate that she has used the two-microphone approach to vocal sound in at least one earlier work, Sleep.

After intemission, the Phil’s New Music Group performed Deluge by Fang Man. This work was for the largest ensemble (22) and seemed the most complex of the four new works. Her program notes describe the work as being inspired by a Kandinsky painting, and the center of Kandinsky’s work became, for her, the center of “Deluge” with water evoked by a major role for the harp. Again, complexity made it difficult to grasp her sense in just a single hearing by the composer.

As prelude to the concert, the Phil presented video images of Salonen as conductor of the Phil. When he walked on stage, the 1500 or so in the audience rose to their feet to honor the man. To close the concert, Salonen conducted singer and ensemble (of 5) in Floof, a Salonen work he first brought to the Green Umbrella series 18 years ago, the year before he became music director. Yes, this musical “jabberwocky” sounded like a work from twenty years ago. We know that Salonen as composer has moved into other approaches to music. But the bright, sparkling, sounds by coloratura supported by cello, contrabass clarinet, keyboards and percussion remained entertaining and sheer fun.

This work was first performed when the Green Umbrella series was performed at the Japan America Theatre downtown. Having 100 in the audience was a decent turn-out for some of those concerts. But thanks to Salonen, and Ernest Fleischman, and Lillian Disney and Frank Gehry, the program persisted, and grew.

The new season of the Phil was announced Thursday afternoon, accompanied by a press conference (with internet simulcast) by Dudamel and Deborah Borda, president of the board. This announcement was earlier than usual in order to fit into Gustavo’s schedule. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the Phil is using this opportunity to encourage people to submit their re-subscriptions early. Here’s the the index to the set of press releases. The Phil is welcoming Dudamel with a Bienvenido Gustavo” celebration — free — at the Hollywood Bowl and a performance of the Beethoven Ninth by the orchestra with the Master Chorale. Yes, free. Every ticket.

I think there are three major messages from this set of schedules. First, the Phil is not weakening its focus on contemporary classical music. There are very few Phil programs with music without at least a significant work from the twentieth century if not a contemporary work. There will be two significant festivals: West Coast: Left Coast in November; and Americas and Americans in April. There will be nine Philharmonic commissions this season: two works by Adams (one for solo piano to be performed by Ax), Newman, Lieberson (a new work for cello and piano, performed by Ma and Ax), Chin, Golijov, Bermel, Benzecry, and Hartke (a symphony with organ). Terry Riley will return on the WDCH organ. Thomas Ades will return. We will hear the American premiere of Louis Andriessen’s La Commedia, conducted by de Leeuw in his return to Disney. We will have an evening of Eotvos. We will have Dawn Upshaw

Second, John Adams will be joining the Philharmonic in the new position of Creative Chair, as well as filling Philharmonic commissions for two new works. Adams was a key factor in making the Minimalist Jukebox so successful and so satisfying, and his contributions to the two new festivals will be welcome. I’ll get the full set of tickets, if at all possible. I wouldn’t even wait to see the program details.

Third, we may indeed be seeing the start of a Dudamel infusion of music from the Americas, both Anglophone America as well as Latin America. Hearing both the Golijov Mass and the Estevez Cantata, in the same season, is noteworthy.

Esa-Pekka Salonen will not conduct next season, on his own decision. He has been exemplary in providing a smooth transition to the new music director. In the 2010/2011 season he will begin a multi-year series of conducting assignments.

Jacaranda Music opened its sixth season last night, but not in their usual home. Instead, they opened in Santa Monica’s lovely new Broad Stage, a 500-seat venue at the grounds of the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. The opening concert was given the title “Tipping the Scales” for works by Harrison, Cage, and Partch.

The opening half of the concert comprised four late-period works by Lou Harrison, the period in which his core work explored use of the gamelan, implementing the sounds, textures, and scales into his music. The 12-person CalArts Gamelan Ensemble (see them in this short video from 2007) provided the gamelan. The works included two of Harrison’s best works of the period: his Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Gamelan (1982), and a work I really like, Cornish Lancaran (1986) for soprano saxophone with gamelan. The middle movement of the Double Concerto, in which the gamelan rests while the violin and cello are accompanied by hand drumming on a Western drum, was particularly effective. Works for other combinations were In Honor of the Divine Mr. Handel (1991) for harp with gamelan and Main Bersama-sama (1978) for flute and French horn with gamelan. The best of these works rise from being merely pleasant sounds to works in which the contrasting textures, tones, and attacks play off against each other.

The second half of the concert began with John Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts (1950) in an impressive performance by the Denali Quartet, the resident quartet of the Jacaranda series. The music was both contemporary and timeless, strong in its simplicity. It was the sort of performance in which I really wanted the concert to stop right there and play that work once again.

The concert ended with a performance by the Partch Ensemble of Harry Partch’s Castor and Pollux (1952) for harmonic canon, kithara, diamond marimba, cloud chamber bowls and bass marimba. We’re lucky that we have John Schneider and a group of dedicated musicians to keep the unique sounds, scales and instruments of Harry Partch around and occasionally performed.

The majority of programs in Jacaranda Music’s season will center on works by Olivier Messiaen, in Jacaranda’s second year of recognizing the Messiaen centenary.

Another full house at Zipper Hall, and we enjoyed ourselves with the music of William Kraft and his “Encounters” series of works for percussion. This was the third and final program in the Kraft/Encounters retrospective given by Southwest Chamber Music, honoring Kraft for his 85th birthday. By the end of tomorrow the whole series will have been recorded, and next year a 3 CD set will be available of this important set of compositions by a man who has been such a major participant in contemporary music in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the conversations with Bill Kraft will probably not be in the CD. Listening to Kraft’s comments, not limited to his music, has been one of the treats of the series; he is a witty, charming, thoughtful, knowledgeable gentleman.

Last night’s concert gave us the newest Encounters: the world premiere of Encounters XV for Guitar & Percussion; and Encounters XIV (2006) Concerto a Tre (for piano, violin and percussion). To these were added two earlier works: Encounters IV: Duel for Trombone and Percussion (1973); and Encounters V: In the Morning of the Winter Sea (1976) for cello and percussion. Kraft’s compositions explore the textures of sound; he makes extensive use of a wide variety of tuned percussion and seems to delight in the unique sounds that result from simultaneous notes on two or more instruments, often with special striking or bowing techniques. His works explore the variety of sounds from his selected pairings, not merely from the percussion alone. For example, Encounters IV begins with a duet between tympani and a trombone using a range of mutes. That work also included use of tuned steel mixing bowls; since the original bowls could not be located, tuned cowbells were substituted.

The percussion responsibilities were shared last night. Lynn Vartan performed Encounters XIV and XV. The two principals of Mexico City’s Tambuco Ensemble, Ricardo Gallardo and Alfredo Bringas, performed Encounters V and IV, respectively. Tambuco played a key role in Southwest’s performances and recordings of the complete set of chamber works by Carlos Chavez, and Tambuco brought some of their instruments, such as the tuned cowbells for the performance (and recording). In an interesting symmetry, Kraft conducted the world premiere of Chavez’ Tambuco. Bill Booth was the dueling trombonist, Peter Jacobson the cellist, Shalini Vijayan the violinist, Ming Tsu the pianist, and John Schneider the premiere performer on guitar. Watch for these recordings.

REDCAT, the CalArts outpost in Walt Disney Concert Hall, opened its fifth season last night with the first of two programs in a renewal of the Creative Music Festival. Wadada Leo Smith was curator of the festival once again; he chose and assembled creators for two programs: “Music and the Voice” (last night) and “Music and Video” (tonight, but we already had tickets for Howard Shore’s “The Fly”). Smith opened the festival conducting the premiere of a new Smith work, “Central Park”, written for scat-singing baritone, with piano, string quartet, trumpet, clarinet, contra-alto clarinet, and percussion. Thomas Buckner was just right for the baritone instrumentalist; the whole ensemble seemed as if they had been playing together, with Smith’s music, for months instead of being a festival assembly of CalArts mainstays and New York performers.

Wadada Leo Smith has a philosophy from which he composes. From our seats we could see both the piano score and the conducting score Smith used. This view made it clear how much improvisation went into the performance, and how much advance thought and consideration had preceded the improvising. A page of Smith’s conducting score, for example, had four rectangles and looked rather like a top-level conceptual diagram of a complex computer system. This page of the score covered three or four minutes of ensemble work and solos; during the period Smith might stop conducting and just listen before using his hands to regain the attention of the musicians before setting the beat and cuing the entrances for the next step in the evolution. Smith has developed a notation system called “Ankhrasmation”; he summarizes it here, but look at the symbolic example he provides on the page; the piano score had two or three pages with a symbol on the page.

I liked Smith’s “Central Park”. I think Charles Ives would have liked it as well. The works are very different, but both present a kaleidoscope of sound. The two would make an interesting match on a program.

From that high point, the festival moved higher, with a set of works by Anthony Davis, currently one of the musical stars at UCSD. Davis had reassembled his group “Episteme”; the current version comprises J.D. Parran on clarinet and contr-alto clarinet, Earl Howard on alto sax and on synthesizer, his UCSD colleague Mark Dresser on bass, and Davis himself on piano. They opened with an emsemble work “Of Blues and Dreams”, which made me think of an evolution that Modern Jazz Quartet might have taken. For the theme of “Music and the Voice” they were joined by son Jonah Davis in “Malcolm Little’s Aria” from X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and by wife Cynthia Aaronson-Davis who sang the art song “Lost Moon Sisters” to the poem “Ave” by Diane Di Prima. A variation on the “Voice” theme was taken by two other works. “Goddess Variations” was a set of elaborations from a theme in his opera “Amistad”, a real showpiece for the Tatum-like fingers of Davis as pianist. The concluding work was a showpiece for Parran on clarinet, the second movement (“Loss”) from Davis’ clarinet concerto titled You Have the Right to Remain Silent. I want to hear the whole thing!

The second half of the program stepped back to the merely pleasant with Amina Claudine Myers and her trio, joined by a choir of 14 from CalArts. In “Manhattan” the trio provided solid framework as the members of the choir gave a series of scat singing solo riffs; some of the improvisations were really good. Two other works gave the choir the solo opportunities associated with African-American church enthusiasms. To me the really good solos didn’t compensate for the length and repitiveness in an evening that ran over three hours. But it couldn’t spoil the accomplishments of the evening.

I had been disappointed in what seemed to be the limited scope of last season’s music series at CalArts. But this season really looks great!

This Ojai Music Festival season was one of those to remember. When the low point is a screening of a Chaplin film with live orchestra, that means that the high points are pretty consistently high. And they were, this season. No full-sized orchestra, spilling out the bounds of the stage, but quantity of performers can’t hold a candle to quality.

Saturday night’s concert continued the Festival’s subtheme of music for voice with two works from composers new to Ojai, Phillippe Manoury and Michael Jarrell, selected by David Robertson. The Jarrell work, Cassandre (1994) was termed by Manoury a “spoken opera,” a work for actress and orchestra with electronics. Barbara Sukowa was not merely a narrator, she became Cassandra the Trojan Princess, doomed to see the future but to be disbelieved, about to ride with her captor Agamemmnon in his triumphal parade, after which she and Agamemmnon would be killed by Clytemnestra. But an opera depends on music as well as on libretto, and Jarrell’s music is fascinating and powerful. This was a performance to remember, and a work well worth remembering — and hearing again. And again, I think. I am now a fan of this Jarrell work, and want to hear more.

Manoury’s work to open the evening, En Echo, wasn’t as powerful, but its intent seemed to be to convey yearning, not more powerful emotions. Also from Greek mythology, but this time of the nymph who was doomed to lose speech, retaining only the ability to repeat another person. This was a work for soprano, accompanied and extended and replicated by electronics. Only electronics. No one else on stage. Just undertaking something like this takes a soprano of great skill and pitch with, possibly a large measure of self-confidence thrown in. Juliana Snapper, from Los Angeles, had all of those things, and more. Miller Puckette controlled and performed the electronics. My regret was that there was no libretto for the French lyrics so that I was far from being able to understand the lyrics even though my menu-level French was probably better than many. Manoury is now professor of composition at UCSD, so he surely understands Americans’ language limitations. There were two benefits of not having the words: first, there were no interruptions from changing pages, and second, you were forced to pay attention to try to glean an understanding, and this may have helped some of us really appreciate what music his electronics were making in interacting with the voice. But audience reactions were mixed — polite, but mixed.

Sunday came too soon, bringing to a close our celebration of Steve Reich as well as of music for the female voice. The Sunday morning concert put Reich in context of two other composers, Ligeti and Varese. Opening the concert was an authoritative version of Clapping Music (1972) with Russell Hartenberger joining Reich on stage. Robertson had asked the audience not to applaud between works, but it was hard not to do so, and many of the audience couldn’t resist. Then the sparkling pianist Eric Heubner played two gnarly Ligeti Etudes. The first half ended with an absolutely brilliant performance of the Varese Ionisation (1929-1931) in which the ensemble “Nexus” was joined by “So Percussion” and a few pick-up musicians including both Eric heubner and the Artistic Director of the Festival, Tom Morris. This was a great performance, totally convincing. All by itself, to end the early concert was Reich’s Drumming (1970/1971). It was a treat to have the musicians of this skill as the sound changed color.

My priorities were wrong, and I let the outside world intervene so I was unable to hear the final concert of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Dawn Upshaw and Kate Lindsey, followed by Reich’s Tehillim (1981).

In this year’s festival, the Ojai management made some interesting additions of additional performances and a film. As a tribute for Elliott Carter, on Saturday afternoon Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick and Eric Heubner performed Carter’s Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948), and Eric Heubner performed 90+ (1994) and the masterful Night Fantasies (1980). Then there was a showing of the film “A Labyrinth of Time” presenting Carter and his music. To recognize the centenary of Messiaen, the Festival sponsored a performance of Quartet for the End of Time Saturday night at 11:00. Frank Almond, Andrew Shulman, Todd Levy and Gloria Cheng were the performers.

Thank you, Ojai, for another good year.