It’s been two full years since live musical events resumed in the wake of the COVID-19 shutdown, but the long effects of the pandemic continue to be felt.

In Santa Cruz, where the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music opens its two-week season on Friday, Aug. 4, the schedule took an unexpected hit last year when the virus swept through the orchestra’s woodwind and brass section midway through the season. Music Director Cristian Măcelaru wound up having to reprogram the entire second week on the fly.

So for 2023, he’s declared a completely fresh beginning.

“This is the first season in which we’re not doing anything that was planned for previous seasons,” he told the Chronicle during a recent call from his home in Paris. “Not even things that we had to cancel.”

Instead, Măcelaru said, they went back to composers whose work had been on the schedule and asked them to suggest an alternative. The American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, for example, had a large premiere planned for last year; in its place, she proposed “Forward Into Light,” her 2020 orchestral tribute to the early pioneers of the American suffragist movement.

This year’s festival also marks the last one for longtime executive directorEllen Primack, who will step down in September after 33 years with the organization. D. Riley Nicholson, executive director of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, has been named as her successor.

“There’s still a lot to be handled, but it doesn’t have the existential weight that it has for years,” Primack said. “This year feels more alive, fun and relaxed.”

To honor her tenure, Cabrillo commissioned a piece from British composer Anna Clyne. “Wild Geese,” inspired by the poem of that title by Mary Oliver, will conclude the festival on Aug. 13.

In assembling the rest of the program, Măcelaru said, two predominant themes have emerged.

一个是重点on the use of percussion as a solo instrument; the other is an emphasis on collaboration between solo artists.

Among the pieces exemplifying one theme or both are “Duo Duel,” a concerto for two percussion soloists by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon, and the commissioned world premiere of a double concerto by the rising young bassist and composer Xavier Foley, written for himself and violinist Eunice Kim.

But works separate from either theme are also part of the festival’s rejuvenation. The concert on Saturday, Aug. 5, for instance, promises the West Coast premiere of “Tales — A Folklore Symphony,” by the African American composer Carlos Simon.

Getting Simon, who in 2021 was named composer-in-residence for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., onto the festival schedule took some doing, Măcelaru said.

“We first presented him a few years ago as an emerging composer. And a couple of years later I thought, that was a great piece, we should reach out to Carlos for a commission. And he was very kind about it, but he said it would have to wait a few years because he was so busy with other commissions.”

Simon composed “Tales” in 2021 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sphinx Organization, the Detroit nonprofit that champions the careers of young Black and Latino classical musicians. Each of its four movements draws from a narrative in the African American tradition.

“I’m a storyteller at heart through my music,” Simon, 37, told The Chronicle during a phone interview. “It’s important to me to tell stories and connect with people, and I knew these were stories that had basically shaped my psyche around what it means to be Black.”

The stories range from John Henry to the Afrofuturist work of the duo Black Kirby. One movement references a myth that Africans had once had the ability to fly, a power that they lost during the transatlantic slave trade.

Simon’s engagement with this material, like much of his musical sensibility, grows out of his early engagement with the Pentecostal church. He grew up in Atlanta, the eldest of five children of a preacher, and began accompanying services at 10.

“我知道故事帮助不太和谐le, because I saw it every Sunday,” he said. “People come to this place for help, for healing, for refuge. Having a role in that was the best gift I could ever have been given.

“I don’t play in church anymore, but I do feel that music’s ability to help people is something I don’t take for granted.”

In his father’s church, Simon said, every member of the family had a role to play. His musical abilities emerged early in life, but each of the siblings found a niche.

“My sister was very quiet, but she took care of the money. And I had a younger brother who grew up to be a huge football player — he would help park the cars and mow the grass. I did some of that too, but I could get out of it by saying I had to practice.”

That early experience relating to an audience, Măcelaru believes, helped inform the communicative power of Simon’s composition.

“What I’ve always appreciated about Carlos is that he seems to be very true and honest to himself. His background is evident in the music, and he’s not afraid to admit it and actually utilize it in a beautiful way.

“You can hear that he’s been a performer himself. There’s a different relationship that a composer has with the audience when they are onstage and can tell how people respond to the musical gestures they make.”

The key element, Simon said, is engagement.

“What it ultimately comes down to is being able to keep the listener’s attention. That sounds kind of trite, but it’s the most important thing.

“In a Pentecostal church, the flow of the service is very spontaneous. Anything can happen! And then I and the music have to be there to support that.”

Reach Joshua Kosman:jkosman@sfchronicle.com;Twitter:@JoshuaKosman