Festival Focus June 27, 2016

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES

MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2016

VOL 27, NO. 2

ALEX IRVIN/AMFS

The Aspen Music Festival and School’s 68th season features a dance theme and three mini-themes: “Shakespeare in Music,” “White Nights: Showcasing music from above the Arctic Circle,” and “Music of Mid-Century American Symphonists.”

Music Festival season acts as ‘Invitation to Dance’ JESSICA CABE

Festival Focus Writer

For its 68th season, the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) and Music Director Robert Spano are extending to audiences an “Invitation to Dance.”

The lively season theme makes way for 400 years of dance, an art form that is inseparable from music, according to AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher.

“Our 2016 summer theme is a celebration of one of the greatest sources for musical inspiration since earliest human history:

the beauty and excitement of dance,” says Fletcher. “Just as every known human society throughout history has a musical tradition, so everyone also dances.”

The season’s concerts will traverse dance styles and eras, says Asadour Santourian, vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor.

“We have the traditional, the galant style of dance, from the era of the Baroque and High Baroque, all the way to the waltz and the rumba and the tango,” says Santourian.

“There are smatterings of dance throughout

the entire summer, and why not? Dance celebrates music.”

The AMFS is, of course, all about celebrating music, and in addition to its regular season, listeners have pre- and post-season concerts to look forward to.

The AMFS is currently hosting a five-day music camp as part of the National Take a Stand Festival, a three-year project that, through a national youth orchestra comprised of children from El Sistema-inspired programs, aims to develop a model for excellence and citizen musicianship from his-

torically excluded populations. This is a partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Longy School of Music of Bard College. The camp culminates in a concert on June 28. (See related article, page 2) And this year, the music won’t end when the season does. The venerable Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) will be in residence in Aspen for a week and will perform concerts in the Benedict Music Tent on August 23, 24, and 25.

“The PSO is the frosting on top of a won-

See Season, Festival Focus page 3

Superstar soprano Renée Fleming returns to Festival TAMARA VALLEJOS

Festival Focus Writer

The first time America’s most famous living soprano came to the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), it was the 1980s and the idea of eventual superstardom had hardly crossed her mind. At the time, the then-twenty-something Renée Fleming was an AMFS student, preparing to sing the role of the Countess Almaviva in the Aspen Opera Theater Center’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

Little did she know that within just a few years, the role of the Countess, learned and performed for the first time at the AMFS, would become one of her calling cards.

“I spent the first ten years of my career singing Mozart at the core of my repertoire,” says

Fleming, who went on to make some of her most important debuts—including at Houston Grand Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, and England’s renowned Glyndebourne Festival—as the Countess. “It’s incredibly challenging because it requires a certain pristine perfection. I credit Mozart as one of my best voice teachers for that reason.”

Since those early days, Fleming has become one of the world’s most respected opera singers. She’s also become an American icon, with a popularity that reaches far beyond the opera house. Nicknamed “The People’s Diva,” Fleming has won Grammy Awards; been photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the National Portrait Gallery; and has performed for presidents, at the Super

Bowl, and even on Sesame Street.

Now she returns to Aspen for a public master class and sold-out Artist Dinner on July 5 and a performance this Sunday, July 3, with the Aspen Festival Orchestra. In addition to singing a selection of songs and arias, Fleming will also perform one of her absolute favorite works: Strauss’s Four Last Songs.

The Four Last Songs were composed by Strauss at the end of a magnificent and prolific career that spanned some seventy years, and it’s music that Fleming returns to time and again.

The reason is simple: it’s as if the work was written just for her.

“Strauss wrote for an ideal lyric soprano with

See Fleming, Festival Focus page 3

DECCA/ANDREW ECCLES

Superstar soprano Renée Fleming will sing with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, lead a master class, and attend an Artist Dinner this season.

BUY TICKETS NOW! 970 925 9042 or WWW.ASPENMUSICFESTIVAL.COM

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MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2016

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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AMFS develops three exciting new partnerships this year LAURA E. SMITH

Festival Focus Writer

This summer, the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) partners with three of the country’s leading orchestras in important artistic projects: the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Earlier this month, current AMFS students and AMFS alumni performed two programs of contemporary works in New York City as part of the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial. The Biennial, now in its second iteration, explores “the music of today,” and the New York Philharmonic invited Aspen to participate, drawing on both its composition and contemporary music performance programs.

Curated by the late AMFS artist-faculty member Steven Stucky, the first concert was on June 8 in the Whitney Museum of American Art. It featured a program of all New York City premieres by AMFS student and artist-faculty composers. Stucky was to have conducted the program, and AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher dedicated the evening to him.

The second program at David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center on June 11 featured Steven Stucky’s The Stars and the Roses and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Catch and Release.

The concert was warmly received, and New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini especially praised young singer Spencer Lang for his “melting sound” in that performance.

The next partnership for Aspen is currently underway.

The AMFS has partnered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and Bard

College on a national project that brings young musicians from El Sistema-inspired programs in the Western United States to Aspen for a five-day music camp, running from June 24 to 29.

This is part of a three-year unprecedented initiative to create a unified national platform for El Sistema-inspired programs throughout the United States. It is called the National Take a Stand Festival. El Sistema programs are designed to serve historically excluded populations and have a goal to “support social change through music.”

The NTASF’s Western regional camp offers approximately 100 children, ages twelve to seventeen, an intensive experience focused on musicianship, citizenry, and leadership. The camp will culminate in a free public concert on June 28 at 6 pm at the Benedict Music Tent. Also featured on the program will be the NEA supported world premiere of a work commissioned by the AMFS for local schoolchildren in the AMFS’s AfterWorks after-school music programs.

“Here in Aspen we well know how music-making can transform lives, and through individuals, transform whole communities,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “El Sistema is a powerful force for good, and we are very proud to be part of this initiative in supporting its growth in the United States.”

The third orchestral partnership this summer is a threeconcert, post-Festival series presented with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. PSO Music Director Manfred Honeck will lead the renowned PSO and violinist Pinchas Zukerman—once an Aspen regular now returning after a

COURTESY PHOTO

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will play three post-season concerts in Aspen on August 23, 24, and 25.

long hiatus—in two programs, on August 23 and 25, and PSO principal clarinetist and AMFS artist-faculty clarinetist Michael Rusinek on August 24.

Says Fletcher of this series, “In Aspen we are deeply committed to presenting many forms and styles of music and to celebrating the many brilliant musicians and ensembles of our time who bring it to life. Each has a unique voice, and hearing each is a unique experience. The Pittsburgh Symphony is simply a spectacular orchestra, and hearing it perform in the crystalline air of Aspen, with Manfred leading, will be a life moment for us all to share.”

Tickets are $35 for 2016 AMFS passholders and $35 or $85 for non-passholders. See www.aspenmusicfestival. com/PSO2016 for more details.

BUY TICKETS NOW! 970 925 9042 or WWW.ASPENMUSICFESTIVAL.COM

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SEASON: Carmina burana closes out summer Continued from Festival Focus page 1

derful summer,” says Santourian. “It’ll be a terrific boon to our concert audiences to have an additional week of music in Aspen.”

Before they get to the PSO, though, Aspen audiences will have an artistically broad and deep program to experience during the AMFS’s regular season.

In addition to the season theme, “Invitation to Dance,” the summer has three mini-themes running throughout the season: “Shakespeare in Music,” in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s passing; “White Nights: Showcasing music from above the Arctic Circle”; and “Music of Mid-Century American Symphonists.”

As always, the AMFS will be celebrating living composers and new music with a host of world premieres and especially exciting performances of works by composer Kaija Saariaho (August 3 and 5).

“Kaija Saariaho, in my view, is the equivalent of Stravinsky landing in Aspen,” says Santourian. “She is, for me, a pre-eminent voice in music, and time and history are going to whisper her name forever.”

The Festival has an impressive lineup of guest artists joining its prestigious roster of artist-faculty. One of the most antici-

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE HOURS

pated returns in AMFS history happens on July 3 when superstar soprano and Aspen alumna Renée Fleming joins Spano and the Aspen Festival Orchestra to sing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs and other selected songs and arias. Fleming will also lead a master class on July 5.

“I think the brighter and higher her star shone and flew, the more earthbound Renée got,” says Santourian. “And that is a wonderful thing to observe in such a great artist who gives generously and freely of herself to everyone she comes in contact with.”

Other highly anticipated alumni returns this season are those of violinist Midori on July 13 and 17, violinist Joshua Bell on July 15, and cellist Alisa Weilerstein on July 31. The season also features electrifying alumni performers just embarking on their careers, such as violinists Simone Porter (July 8) and William Hagen (July 20), and pianist Tengku Irfan (August 10).

The operas performed by the Aspen Opera Center this season are Puccini’s La bohème (July 14, 16, and 18), William Bolcom’s A Wedding (July 28 and 30), and last, as part of the Shakespeare mini-theme, Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict (August 16, 18, and 20), based on Much Ado About Nothing.

Two special evenings, both collaborations with Jazz Aspen

Snowmass, feature Smokey Robinson (July 2) and an evening with bassists Edgar Meyer and Christian McBride (August 20).

The season also sees the return of the popular Science of Music lecture series presented with the Aspen Science Center.

The season closes with the appropriately boisterous Carmina burana, a rollicking, captivating piece with two choruses and three soloists that Santourian says will stop people in their tracks.

“Carmina burana is a perennial favorite with audiences,” says Santourian. “I think it’s just one of those works where, in three notes, you recognize what it is. It has this incredible magnetic ability to draw people from whatever they’re doing, to drop what they’re doing and just go to where the sound is coming from. They want to be near it. And it is, of course, the culmination of our dance season because it is brimming with dance rhythms throughout the work.”

The AMFS’s 68th season offers another summer of great variety and beauty in music. At the same time, the organization opens its new Bucksbaum Campus, establishes important national partnerships, unveils a new visual identity, launches new programs, and more. Read all about it each week in Monday’s Festival Focus.

Harris Concert Hall: 9 am through the intermission of the evening concert, daily.

Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily beginning June 28.

Students, artist-faculty arrive this week FLEMING: Homecoming JESSICA CABE

Festival Focus Writer

This week, you may notice a new, vibrant energy in Aspen when 629 music students and 139 artist-faculty members descend upon the mountain town to teach, study, and perform at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS).

“Aspen transforms into a classical music destination,” says Jennifer Johnston, AMFS vice president and dean of students, “and it can be enjoyed in so many different ways: full orchestra concerts, picnics on the lawn, buskers on street corners, or lectures and master classes. I love that I can’t walk a block without running into a person that inspires me with their talents.”

While the Music Festival doesn’t officially begin until June 30, hundreds of students, guest artists, and artist-faculty members will be getting down to business right away upon arrival with auditions, learning music, and preparing for lessons.

Every major conservatory and music school is represented among the artist-faculty, and many also hold seats in leading orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the St. Louis Symphony.

Some have long relationships with the School, and this year cellist Michael Mermagen will join the long list of faculty who have taught at the AMFS for twenty-five years or more. Per Brevig, who teaches trombone, has been an artist-faculty member since 1969. Nancy Allen, who teaches harp, has been on the AMFS faculty since 1978.

Johnston said one of the artist-faculty members she’s excited about re-joining the faculty this summer is violist Heidi Castleman.

“Heidi is returning to our viola faculty after fifteen years,” says Johnston. “She is based at The Juilliard School and has taught all over the country at the top colleges and conservatories.

She is a predominant pedagogue in her field, and the AMFS and its students are very excited to have her back with us.”

These artist-faculty members will teach about 5,000 lessons this summer to the Festival’s more than 600 students, who represent the finest young musicians the world over.

These students range in age from ten to thirty-seven, and

Continued from Festival Focus page 1

ALEX IRVIN/AMFS

AMFS artist-faculty member Robert Lipsett leads a private lesson with music student Aubree Oliverson.

they represent forty-one states and thirty-seven countries, including Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Venezuela, and more. Forty-two percent of the AMFS’s students this summer are returning—a true testament to the value of their time spent studying at this world-class Festival and School.

“The quality of education here is second-to-none,” says Johnston. “Aspen is where the best of the best from every major symphony and conservatory convene to foster the creation of tomorrow’s musical leaders.”

The quality of the education at Aspen stems from the variety of experiences students are offered and its unusual sideby-side teaching model. In addition to private lessons, 360 master classes will also take place this summer, as well as more than 250 orchestral rehearsals and performances.

On stage, students have the opportunity to play in professional performances alongside their teachers, as well as with other students of the highest talent. They also play alongside world-renowned guest artists who were once Aspen students like themselves, including violinists Joshua Bell and Midori and cellist Alisa Weilerstein.

“There is nothing like the nineteen-year-old concertmaster of the Colburn Orchestra—Colburn School is a top conservatory based out of Los Angeles—playing alongside the concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,” says Johnston. “The pressure combined with the inspiration is immense and transcends traditional learning.”

the ability to spin seemingly effortless long lines and a creamy, beautiful sound projected in all registers,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “This describes Renée’s voice.”

“Those are hard to find, those pieces that really are comfortable in terms of how they’re composed,” adds Fleming. “It’s the piece I’ve sung more than anything else, and still sing and will continue to sing.”

Much of what has made Four Last Songs so enduring is its emotional message. Composed in 1948, just one year before Strauss’s death at the age of eighty-four, the songs mostly touch upon the end of one’s life. Each song features a poem set to music—three poems written by Herman Hesse, one by Joseph von Eichendorff—and although the works approach a weighty subject matter, there is an overarching sense of peaceful acceptance.

“They are four perfectly crafted jewels,” says Asadour Santourian, the AMFS’s vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “Renée gets these songs; she has become the quintessential Strauss interpreter. Regardless of your capacity to understand German—and translations will be available at the concert—she’s able to convey the ebb and flow of the emotion of the text.”

No doubt that Fleming, who has released two recordings of Four Last Songs, will move Aspen audiences with her performance. But that audience includes more than just concert attendees. It also includes AMFS students.

“It’s wonderful when the young artists we identify realize their potential to the level of Renée, or Gil Shaham, or Sarah Chang, or Joshua Bell,” says Santourian. “It is a most gratifying thing, that perhaps we might have helped them on their way.

[And] not only does their return signify a homecoming, but there is a great deal of the unspoken that happens with their presence on our grounds. For an aspiring young artist who is here studying, they can then say, ‘This can happen to me, too.

This is part of that endless, limitless possibility for me.’”

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MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2016

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

Supplement to The Aspen Times