Festival Focus July 11, 2016

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AMFS Salon Join a new generation of classical music enthusiasts by becoming a member of the AMFS Salon! The Salon sets out to embrace the design of the seventeenth and eighteenth century French salons: casual gatherings combining art and the art of conversation.

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Joshua Bell performs July 15 Superstar violinist Joshua Bell performs Saint-Saëns’s Third Violin Concerto with the Aspen Chamber Symphony on Friday, July 15, at 6 pm in the Benedict Music Tent.

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Beloved violinist Midori returns after 13 years very different from what she expected, she was also pleasantly surprised. “I was When violinist Midori returns to the struck by how blue the skies were and Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) how green the mountains were. It was this week, it will be her first appear- just such a beautiful setting and so much ance in more than a decade. “We’re just space,” she says. thrilled to have Midori back with us. She In Aspen, Midori learned other things first came to Aspen as a very small child besides music, such as how to swim. and has grown up “The nine weeks at with us as well,” says Aspen defined my “We’re just thrilled to AMFS President and summers when I was have Midori back with a student, because CEO Alan Fletcher.

“I’m sure the audithat’s where I spent us. She first came to ence is going to give my summers and exher a tremendous pected to spend my Aspen as a very small welcome.” summers between child and has grown Midori began 1981 and 1987,” she studying at the says. “That was what up with us as well.

AMFS at the age I thought of as the of nine. “It was my ‘summer experience.’

I’m sure the audience first experience in I always loved being America,” she says. is going to give her a able to concentrate “I had never been on my musical studtremendous welcome.” ies, going up to the to the U.S. prior to that, and it was also Campus up in the Alan Fletcher only my second inmountains, and going AMFS President and CEO ternational trip from to the concerts.”

Japan. I didn’t know Now, Midori will what to expect, but I vaguely imagined play with a new generation of AMFS stuthat Aspen was a huge city in a very ur- dents when she performs Tchaikovsky’s ban setting. Of course, I turned out to be Violin Concerto in D major with the Ascompletely wrong—I didn’t see any tall pen Festival Orchestra this Sunday, July buildings. I didn’t really see huge high- 17. “It’s always exciting for me to be meetways or freeways or anything like that.” ing young musicians and to be making TIMOTHY GREENFIELD-SANDERS Instead, she was greeted with one AMFS alumna and beloved violinist Midori returns to the Festival or two paved roads, but though it was See Midori, Festival Focus page 3 for the first time in more than a decade.

LINDA BUCHWALD

Festival Focus Writer

Aspen Opera Center opens season with Puccini’s La bohème SARAH A. MCCARTY

Festival Focus Writer

Giacomo Puccini composed his famous opera La bohème—based on a novel about struggling young artists in mid-nineteenth century Paris—more than 100 years ago, yet it still captivates audiences as one of the most popular operas in the world.

“It’s a classic love story, and I think that always appeals to the public,” says Asadour Santourian, vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor for the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS).

The AMFS’s Aspen Opera Center (AOC) will take on this tale of love and loss when it opens its season this Thursday evening with La bohème, followed by additional performances on July 16 and 18. Also on July 18 is the AMFS’s annual black-tie Opera Benefit, which will feature a cocktail hour in the home of event chair Richard Edwards and an exclusive dinner at the Caribou Club, followed by the perfor-

mance of La bohème.

Santourian says the story is “wrapped with beautiful tunes, nostalgia, and romance,” and Puccini’s music creates atmosphere from the very first act. Whimsical, fast-action music showcases the playfulness of the bohemian friends sharing a meal and duping their landlord, but then it breaks into broad, sweeping melodies during the moment the poet Rodolfo meets the doomed Mimì, and the two quickly fall in love.

“It’s very Puccini in that it’s melodic, it’s rapturous, and it sweeps us all off our feet and makes ‘boy-meets-girl-andfalls-in-love-instantaneously’ credible,” Santourian says.

AOC Director Edward Berkeley says the opera’s staying power also owes a lot to its characters, who are so relatable—if not in their circumstances, at least in their passions.

“They’re familiar people, people with dreams,” says BerkeSee La bohème, Festival Focus page 3

COURTESY PHOTO

AMFS student Rafael Moras will perform as Rodolfo in La bohème with the Aspen Opera Center.

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Simone Dinnerstein plays ever-evolving Goldberg Variations KATE DROZYNSKI

Festival Focus Writer

In 2007, a relatively unknown classical pianist did the unimaginable and released a recording—self-financed, before being picked up by a record label—that was so popular, it took just one week to hit No. 1 on the Billboard classical chart.

The recording? Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a piece that presents a single aria and then follows it up with thirty variations on that aria. The pianist? Simone Dinnerstein, whose name is now significantly more well-known, and whose talent has been utterly undeniable ever since her take on the Goldberg Variations placed her on practically every major “Best of” list for that year.

“My recording of that piece just completely changed the nature of my career,” says Dinnerstein. “And I think that artistically it changed my life because the process of recording it was a real turning point. Something really came into focus for me between my inner vision of the music and my realization of it at the keyboard. That had never happened to me before, in terms of that connection. So ever since then I would say I’ve had a different approach toward my own playing.”

This Thursday, Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) audiences will have the opportunity to experience, live, Dinnerstein’s sensitive interpretation of the Goldberg Variations when she performs the work in a recital at Harris Concert Hall. The very nature of the work, however, means that anybody who has heard Dinnerstein perform it before—whether live or her well-known recording—is in

for a unique experience.

“The thing about Bach’s music is that there’s quite a lot left open to interpretation, because he didn’t write very many markings other than the actual notes,” Dinnerstein says. “This was a piece that he composed for the harpsichord, which is a completely different instrument from a piano. So he didn’t write in dynamic markings and there are almost no articulation markings or tempo markings. So that means that everybody can bring quite a lot of individuality to the way that they interpret the score.”

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher agrees. “I think one could argue that there is no work of music that so changes over time, both for the performer and the listener,” he says. “Simone would be the first to say that in every performance since her recording, she changes something, she hears something new.”

And while the bones of the piece may remain the same, the musician is presented with the opportunity to bring their unique personality to every performance.

“It’s very much akin to how every day we wake up and our body reacts one way or another,” says Asadour Santourian, the AMFS’s vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “Our inclinations, our moods, our thought processes are individual and unique to that day.

I think that each performance of the Goldberg Variations brings with it the experience and knowledge of the previous performance, so each new performance is even more enlightened and even more illuminated.”

Dinnerstein crafted her take on the Variations naturally, practicing with different dynamics, articulations, and tem-

LISA MARIE MAZZUCCO

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations on Thursday, July 14.

pos, but ultimately relied on her imagination and expertise to guide her through the structure of the piece.

“It’s definitely a Himalayan journey,” Santourian says. “I think it’s a hypnotic marvel, in that you marvel at the genius of the composer, that he’s able to image all these variations to that aria. And of course we are in the safe hands of Simone Dinnerstein.”

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MIDORI: Aspen alumnus performs Bach, Tchaikovsky Continued from Festival Focus page 1

music with them. I’m always interested in the new ideas that the younger musicians have, always eager to work with them and to think together and find out what it is that they want in their music making,” she says.

About that concert, Midori says, “The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is one of the most popular pieces we have for our instrument, and of course it has so many wonderful moments and elements. It’s a particular combination of exciting bravura passages with unforgettable melodies, lyricism, and all different types of sounds and colors that makes this concerto unique.”

In addition to seeing Midori with a full orchestra, audiences have an opportunity to experience her musicianship in an intimate recital in Harris Concert Hall, this Wednesday, July 13. The special event will feature a program of Bach’s sonatas

and partitas for unaccompanied violin.

“I always look forward to performing Bach, as it is something that transforms me into a different musician each and every time,” Midori says. Asadour Santourian, the AMFS’s vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor, adds that “the Bach solo repertoire is a litmus test for any artist at any stage of their lives no matter how many times they have performed his music. It is a great opportunity to be with Bach and to share the magic of his music with the audience. It’s a real communal event.”

Both these performances are part of what Santourian describes as the return of a conquering hero. “She’s an individual artist—someone who has something to say about music, whether it’s spiritually, mentally, viscerally,” he says. “That’s an extraordinary ability. That is a unique ability.

Not everyone can do that, and she can.”

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE HOURS

TIMOTHY GREENFIELD-SANDERS

World-renowned violinist Midori will perform with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on July 17, and she will also perform an intimate solo recital on July 13.

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

Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.

20th century American symphonists now live in. Korngold was the father of film music. Roger Sessions taught so many composers, In classical music circles, people frequently from Elmer Bernstein to John Adams. Peter Mencite, with a knowing chuckle, that Beethoven nin created a fresh, compelling tonal world. Roy string quartets made their contemporary listen- Harris was a household name thanks to his Third ers physically ill; that Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Symphony, a huge popular hit beloved of Leoncaused a riot in the theater. Ears of the time were ard Bernstein and Koussevitsky.” not ready for these works, but they are both now Sprinkled throughout the summer—Fletcher perennial audience favorites. planned for these works to bring variety and colAspen Music Festival and School President or alongside a great number of familiar works— and CEO Alan Fletcher, also an active composer, two major works are programmed this week. points out that entire works or even eras of muThe Wednesday, July 13, Aspen Philharmonic sic have often remained unOrchestra concert features popular or essentially out of Symphony No. 5 “It sometimes takes the Mennin’s sight until rediscovered and and Piston’s Symphony No. championed by an admirer. advocacy of prominent 2 in a concert conducted So this summer, Fletcher

by Leon Botstein, himself musicians to curate our a long-time champion of sets out to champion a group of composers for whom he this music. The same day, at past for us.” has a special affinity: Amerinoon, Fletcher and Botstein can symphonists of the middiscuss the music in a free Alan Fletcher twentieth century. They inHigh Notes panel at Christ AMFS President and CEO clude Walter Piston, George Episcopal Church.

Antheil, Erich Korngold, Peter Botstein and Fletcher also Mennin, Roger Sessions, Charles Ives, Roy Harris, lead a private half-day forum on July 8 at the Asand William Schuman. pen Institute along with Botstein’s wife, Barbara Works by these composers are rarely per- Haskill, a curator of, among other things, modformed today. Many take huge forces to per- ernist art at the Whitney Museum of American form, extra rehearsal time, and conductors and Art. soloists willing to learn them—challenging terms Also programmed, on July 22, is prominent vioin today’s orchestra landscape. Yet like any art, linist Gil Shaham playing Sessions’s Violin ConFletcher points out, they offer singular rewards. certo in an Aspen Chamber Symphony concert, “This music means so much to so many musi- between Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in E-flat cians,” says Fletcher, himself a former student major and Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G major. of Sessions with deep personal ties to many of “It sometimes takes the advocacy of promithese composers. “And it’s also terrifically enter- nent musicians to curate our past for us,” says taining—variously colorful, gripping, tuneful, and Fletcher. “And then we all reap the rewards for dramatic. These sounds are not completely new years to come. I hope that Aspen can be part of to our ears today. These figures, many of whom starting this process for America’s own musical came to Aspen, invented the sound world we century.”

LAURA E. SMITH

Festival Focus Writer

LA BOHÈME:

AOC Season Opener Continued from Festival Focus page 1 ley. “La bohème is sort of a coming-of-age story, about people growing up and realizing that you can still have your dreams but that they won’t always come true the way that you want them to.”

Berkeley says one of the unique aspects of mounting La bohème as part of the AOC season is that the singers are the same age as the characters, adding even more authenticity to Puccini’s opera.

“It’s a pretty terrific thing to realize that you’re watching an opera about people who are in their twenties, sung by people in their twenties,” he says. “That’s not always the case. Actually, that’s rarely the case.”

One of those singers is tenor Rafael Moras, who has attended the AMFS for several seasons and will be singing the role of Rodolfo for the first time.

“It’s a challenge because, yes, there is the precedent set by so many other artists; it’s very humbling in that respect,” says Moras. “But it’s also extremely exciting because I know that I’ll be jumping into an environment where the material itself will be approached in a fresh and informed manner.”

The AOC production, which will be directed by Berkeley and conducted by Garrett Keast, will play up the political atmosphere of the setting.

“It’s set more in a politically turbulent world, in a time of political change,” Berkeley says. “It’s in a period where things are changing in the society, and so that’s something that we’re going to be bringing out in this production— that the society itself is in a state of flux.”

Moras says when he was a graduate student at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where Berkeley is part of the Opera Studies faculty, he got a taste of Berkeley’s deep understanding of La bohème while they worked together on the opera’s second act.

“It left me hungrier than ever to revisit the role as a whole and really do my best to hopefully bring something honest and musically and dramatically compelling to the role,” says Moras. “I have a tremendous amount of affection and gratitude toward the AMFS, and in many ways I’ve felt like I’ve grown up [here], and so the chance to be able to return in what is a dream role is something that I’m really excited about.”

The AOC production of Puccini’s La bohème runs July 14, 16, and 18 at the Wheeler Opera House.