YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE
FESTIVAL FOCUS
Supplement to The Aspen Times
Monday, June 29, 2015
Vol 26, No. 1
Aspen Music Festival and School opens 67th season
ALEX IRVIN/AMFS
TORIE ROSS
Festival Focus writer
The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) invites music lovers to a world of music this summer, with a season structured around the evocative theme of Dreams of Travel. “This season is a cultural exchange, traverses a lot of countries, and as a whole acts as a travelogue,” says Asadour Santourian, vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor of the AMFS. The 2015 season runs from July 2 to August 23 with more than 300 events over eight weeks. The Festival’s first Aspen Festival Orchestra (AFO) concert, on July 5, takes audiences to the legendary land of the Arabian Nights with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, a musical take on the classic tale of the savvy, storytelling Arabic queen. The Festival will revisit
the tale again in the season’s final concert on August 23, when the AFO performs Ravel’s Shéhérazade, providing thoughtful bookends to a season devoted to musical works influenced by faraway places. Another theme-fitting work is performed on July 10, with the world premiere of On a winter’s night a traveler, an AMFS commission of an orchestral work written by AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher with an accompanying film by Bill Morrison. Inspired by a novel by Italian postmodern author Italo Calvino, “both the music and the film evoke Calvino’s fictional world and the novel’s use of journey and characters,” notes Santourian. Just a few of the many other thematic works to be presented this season include the Aspen Chamber Symphony’s presentation of Messiaen’s Oiseaux exo-
tiques on July 17 and a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence during a recital of chamber music by Daniel Hope, Alisa Weilerstein, and AMFS students and artist-faculty on July 21. Even the annual Season Benefit takes its cue from the summer’s theme; attendees at A Feast of Music, honoring Gael Neeson and Stefan Edlis, on August 3 will travel the world through multiple courses of international fare, each paired with wine and accompanied by a matching musical offering. In the spirit of cross-cultural inspiration, this summer the AMFS continues and expands its collaborations with other local institutions. The AMFS and Jazz Aspen Snowmass will co-present a July 6 concert See OVERVIEW, Festival Focus page 3
749 artist-faculty and music students come to Aspen TORIE ROSS
Festival Focus writer
Concerts may not begin until July 2, but for 619 students and 130 illustrious artist-faculty members, today’s Convocation at the Benedict Music Tent symbolizes the start of the 2015 Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) season—and the opening of a summer of intense growth, inspiration, and opportunity. Every June, artist-faculty from every major conservatory and music school—including The Juilliard School, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, the Curtis Institute of Music, the Colburn School, and Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music—as well as players from major orchestras such as those of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and the Metropolitan Opera, travel to Aspen to don their teaching hats and lead students through an educational and
transformative summer. For the students, the next two months mean individual lessons, a rigorous professional performance schedule, coachings, and practice, practice, practice. Altogether there are more than 4000 individual lessons, 200 studio and master classes, and more than 300 orchestral rehearsals and performances. The Friday and Sunday orchestral concerts feature a unique aspect that sets the AMFS apart from other summer educational opportunities: artist-faculty and students performing side by side in the orchestra. The students who spend their summer in Aspen represent some of the finest young musical minds in the world, spanning three decades of age groups and converging from all around the globe. Ranging in age from See 2015, Festival Focus page 3
ALEX IRVIN/AMFS
AMFS artist-faculty member Alexander Kerr, left, teaches a private lesson in 2014.
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Page 2 | Monday, June 29, 2015
FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide
Supplement to The Aspen Times
Pianist Barnatan performs with AFO this Sunday ist in Association. As he rises quickly and steadily in the music world, When pianist Inon Barnatan returns to the Aspen Mu- Barnatan says he looks at his playing much like an acsic Festival and School (AMFS) stage for Sunday’s con- tor might look at a new role. “Ideally what you want as cert he’ll bring with him the familiarity and grandeur of an actor is to feel that the audience connects with a Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto—a piece so beloved character you’re trying to portray rather than you as it can be difficult to perform. the actor. I think the same applies “[This] is one of those pieces to musicians, because when I play that’s tricky because it is incredibly I want people to come out and apwell known, almost every music lovpreciate what an incredible piece it er in the world can recognize such is, not how well I played it,” Barnatan a war horse of our literature,” says says. Barnatan of the concerto. “The chalOver the past few years performlenge then, is to treat it as a fresh ing at the AMFS, Barnatan has piece, a piece that feels as if it is bequickly become an audience favoring invented right there and then.” ite, and the feeling is mutual. “I love On the other hand, however, Aspen; it’s one of my favorite audiBarnatan—who will perform alongences and places to be. You often side the Aspen Festival Orchestra have to choose between being in a (AFO)—notes that he loves this parreally beautiful place or the quality ticular Tchaikovsky piece because it of professionalism around you. But gives the piano a chance to shine. Aspen is one of those places that, By now, Barnatan is pretty familiar yes, it is absolutely beautiful, but it’s Inon Barnatan Pianist with being in the spotlight, too. Born also one of the most exciting and in Israel in 1979, he began playing top-level places to hear and play the piano at age three and made his orchestral debut music,” he says. at age eleven. Since then he has performed with many Barnatan adds that getting the chance to perform of the finest orchestras around the world, and was re- with the AFO is especially exciting for him because of cently appointed the New York Philharmonic’s first Art- the opportunity to play with some of the world’s most TORIE ROSS
Festival Focus writer
“I love Aspen... yes, it is absolutely beautiful, but it’s also one of the most exciting and toplevel places to hear and play music.”
MARCO BORGGREVE
Pianist Inon Barnatan performs Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on July 5.
promising young musicians. “Feeding off of the energy of the students who play in the orchestra is really inspirational and important,” he says.
Buy tickets now: (970) 925-9042 • www.aspenmusicfestival.com
Supplement to The Aspen Times
FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide
Monday, June 29, 2015 | Page 3
OVERVIEW: Festival explores “Dreams of Travel” Continued from Festival Focus page 1
featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, and special guest singer René Marie. In this show, Marsalis, GRAMMY-winning trumpeter and passionate jazz advocate, leads an orchestra of some of America’s finest soloists, ensemble players, and arrangers (for more, see story below). This season features new partnerships, as well, including the Science of Music lecture series presented with the Aspen Science Center on four Thursdays, starting July 23; and a joint free concert series with the Aspen Art Museum, featuring weekly performances of student chamber music on the museum’s scenic rooftop, Tuesdays at 6 pm, starting July 7. And on July 25, the AMFS heads to local hotspot Belly Up Aspen for a night of musical exploration with the fearless experimentalist and violinist Kishi Bashi, who fuses classical arrangements with his pop sensibility. The AMFS and Belly Up Aspen will also come together to present A Prairie Home Companion’s touring show as a post-season special event on August 24. As for the Aspen Opera Theater Center (AOTC) season, audiences can look forward to a summer brimming with passion, laughter, and mistaken identities. The
Aspen Music Festival and School Box Office Hours
AOTC season opens with Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (July 16, 18, and 20), with the July 20th performance following the annual black-tie Opera Benefit dinner at the Caribou Club. Next up is a double bill of Christopher Theofanidis’s The Cows of Apollo and the world stage premiere of Steven Stucky’s The Classical Style (July 30 and August 1). The season closes with Mozart’s masterly comedy Così fan tutte (August 18, 20, and 22). Opera lovers will also be interested to know that added to the schedule is opera superstar tenor Vittorio Grigòlo, whom critics are calling a possible heir to opera hero Pavarotti, on July 23. Then, on August 7, Verdi’s epic Aida comes to the Tent for a semi-staged production, starring soprano and Aspen alumna Tamara Wilson as she reprises the role that brought her critical acclaim in her Metropolitan Opera debut earlier this season. AMFS Music Director Robert Spano will conduct the full Aspen Festival Orchestra for this special evening, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Chorus will join, and AOTC Director Edward Berkeley will direct. As varied as ever, the rest of the 2015 Festival lineup is packed with musical treats from all four corners of the world. Chinese piano “rock star” Yundi makes his AMFS debut on July 7, Festival favorite and Russian
ALEX D. JAMES
Just added! Superstar Italian tenor Vittorio Grigòlo comes to the Benedict Music Tent for a special performance on July 23.
master pianist Vladimir Feltsman performs two recitals (August 12 and 13) devoted to Russian composers, AMFS alumnus Joshua Bell returns to perform in and conduct Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on August 14, jazz composer and MacArthur “Genius” Vijay Iyer brings his trio on July 27, and much more. To see the full calendar of events, visit aspenmusicfestival.com.
Harris Concert Hall: 9 am through the intermission of the evening concert, daily. Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.
Marsalis brings jazz orchestra to Aspen 2015: Students TORIE ROSS
Festival Focus writer
For Wynton Marsalis—the man who received his first trumpet at age six, grew up watching his father play with jazz greats, debuted at the New Orleans Philharmonic at age fourteen, and has had a career spanning eighty records and multiple genres—jazz, and advocating for the importance of jazz in the American cultural landscape, has never escaped him. On July 6, Marsalis returns to the Benedict Music Tent for a special event presented by the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) and Jazz Aspen Snowmass. He’ll be performing with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), an ensemble celebrated for its memorable and energetic concerts. “The sound they produce and the way they interact with one another on stage is a product of many, many years of playing together. They act more like a family than anything else,” says Jim Horowitz, founder, president, and CEO of Jazz Aspen Snowmass. “We don’t just play jazz,” Marsalis has said of the JLCO. “We broadcast it, we commission it, we celebrate it, we love it, we share it.” The fifteen-piece JLCO, made up of some of the most distinguished soloists, ensemble players, and arrangers in the jazz world today, has been stunning audiences around the country and internationally for more than two decades. Led by Marsalis—who plays trumpet in the group and is also the artistic and managing director of parent organization, Jazz at Lincoln Center—the JLCO will feature a special guest performer at its concert next Monday: GRAMMY-nominated singer René Marie. “She has the kind of voice that draws you in and makes everyone else in the room disappear,” says Horowitz. As for the evening’s musical selections, audiences should prepare themselves for anything from the classic jazz styling of Duke Ellington to original pieces produced by Marsalis himself, as the JLCO likes to conform to the spontaneous nature of the jazz genre itself and announce its program for the evening from the
stage. And though Marsalis has performed as part of the AMFS lineup in the past, this special event is the first time he brings the full orchestra with him for a traditional Jazz at Lincoln Center experience. “This program will be unlike anything we’ve seen Wynton perform here before,” says AMFS president and CEO Alan Fletcher.
PHOTO COURTESY OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER
Acclaimed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis leads the always-energetic Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on July 6.
Continued from Festival Focus page 1
nine to thirty-four, they represent forty-four states and thirty-eight countries, including Argentina, Bulgaria, Israel, China, Ireland, Turkey, and the Netherlands, to name a few. The trek to Aspen is worth it for students like Aaron Price, who find that one summer can lead to a lifetime of benefits. “This music festival has been where I have learned almost everything I know about being a professional, a respectful and supportive colleague and friend, a thoughtful musician, and a performer,” says Price, who studied French horn at the AMFS from 2009 to 2013. Mentoring these young minds is a great responsibility, and one that many of the AMFS artist-faculty have been taking on for years, if not decades; the 2015 season is the 25th anniversary of teaching in Aspen for bass trombonist John Rojak, guitarist Sharon Isbin, and bassoonist Nancy Goeres. Forty percent of students in the 2015 class are themselves returning for another season. “The students are really like sponges; they absorb so much from us,” says violinist and artist-faculty member Bing Wang, who has been teaching in Aspen for more than a decade. “[Their] energy and virtuosity is very exciting for us professionals.” AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher notes that the educational mission of the AMFS is the foundation of the Festival. “We believe in the power of music as an indispensable part of the human experience, and we believe in the power of musical education as a transformative experience for all people,” says Fletcher. “The more than 600 students who come to Aspen each summer from all over the world know they will have lifelong memories of their Aspen experience.” For Asadour Santourian, vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor of the AMFS, it would be impossible to overstate the importance of the students and artist-faculty on each season. “For me, they are the main event,” he says. “There’s not one sound made without them.”