Achieving that goal with just 10 pieces was no easy task, as Barnatan\u2019s \u201cincomplete\u201d concert billing designation attested. But Friday\u2019s performance did span nearly a millennium, from Hildegard von Bingen\u2019s 1151 antiphon, O virtus Sapientiaec (O Virtue of Wisdom) to Barnatan\u2019s new arrangement of \u201cAmerica\u201d from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim\u2019s classic 1957 musical, \u201cWest Side Story.\u201d<\/p>\n
In between came eight other selections. They ranged from Thomas Morley\u2019s \u201cIt Was a Lover and His Lass\u201d \u2014 a vocal and lute air written around 1600 and based on a poem by William Shakespeare in \u201cAs You Like It\u201d \u2014 to Largo, the third movement from Shostakovich\u2019s Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67, which premiered in war-torn Russia in 1944.<\/p>\n
\u201cLass\u201d was one of two numbers featuring the splendid countertenor Reginald Mobley, who opened the evening performing von Bingen\u2019s O virtus Sapientiaec with cellist Eliana Razzino Yang. His luminous singing and Yang\u2019s spare but stately cello accompaniment made for an inspired pairing.<\/p>\n
So did Mobley\u2019s rendition of the lilting madrigal \u201cLass,\u201d which he performed with lutist Alejandro Jenn\u00e9. Mobley\u2019s voice danced with equal delight whether delivering wonderfully high trills or singing \u201cWhen birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding,\u201d a 17th-century pop hit-worthy refrain. (\u201cLass\u201d has since been interpreted by such disparate artists as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Cleo Laine Maxine Sullivan and Don McLean.)<\/p>\n
Jenn\u00e9 performed on baroque guitar as part of the octet that expertly delivered a suitably spirited rendition of the Presto section of Summer, the second movement from Vivaldi\u2019s violin concerti The Four Seasons. A showcase for violinist Stefan Jackiw, who negotiated even the most accelerated lines with deep expressivity, nimble ease and impressive clarity, the Presto was equally notable for the seamless playing by the entire ensemble.<\/p>\n
![\"Violinist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SUT-L-MUSIC-SUMMERFESTREVEW-01.jpg\")
Violinist Karen Gomyo, pianist Inon Barnatan and cellist Alisa Weilerstein are shown performing at Friday\u2019s opening concert of the 40th anniversary edition of La Jolla Music Society\u2019s SummerFest. The four-week fete will run through Aug. 29. (Ken Jacques \/ Courtesy La Jolla Music Society)<\/p>\n
The Overture from Mozart\u2019s opera \u201cDon Giovanni\u201d was presented with a twist. The five musicians who played it had not rehearsed together and sight read the piece, although their overall precision and dynamic command suggested each of them had performed it in other settings.<\/p>\n
The sublime cellist Alisa Weilerstein was memorably featured in three pieces, as well as during the \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d finale. The first was Cavatina, the fifth movement from Beethoven\u2019s String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130.<\/p>\n
Together with violist Masumi Rostad and violinists Jackiw and Karen Gomyo, Weilerstein achieved an aching poignancy. Cavatina is a marvel of finely wrought nuance that begins and ends in a near-whisper as it brings to life an intense sense of desolation that is both gripping and, ultimately, cathartic.<\/p>\n
Weilerstein, Gomyo, Pouliot and Rostad returned with violist Ayano Nakamura and cellist Sterling Elliot to perform Sebastian Guertler\u2019s 2013 arrangement of the Overture from Wagner\u2019s 1865 opera, \u201cTristan und Isolde.\u201d Their finely calibrated performance built slowly and steadily to a tremulous crescendo before ending in a hush.<\/p>\n
Weilerstein also shined brightly on Shostakovich\u2019s Largo, which teamed her win Barnatan on piano and Gomyo on violin. A haunting elegy for the more than 2 million Russians who died during the Nazi siege of Leningrad, Largo requires exceptional sensitivity and restraint, and Weilerstein, Barnatan and Gomyi handily rose to the occasion.<\/p>\n
Barnatan teamed for two pieces with fellow pianist George Li and both were standouts. Sharing the same keyboard for a four-handed excerpt from Stravinsky\u2019s The Rite of Spring and for Barnatan\u2019s newly arranged take on \u201cAmerica\u201d from \u201cWest Side Story,\u201d the two pianists performed with stunning elan from first note to last.<\/p>\n
Barnatan performed the primo (or right hand) parts and Li the secondo (or left hand) parts for the Stravinsky, which featured unison chords, syncopated stop-go accents darting call-and-response accents. They reversed the primo and secondo roles for their sparkling version of \u201cAmerica,\u201d which at one point found Li taking his hands off the keyboard so that he could clap rhythmic punctuations as Barnatan played on.<\/p>\n
![\"SumerFest](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SUT-L-MUSIC-SUMMERFESTREVIEW-01_72af02.jpg\")
SumerFest began its 40th season Friday with a suitable air of celebration. (Ken Jacques \/ Courtesy La Jolla Music Society)<\/p>\n
The concert was narrated by the convivial Fred Child of American Public Media, who added informative historical context about each piece and several timely asides advocating for the support of arts and culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a city invested in culture,\u201d Child said in his spoken introduction to Vivaldi\u2019s Presto, \u201cmusic became a driver of economic prosperity \u2014 a lesson for our times.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No one belted out \u201cHappy Birthday To You\u201d at the all-star opening concert of the 40th annual edition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,7974,967,930,181,6682,74,84,76,75,420,1696],"class_list":["post-421281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-classical-music","tag-entertainment","tag-la-jolla","tag-latest-headlines","tag-music-and-concerts","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}