High Notes

Ventura County’s musical season, circa 1998, is now officially the year that was. Columnists, critics and other more normal living creatures are given license to reflect on what took place, and how it fits into some larger perceived picture of cultural evolution. And, clearly, there is an evolution going on.

One of last year’s salient musical offerings was the sound of opera. In this county, we heard not one, but two new original operas, albeit modest, offbeat models.

Ventura-based composer John Biggs put his energy into finishing “Ernest Worthing,” a musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” put on by the Ventura College Opera Workshop last summer. It was a smash success on many levels, but mainly the musical one, thanks to Biggs’ skillful, tuneful hand.

Miguel del Aguila’s “Composer Missing,” performed by the Ojai Camerata last spring, was something else again, a light, absurd romp that greeted the open-minded listener like a tipsy whirlwind of energy and ideas. It gave the impression of an oddly made plastic gyroscope sent on an unpredictable trajectory, threatening to break the china.

In his opera, the Oxnard-based Del Aguila entertained several themes, including the increasing fragmentation of emotional connection in this age of the Net; the creative impulse in crisis; and the lack of respect given composers. Add to this an element of existential mystery and frequent splashes of kitsch, and you have a strange, intriguing chamber opera.

As anyone tuned in to the resident music scene knows, Del Aguila was anything but missing this year. He took the reins as director of the Ojai Camerata as well as leading his notable “Voices” program, developing young composers on the high school and college levels. Compositionally, his output included both his chamber opera and an enticingly idiosyncratic piano quintet, “Clocks,” premiered by the Cuarteto Latinoamericano (with the composer at the piano) as part of last spring’s Ventura Chamber Music Festival.

The festival has grown into an operation with great potential to join the larger matrix of music festivals.

The New West Symphony, too, made admirable strides under difficult circumstances. The orchestra that grew out of a merger in October 1995, with some birth pains, has developed into a bold and tidy operation, always worth a listen. Boris Brott ended the season with a generous gesture, bringing together members of both the Ventura County Master Chorale and the Los Robles Master Chorale for a rousing rendition of Handel’s “Messiah.”

However, uneven growth and wavering funding caused last season’s program to be condensed. This meant lopping off a special “Musics Alive!” concert with venerable American composer Lou Harrison, in a season already wanting for 20th-century goods. It also meant downsizing from the more elaborate live-orchestra version of the Sergei Eisenstein silent film “Potemkin,” (music by Dmitri Shostakovich) to the more modestly scaled--though poignant--”City Lights” by Charlie Chaplin (music also by Chaplin).

The Ojai Festival came to the rescue, as usual, as the county’s most internationally visible musical institution. In Santa Barbara, the Music Academy of the West, at 51 years old, stole the cultural show during the summer months. Nothing new there.

Meanwhile, the Santa Barbara Symphony, under Gisele Ben-Dor’s baton, showed more of its polish and vigor, and this year made its debut CD, a fantastic showcase of music by the late Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. Meanwhile, the Anacapa String Quartet, one of the area’s prized ensembles, released its debut CD and promptly called it quits. They’ll be missed.

On the jazz scene, tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd gave the finest jazz concert of the year at the Lobero Theater, with the help of pianist Bobo Stenson and drummer Billy Higgins.

Most important for the town up the coast, the Santa Barbara Jazz Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary with a change of hands and directions, shifting back to a more respectable emphasis on jazz. Dave Brubeck, Les McCann, Cubanismo, and an impressive Russian contingent were featured in a festival that has earned new respect.

In Ventura, the stalwart jazz room of 66 California continued to be a fine source of jazz on a regular basis. The Ventura Theater experimented with bringing in high-profile artists like John Scofield and Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters, as opposed to the smooth jazz drivel that has previously passed for jazz programming in this venue. Audiences did not come out in droves, but hopefully jazz can find its way back to this hall.

In the fringes, Ventura’s new music marauder Jeff Kaiser continued to create and host music from the cultural byway where improvisation is still cherished, and to break down barriers between jazz, classical and sonic definitions. As composer/trumpeter, Kaiser performed with his engaging Double Quartet, live and on CD.

Impresario Kaiser, with the help of the Daily Grind’s Phil Taggart, brought Eugene Chadbourne to town more than once, as well as drummer Gerry Hemmingway’s group and members of Los Angeles’ left-field music scene.

Ventura’s musical pulse was a healthy one in 1998. This is still a county, in the shadow of the metropolis, with a sturdy and ongoing belief in the importance of being musical.