Ojai teen's team will set pace in Music Festival

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By Lisa McKinnon (Contact)Tuesday, June 5, 2007

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Home Lifestyle Lifestyle

Ojai teen's team will set pace in Music Festivalperformance

The time was an afternoon in late April. The place

was a house somewhere in Ojai. And the occasion

was a coming-attractions listening party for

supporters of the 61st annual Ojai Music Festival,

complete with sound clips of some of the featured

pieces burned onto a CD.

Trouble was, no one could get the CD to play even

though it had worked just fine back at the festival

office.

"It kind of spoils the whole idea of a preview if you

can't hear the music," said Thomas Morris, the

festival's artistic director. So with more than 50

people watching, he punched buttons and tried the

CD in different players, convinced as the minutes

ticked by that the preview was going down inflames.

Enter Albert Behar, 15, in whose home the event

was taking place. He popped the CD into a laptop.

It worked.

You could almost hear him shrug his shoulders at

the simplicity of the solution. "I guess something

was wrong with how the disc was burned," he said

last week.

It wasn't the first time Albert has come to the

festival's aid, and it won't be the last: As the event's

unofficial go-to guy for questions about electronics

and music, he will help with the performances of

two works when the festival opens Thursday for a

run through Sunday in Ojai's Libbey Bowl.

When composer-in-residence Peter Etvs conducts

the American premiere of his "Sonata per Sei" on

Friday, Albert will be in charge of the synthesizer

portion of the piece, which also calls for two

pianists and three percussionists.

Presenting a bigger challenge, however, will be the

opening-night performance of a work that requires

more manpower and organizational skills than

electricity and laptops: Gyrgy Ligeti's "Pome

symphonique," written for 100 metronomes. The

MULTIMEDIA

MATTER OF TIME:When the Ojai Music Festivalopens June 7, it will do so with thehelp of 15-year-old Albert Behar.On his to-do list this year:preparing 100 metronomes for arare performance of "Poemesymphonique" by Hungariancomposer Gyorgy Ligeti. WATCHNOW

Photos by Sky Gilbar / Special to The StarDuring the opening-night concert Thursdayat the Ojai Music Festival, Albert Behar, 15,will lead a team of metronome wranglers inperforming Gyrgy Ligeti's "Pomesymphonique," written for 100 of the tick-tocking tempo keepers. The metronomeswill be arranged on tables with microphoneson and around the Libbey Bowl stage.Below, Albert sets the metronomes'pendulums in motion.

Tick Tock

Behind the scenes: Albert Behar,

15, will help perform two worksduring the 61st annual Ojai MusicFestival in Libbey Bowl. At 8 p.m.Thursday, he will serve as headmetronome wrangler for "Pomesymphonique," Gyrgy Ligeti'sperformance-art piece for 100metronomes. At 8 p.m. Friday, he'llbe in charge of the digital piano forthe American premiere of "Sonataper Sei," written and conducted byPeter Etvs, the festival's composer-in-residence.

Tee time: To celebrate the rareperformance of "Pomesymphonique," Albert and fellow

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metronomes will be arranged on tables on and

around the stage, set at different tempos and then

started as simultaneously as possible.

"It'll build up and just be cacophonic clicking sort of

like a popcorn factory (or) fireworks going off,"

Albert said. "It's going to be fun, but, on the other

hand, the rhythms are really complicated."

The piece ends when the slowest metronome stops.

So, "I need to figure out how long it should last

before people lose their minds," he added.

Albert will lead a team of metronome wranglers

that includes friends and the Bugallo-Williams

piano duo. The bringing together of such budding

and established musical talents is "one of the goals

of the festival," said Morris. And Albert, whose own

compositions have won several competitions, "is

not just a local 15-year-old; he is an extraordinary

musician."

Yet the matter of his age has been known to raise

the occasional skeptical eyebrow.

Last year, when the festival's 60th-anniversary

celebration included the installation of

"Conloninpurple," a performance-art piece by the

sculptor-composer Trimpin at the Ojai Valley

Museum, Albert was asked to help out.

"I met him (and) he's like, Who is this 14-year-old

kid here?'" Albert recalled with a laugh.

But after hauling several pieces of his own

computer equipment to the museum and assisting

with the tuning of the interactive musical artwork,

"we just really hit it off."

So much so that Trimpin commissioned Albert to

write a piece for the installation.

Capitalizing on the "exploded marimba" concept of the sculpture, which featured dozens

of purple "trumpets" suspended from the museum's ceiling, Albert's composition sent

notes swirling around the room.

Audio of the piece remains accessible via his Web site, http://www.AlbertBehar.com.

Also on the site is a recording of the Ojai Camerata performing "Dinnertime on the Way

to Jupiter," the opera Albert penned in the fourth grade. Visitors have the option of

watching the Flash animation cartoon he created to go with the opera, which includes the

refrain, "I will not eat my vegetables."

"I think I've gotten a little more complex in my writing since then," he said with another

laugh.

After spending his freshman year at Nordhoff High School, Albert, who turns 16 on June

20, is now home-schooled through Laurel Springs School in Ojai.

The arrangement gives him more time to focus on music and on the festival.

"It's three minutes from my house, and you hear world-class music," he said. "Who could

ask for anything more?"

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metronome operators plan to wearmetronome-theme T-shirtsdesigned by friend Mike Nava.Similar T-shirts will be available forpurchase at the festival.

Composing himself: In March,Albert was one of four finalists inthe SEAMUS/ASCAP StudentComposer Commissioning Programin Iowa. To hear his entry titled"Series for Joseph Fourier," go tohttp://www.AlbertBehar.com andclick on "music."

Family ties: The son of Andrew

Behar and Sara Sackner, Alberthas two brothers, Zach, 20, andEli, 17. He also has two dogs,Zorro the chocolate Lab and Oscarthe "mutt puppy."

Beyond the music: Aside fromplaying Tetris and experimentingwith modular origami, Albert likesto bake. Cinnamon buns are aspecialty.

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Posted by mt2sky on June 6, 2007 at 12:46 p.m. ( Suggest removal)

Wondeful article - too bad it gets lost amongst the sidebar ads and color disctractions.

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Ojai teen's team will set pace in Music Festival