Composer Michael Hersch on music as memorial, and his premiere at the Ojai festival

Composer Michael Hersch, who battled cancer in 2007 at age 36, was composing an elegy to a close friend who died of ovarian cancer at 45 when he got the news: His wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"It was such a surreal experience," Hersch said. "There are a lot of collisions that are hard…