La Jolla Music Society readies 16-concert, in-person SummerFest lineup after online-only 2020 edition

Plan A? Plan B? Plan C? Or Plan D?

The La Jolla Music Society was determined to avoid taking any chances while designing this year’s SummerFest, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of last year’s 18-concert chamber music marathon — which was subsequently reconfigured as a six-concert livestream-only event without a live audience.

As of January, the nonprofit arts organization had four different plans prepared for the 2021 edition of SummerFest, which will run from July 30’s “Ode to Joy” opening night to Aug. 20’s “A Love Composed” finale. Each option was designed to retain the same exploratory theme, “Self and Sound,” as last year’s reluctantly abandoned 18-concert SummerFest iteration — albeit with a few changes and some new additions (including Russian piano star Daniil Trifonov and Texas gospel vocal quartet Kings Return).

Plan A would repeat last year’s audience-free livestream format, but with 16 concerts, not six.

Plan B would entail holding all 16 performances — for a small number of socially distanced concert-goers — in the intimate courtyard of the society’s 2-year-old, $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. Some of the concerts would be livestreamed. All of them would be held without intermission and with a reduced amount of music to be performed.

Plan C would offer two reduced, intermission-free performances per night inside the center’s Baker-Baum Concert Hall, but with the seating capacity reduced by 60 percent, from 504 to 201.

And Plan D would see all 16 SummerFest concerts held at full length in the Baker-Baum and the adjacent JAI cabaret, with intermissions, in front of full-capacity audiences. Nine of those concerts also would be livestreamed.

“The third plan, with the two nightly indoor concerts with reduced capacity, seemed the most likely until quite recently,” said society Chief Executive and President Todd Schultz, who assumed his position in January.

Leah Rosenthal, the society’s artistic director, said, “I’ve taken the tack all along that we should plan fairly conservatively.”

It was only in May, after careful consideration and evaluation of the latest city, county and state health guidelines, that the society decided which plan would be the most sound.

Its decision to present SummerFest as a 16-day indoor event at both the Baker-Baum and the adjacent JAI will, if all goes according to plan, reanimate the event and the society itself.

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein performs with SummerFest music director Inon Barnatan at the grand finale of the La Jolla Music Society’s gala in 2019. Both will be featured at the 2021 edition of SummerFest in August.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Not a reimagining

Even so, this is not a reimagining of last year’s jettisoned festival, a point that SummerFest music director Inon Barnatan is quick to emphasize.

“I think we’ve become immune to the word ‘reimagined’ because we had to do so much reimagining last year,” said Barnatan, who will perform at eight of this year’s SummerFest concerts.

“For example, I have changed the original concept for our opening night from last year,” Barnatan said. “It was supposed to be called ‘When We Were Young’ and feature music that was transformative for the composers whose music we were going to play — Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff and de Falla.

“Given what since happened with the pandemic, I thought we could not resume SummerFest without acknowledging the great happiness we all feel about being able to come back to perform and experience music live. So our opening night is now called ‘Ode to Joy’ and will feature music by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Grieg, de Falla, John Adams and (43-year-old Norwegian composer) Ola Gjeilo.

“We are crossing our fingers that things stay as they are and we really are able to have a festival that feels — for lack of a better word — ‘normal.’”

Something that isn’t typical is that guests will be asked to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccinations or negative coronavirus test results from no more than 72 hours before the performance they are attending. The need for mask-wearing will be determined by whatever health protocols are in place come July and August.

About 10 percent of the artists booked for last year’s SummerFest are not available for the new edition. However, some who were booked elsewhere last year are now free to perform here this summer.

One constant is that Gabriela Lena Frank will curate two concerts at the 2021 SummerFest and perform as a featured pianist, just as she was scheduled to do at last year’s edition.

The Peruvian native, who is almost completely deaf without the use of special hearing aids, heads a Bay Area music academy. She has won international acclaim for her skills as a keyboardist and her ability to incorporate the folk music traditions of her homeland in contemporary classical compositions.

“I only found out about Gabriela and her music in the past few years,” Barnatan said. “And the more I learn about her, the more fascinated I become.”

After livestreaming last year’s six SummerFest concerts, nine more will be livestreamed this year. This time, there will be audiences present. The livestreams will enable those who are unable to attend in person — or not yet comfortable doing so — to participate.

“All of us having had this shared [pandemic] experience over the past year-plus will impact how we collectively listen, how the artists perform and how we absorb the music,” Rosenthal said.

“So it greatly deepens the meaning of the ‘Self and Sound’ theme of SummerFest. We will all have a lot more to talk about regarding our journeys than just the music.”

SummerFest 2021 schedule

All concerts are at 7:30 p.m. at the Baker-Baum Concert Hall in the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center at 7600 Fay Ave. in La Jolla unless otherwise indicated. Concerts marked with an asterisk will also be livestreamed.

July 30: Opening night: “Ode to Joy” — Beethoven, Mozart/Grieg, Adams, de Falla, Gjeilo and Mendelssohn *

July 31: American Perspectives I: “Goin’ Home” — Dvorak, Marsalis, Price and Perkinson *

Aug. 1: “The Artist as Muse” — Debussy, Britten, Stravinsky and Mozart, 3 p.m. *

Aug. 4: “Notes on Freedom” — Brahms and Andrew Norman

Aug. 5: “Life Story” — Sibelius, Shostakovich, Schubert and Smetana

Aug. 7: American Perspectives II: “Idealized Landscapes” — Ives, Caroline Shaw, Copland and Gabriela Lena Frank *

Aug. 8: American Perspectives III: “Rhapsodies in Blues” — Ravel, Schuller, Milhaud, Williams, Bernstein and Gershwin, 3 p.m. *

Aug. 10: “For A Great Artist” — Berio and Tchaikovsky *

Aug. 11: “Symphonic Dances” — Enescu and Rachmaninoff

Aug. 12: “A Song By Mahler” — New chamber opera by Marc Neikrug

Aug. 15: American Perspectives IV: “The Silver Score” — Hermann, Glass, Corigliano, Barber, Williams, Zigman, Korngold and Britell, 3 p.m. *

Aug. 15: Takeover @ the JAI I — curated by Gabriela Lena Frank

Aug. 17: Takeover @ the JAI II — curated by Gabriela Lena Frank

Aug. 18: “Intimate Letters” — Janacek and Franck

Aug. 19: “Grand Duos” — Mozart, Tamar Muskal and Chausson *

Aug. 20: Finale: “A Love Composed” — Wagner, Schumann and Brahms *

SummerFest 2021 season ticket packages are on sale now. Solstice subscription packages are priced from $574 to $838 for 10 concerts. Celestial subscription packages are priced from $759 to $1,106 for 14 concerts. Non-subscription concerts at the JAI are $60 and $75 per ticket.

Subscription renewals run through Friday, June 18. Single concert tickets, which range from $45 to $96, go on sale Wednesday, June 23. Tickets and more information are available at the La Jolla Music Society box office, by phone at (858) 459-3728 and online at ljms.org. ◆