REVIEW: A Roller Coaster Ride Through SummerFest 2026’s Millennium of Musical Milestones

Ken Herman
San Diego Story

August 1, 2026

La Jolla SummerFest opened its 40th season Friday with a catered party in The Conrad’s spacious courtyard followed by a festive concert in the adjacent Baker-Baum Concert Hall. Amusingly titled The Incomplete History of the World in Ten Pieces, the unusual program traversed a musical chronology from the 11th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen to contemporary German composer Peter Heidrich, suavely narrated by classical music broadcast guru Fred Child.

The wide range of these compositions required a crew of 16 musicians from this season’s SummerFest roster, who were efficiently whisked on and off the stage under the cover of Child’s compact explications of the historical context for each piece, many of which were but single movements from concertos or string quartets. To augment his astute observations, images of venues associated with the the works being performed were screened at the rear of The Conrad’s stage.

Reginald Mobley’s supple, clear countertenor cruised through the melismas of Hildegard’s “O Virtus Sapientiae,” a sinuous Latin motet sung over a simple drone played by cellist Eliana Razzino Yang, and he gave a relaxed, coy account of Thomas Morley’s well-known Renaissance madrigal “It was a Lover and His Lass.”

This format of short works provided ample star turns, including violinist Stefan Jackiw’s dazzling account of the “Presto” in Vivaldi’s Summer from the Four Seasons and his alluring flights in Beethoven’s “Cavatina” from Spring Quartet No. 13, Op. 130. Pianist George Li’s electric, no-holds-barred version of Liszt’s “La Campanella” was matched by his piano four-hand collaborations with Festival Music Director Inon Barnatan in the Sacrificial Dance from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and “America” from Bernstein’s West Side Story.

On this celebratory program there was little room for introspection, but the “Largo” from Shostakovich’s Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 67, anchored the second half with searing, probing themes from violinist Karen Gomyo and cellist Alisa Weilerstein over Barnatan’s aptly solemn piano passacaglia.

Opera overtures by Mozart and Wagner certainly advanced the historical arc of SummerFest’s musical journey, but chamber versions of these overtures arrived with mixed success. I found condensing Mozart’s overture to Don Giovanni to a string quintet reasonably convincing, especially with violinists Blake Pouliot and Randall Goosby leading the charge. But the string sextet version of the Prelude from Tristan und Isolde sounded wan, requiring the listener to conjure up memories of experiencing a Wagner opera with a sumptuous full orchestra in the pit to compensate for delicate traceries onstage.

This concert concluded with seven variations taken from Peter Heidrich’s sophisticated and amusing Happy Birthday Variations from 1994, featuring the ubiquitous tune imagined in the style of Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, and Dvorák, as well as the stylistic trends of Ragtime, tango, and the Hungarian csárdás. SummerFest’s fourteen strings proved their wit every bit as sharp as their technical prowess.

This concert was presented by the La Jolla Music Society on Friday, July 31, 2026 at The Conrad in downtown La Jolla.