Finding the suite spot
Mei-Ting Sun charts course for the Siletz Bay Music Festival
By Eliot Sekuler
For the TODAY
The weeks before this year’s Siletz Bay Music Festival have been especially hectic for the festival’s new artistic director, Mei-Ting Sun. Following piano performances in Paris and Helsinki, Sun had just returned to London to help preside over graduation ceremonies for his students at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music, where he serves as professor of piano studies.
Sun has taken the reins of the festival in the wake of the passing of Yaakov “Yaki” Bergman, who founded the festival in 2011 and served as artistic director until this season. Noted for his warm, magnetic personality, Bergman was a well-known figure in the Pacific Northwest cultural scene. Though based in New York, he also directed and conducted the Portland Chamber Orchestra and the Walla Walla Symphony, and with his many contacts in the classical music world, he crafted the festival along the lines of his very eclectic musical tastes in classical chamber, symphonic music and jazz. He drew a core group of top musicians to the event, some from the Northwest, but others from many other cities around the world, and the festival became known as one of the top annual cultural events on the Oregon Coast.
Along with some notable new faces, many of the musicians Bergman assembled for past festivals will be returning to the Oregon Coast when this year’s 10-day program gets underway at four Lincoln City locations and one in Newport on Friday, Aug. 16.
“One of the jobs of the artistic director, which Yaki took very seriously, is to bring together a group of musicians who share similar musical views and ideas,” said Sun, whose relationship with Bergman began when he moved to New York from his native Shanghai to further his piano studies at the age of nine. “The people we’ve consistently brought back are all great players who share a very deep artistic connection. We’re able to perform very difficult pieces because of the amazing quality of our musicians.”
As in the past, this year’s festival program will balance standard, canonical classical repertoire and modern compositions. Many of the pieces in both categories are notable for their complexity. The festival’s opening gala at the Lincoln City Cultural Center, one of two performances billed as tributes to Bergman, will feature Sun and fellow pianist, and wife, Michelle Chow, performing the North American premiere of Sun’s own transcription of Sibelius’ “Symphony No. 5.”
“It’s tricky,” Sun said. “There are so many things that Sibelius does for the orchestra that are not conducive to piano playing. So, I’ve had to find tricks and ways of creating effects that should not really be possible on the piano.”
Other pieces that are notably difficult, according to Sun, include two pieces by French composer Olivier Messiaen; his “Theme and Variations” and the famous “Quartet for the End of Time,” deeply expressive pieces that are notable for requiring skill and sensitivity. The history of Messiaen’s quartet has special resonance — it was composed and first performed during World War II while the composer and his musicians were inmates in a German prison camp. It will be performed at the Congregational Church of Lincoln City on Tuesday, Aug. 20, as one of the festival’s free concerts and the second tribute to Bergman.
New faces featured at this year’s festival include Latin jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera with his longtime collaborator, trumpeter Diego Urcola; the Portland Chamber Orchestra’s young clarinetist, Ricky Smith; Australian violinist Emily Su and the Oregon Symphony’s associate conductor, Deanna Tham. Tham will be conducting the festival’s orchestra for the final two concerts at Chinook Winds Casino Resort, on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 24 and 25, featuring the August 24 performance of Mendelssohn’s much beloved “Violin Concerto,” with Su as the featured soloist.
In line with Bergman’s vision for musical diversity and inclusion, the festival will feature five works by female composers, a piece inspired by Latin American musical themes and one work by Chickasaw composer Jerrod Impichchaachaha’ Tate, “Spirit Chief Names the Animal People,” to be performed on Aug. 24 as a free family concert at Lincoln City’s Regatta Park Bandshell with narration by Sherrie Davis, an actor/singer of Aztec, Apache and Navajo ancestry. In another tribute to our land’s Native American roots, Nancy Ives’ acclaimed “Celilo Falls: We Were There” will be performed at the closing Aug. 25 concert, “Sounds of the Americas” at Chinook Winds Casino Resort.
For Sun, this year’s festival has special meaning.
“This group of artists is the highest quality group of musicians we’ve ever put together and we’ve programmed an amazing collection of music,” he said. “I wanted to commemorate Yaki’s life and his contributions to the world of music. I think this year’s festival will accomplish that goal.”
The Siletz Bay Music Festival takes place Friday, Aug. 16, through Sunday, Aug. 25, at locations in Lincoln City and Newport. For more information and tickets, go to SiletzBayMusic.org or call 541-264-5828.